[Isilisse]

Does anyone know any information about the remaining 2 wizards of the istari??? For instance i know there's Gandalf, Sauruman, and Radagast.... but there were also the Blue wizards Alatar and Pallando.

What i know of them now is that Sauruman took them east somewhere ... but i'm not really sure

[BittenBuggy]

Oh goodness... Anna will be in here, going on for days.

[Miluiwen]

Well, this is some info on Alatar that I found. Be prepared for a gigantic quote from UT:

"Most of the remaining writings about the Istari (as a group) are unhappily no more than very rapid jottings, often illegible. Of major interest, however, is a brief and very hasty sketch of a narrative, telling of a council of the Valar, summoned it seems by Manwë ('and maybe he called upon Eru for counsel?'), at which it was resolved to send out three emmissaries to Middle-earth. '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 wearinesses coming from the flesh.' But only two came forward: Curomo, 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', apparantly 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 was all the more reason why he should go, and that he commanded Olórin (illegible words follow that seem to contain the word 'third'). But at that Varda looked up and said: 'Not as the third'; and Curumo remembered it.

The note ends with the statement that Curumo [Saruman] took Aiwendil [Radagast] because Yavanna begged him, and that Allatar took Pallando as a friend.

On another page of jottings clearly belonging to the same period it is said that 'Curumo was obliged to take Aiwendil to please Yavanna wife of Aulë'. There are here also some rough tables relating the names of the Istari to the names of the Valar: Olórin to Manwë and Varda, Curumo to Aulë, Aiwendil to Yavanna, Alatar to Oromë, and Pallando also to Oromë (but this replaces Pallando to Mandos and Nienna).

And then, later on in the text it says:

Whereas in the essay on the Istari it said that the two who passed into the East had no names save Ithryn Luin 'the Blue Wizards' (meaning of course that they had no names in the Wst of Middle-earth), here they are named, as Alatar and Pallando, and are associated with Oromë, though no hint is given of the reason for this relationship. It might be (though this is the merest guess) that Oromë of all the Valar had the greatest knowledge of the further parts of Middle-earth, and that the Blue Wizards were destined to journey in those regions and to remain there"

And that's all I found! Hope this helps!

[Miluiwen]

Just another lil tidbit on the background of Pallando's names:

"Pallando, despite the spelling, perhaps contains palan 'afar', as in palantír and in Palarran 'Far Wanderer', the name of Aldarion's ship."

And I am *sure* that is all. Hopefully.

[Andreth]

First order of business - BB, bite me.

Now that's out of the way - on to the Istari.

Here is a link to an online electronic copy of Unfinished Tales. http://www.nwywre.com/library/tolkien/

There is a chapter called the Istari but other than the ones Miluiwen provided, there's only one quote of interest about the Blue Wizards in specific:

"Of the Blue little was known in the West, and they had no names save Ithryn Luin 'the Blue Wizards'; for they passed into the East with Curunir, but they never returned, and whether they remained in the East, pursuing there the purposes for which they were sent; or perished; or as some hold were ensnared by Sauron and became his servants is not now known."

A footnote to this section says "In a letter written in 1958 my father said that he knew nothing clearly about 'the other two', since they were not concