Tolkien's letter #180

[Ophelia]

There is hardly any reference in The Lord of the Rings to things that
do not actually exist* on its own plane (of secondary or sub-creational
reality): sc. have been written.

Footnote:
*The Cats of Beruthial and the names of the other two wizards (five minus
Saruman, Gandalf, and Radagast) are all that I recollect.

I have been having troubles with understanding this quote. What I persume Tolkien has said here is that only the Cats of Beruthiel and the names of the two other wizards have references in the Lord of the Rings... This really puzzles me because I am not really sure that I have understood it right.

Your explanations are very welcome.

NOTE : This is very urgent for a great cause !

-Ophelia-

[A_Brandybuck]

It is just a comment of Tolkien, which means, that all things in LotR save the cats of Beruthiel and the names of the Blue Wizards (he surely means their names in Middle-earth), have a background-story elsewhere. LotR is an extract out of his created world. He included many many details, which are not explained in LotR but in other writings and he thinks that only these two things are missed.
Hope that helps.

[Ophelia]

I thank you thousand times for your reply , it really really helps . Very much !
But this doesn't mean I care not for any more thoughts . Do pleace share any other thoughts . It helps more !

-Ophelia-

[Mithalwen]

What I think it means is that APART from these instances, the characters in LOTR refer to things that were already part of the wider creation of Middle Earth - for example Gil Galad , Beren and Luthien, Earendil already existed (in the unpublished Silmarillion) as did Gondolin when Tolkien referred to it in the Hobbit. Tolkien had been working on Middle Earth for decades before he started the LOTR and the characters that know some of the history of Middle Earth refer to it . However when Aragorn refers to the cats of Queen Beruthiel and Saruman (Gandalf ?) to Five wizards it is the rare occasion when the character "knows" something that the author doesn't. They are referring to things that Tolkien hasn't already fitted into his creation. Tolkien later did write up a history for the Cats and the Wizards. Not sure if that makes sense but really it is a question of order. He made the story to fit the reference rather than making a reference to a story he had already written.

[Ophelia]

A very good answer . I already had a thought of that but not as clear .
Thank you too .

-Ophelia-

[HerenIstarion]

And even those two occurrences later grew their own stories - I assume, Tolkien feeling uneasy about there being no background to them. So, the Queen Berúthiel bacame the proud (and a bit cruel) Lady of 9 black cats, who spied upon her subjects, and a white one, who spied upon the black ones, eventually loathed by her own husband and put aboard the ship with her cats to set sail nobody knew where. Blue wizards were named Alatar and Pallando

Both stories, if my memory does not fail me, to be found in Unfinished Tales, the colleciton of, well, unfinished, and well, tales published by Christopher Tolkien in 1980

cheers

[The Saucepan Man]

I am pretty sure that Queen Beruthial isn't in Unfinished Tales, as I have never read of her.

And Alatar and Pallando hardly get much of a backstory. Pretty much all we learn about them is that they were friends, the one asking that the other accompany him, that nothing is known for certain as to their fate, but that they probably failed their mission and possibly started up Sauron-worshipping cults in the east. Poor guys! Hardly much of a legacy.

Personally, I prefer to think of them as having succesfully raised a rebellion against Sauron in the east, thus limiting the number of Variags/Easterlings available to him in the War of the Ring. Although I am aware that this doesn't square with Gandalf having been the only one of the Istari who succeeded.

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Personally, I prefer to think of them as having succesfully raised a rebellion against Sauron in the east, thus limiting the number of Variags/Easterlings available to him in the War of the Ring. Although I am aware that this doesn't square with Gandalf having been the only one of the Istari who succeeded.

I prefer to think, that they have some success at their beginning to hinder the peoples of the East from attacking Gondor. These thoughts came to me, because of the long phase of quietness at the east-borders of Gondor in the middle of the second millenium in the Third Age.
I would like the fact, that the Blue Wizards are the reason for this long time of peace. But the point of time, when the attacking of the peoples of the east (Wainriders, Balchoth...) starts, signifies for me, that this was point of time of their failure. :-(

@Saucepan: Here is the quote of Queen Beruthiel from UT, The Istari, Footnote 7:

Originally Posted by UT

Even the story of Queen Berúthiel does exist, however, if only in a very "primitive" outline, in one part illegible. She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (Third Age 830-913) and first of the "Ship-kings", who took the crown in the name of Falastur "Lord of the Coasts," and was the first childless king (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, I, ii and iv). Berúthiel lived in the King's House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir "upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin;" she hated all making, all colours and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures beneath cypresses and yews. She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things "that men wish most to keep hidden," setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass. What follows is almost wholly illegible in the unique manuscript, except to the ending, which states that her name was erased from the Book of the Kings ("but the memory of men is not wholly shut in books, and the cats of Queen Berúthiel never passed wholly out of men's speech"), and that King Tarannon had her set on a ship alone with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow.

And another quote from UT, The Istari:

Originally Posted by UT

Beyond the fact that these notes on the choosing of the Istari certainly date from after the completion of The Lord of the Rings I can find no evidence of their relation, in time of composition, to the essay on the Istari.7

I know of no other writings about the Istari save some very rough and in part uninterpretable notes that are certainly much later than any of the foregoing, and probably date from 1972:

We see here, that Tolkien gave them names, but after the completion of Lord of the Rings and after he had written the letter.
Interesting is, that the 7 in the text refer to the footnote, which included the story of Queen Beruthiel and our letter #180. You could imply, that this allude to the fact, that the story of Queen Beruthiel was written after he had written the letter.

So, my post backups the post of HerenIstarion. ;-)

[Aiwendil]

Blue wizards were named Alatar and Pallando

Or Romestamo and Morinehtar. "Alatar and Pallando" are better known since UT was published about 15 years earlier than HoMe XII, but are really no more authoritative.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Personally, I prefer to think of them (blue wizards) as having succesfully raised a rebellion against Sauron in the east, thus limiting the number of Variags/Easterlings available to him in the War of the Ring. Although I am aware that this doesn't square with Gandalf having been the only one of the Istari who succeeded.

Maybe they started a rebellion, diverted some/many easterlings, but got trounced and skewered. Unsuccessful, but still heroic good guys.

(Or maybe they became cave-dwelling cannibals.)

[HerenIstarion]

Thanks, A-Brandybuck, good pulling up of quotes

I'll do my turn in this respect to Aiwendil, than, as he's got a point. So, indeed, here we have:

HoME XII, part 2, Late Writings

The 'other two' came much earlier, at the same time probably as Glorfindel, when matters became very dangerous in the Second Age. Glorfindel was sent to aid Elrond and was (though not yet said) pre-eminent in the war in Eriador. But the other two Istari were sent for a different purpose. Morinehtar and Romestamo. Darkness-slayer and East-helper. Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ... They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East ... who would both in the Second Age and Third Age otherwise have ... outnumbered the West.

But they 'are really no more authoritative' indeed. They give more relevance to Glorfindel's return, confirming him to be same one who slew and was slain by the balrog at the Fall of Gondolin, but they render untrue the whole scene of the Council of Manwe from the UT, which I hold somehow dear:

"Who would go ? For they must be mighty, peers of Sauron, but must forgo might, and clothe themselves in flesh so as to treat on equality and win the trust of Elves and Men. But this would imperil them, dimming their wisdom and knowledge, and confusing them with fears, cares, and weariness coming from the flesh." But two only came forward: Curumo, who was chosen by Aulë, and Alatar, who was sent by Oromë. Then Manwë asked, where was Olórin ? And Olórin, who was clad in grey, and having just entered from a journey had seated himself at the edge of the council, asked what Manwë would have of him. Manwë replied that he wished Olórin to go as the third messenger to Middle-earth (and it is remarked in parentheses that "Olórin was a lover of the Eldar that remained," apparently to explain Manwë's choice). But Olórin declared that he was too weak for such a task, and that he feared Sauron. Then Manwë said that that was all the more reason why he should go, and that he commanded Olórin (illegible words follow that seems to contain word "third"). But at that Varda looked up and said: "Not as the third;" and Curumo remembered it.

... Curumo [Saruman] took Aiwendil [Radagast] because Yavanna begged him, and ... Alatar took Pallando as a friend.

Morinehtar and Romestamo coming during S.A. eliminate stress on Gandalf's humility (though he be 'quick to anger') made in the UT text, hint at Saruman's future arrogance and envy, and also possible explanation of Radagast's 'inactivity' in the War of the Rings.

cheers

[Ophelia]

Thank you so much people! You are fantastic.
Not only you have helped a fellow LotR obsessed person on proving her thoughts on the Istari matter, you have also made me a good deal smarter If you have anything more to add please do so, I thirst for all aspects of this.

-Ophelia-

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by A_Brandybuck

@Saucepan: Here is the quote of Queen Beruthiel from UT, The Istari, Footnote 7

Thanks for the quote. I find myself standing in a corrected position. It obviously didn't make much of an impact on me when I read it.

[Bêthberry]

posted by Aiwendil:

Or Romestamo and Morinehtar. "Alatar and Pallando" are better known since UT was published about 15 years earlier than HoMe XII, but are really no more authoritative.

True, but on Tolkien's own standard set by "Cellar Door" *coughs and looks at Fordim*, I would say the latter names trip off the tongue more easily, are more melifluous, and don't harbour any unfortunate allusion to star-crossed lovers.

Does anyone know if Tolkien left any statement about why he changed the names?

Oh, and, nice thread, Ophelia

[HerenIstarion]

Does anyone know if Tolkien left any statement about why he changed the names?

I suppose no. But fairly plausible speculation may be presented to your attention

it will run as follows:

Alatar the Romestamo (East-helper) and Pallando the Morinehtar (Darkness-slayer) went East

Romestamo and Morinehtar sound more like titles, or job-descriptions , rather than names proper to my ear.

The shift of time is even more interesting - why should they come in S.A instead of a third? And with Glorfindel, at that? Were Saruman, Radagast and Gandalf sent to finish with what original Istari failed to accomplish?

But I have strong suspicions that in this particular case J.R.R.T was working 'backwards' - letting Glorfindel slip into LoTR and assuming that he was the same as have been slain by a balrog in Gondolin, he than wished to work up plausible background for his return and gave him companions.

All of the above, being, as I've mentioned, idle travail of sleepy mind on the brim of its bed-time

cheers

[Ophelia]

Does anyone know if Tolkien left any statement about why he changed the names?

Well Bethy , my idea on this one is such : Tolkien gave many of his charecters two names (mayhaps some had more) and whilst writing the rough copy of everything , whilst it was still developing he himself developed his thought and knowledge in languages . And mayhaps , effected by all that , he came to use the second names instead of the first ones given .
And thank you for the kind words . It is interesting for me aswell

-Ophelia-

[Aiwendil]

Bethberry wrote:

True, but on Tolkien's own standard set by "Cellar Door" *coughs and looks at Fordim*, I would say the latter names trip off the tongue more easily, are more melifluous, and don't harbour any unfortunate allusion to star-crossed lovers.

But surely Tolkien would not agree - the names "Romestamo" and "Morinehtar" are perfectly good and aesthetically correct in Quenya. And Tolkien did not endeavour to avoid names that might bear coincidental relations to other names or be inadvertantly funny in the reader's mind.

HerenIstarion wrote:

Romestamo and Morinehtar sound more like titles, or job-descriptions , rather than names proper to my ear.

I have always felt this way as well. In any case (whether they contradict Alatar and Pallando or not) these names cannot have been intended as the original Valinorean names, since they have a specific bearing on the mission of the Blue Wizards described in the same text that gives them.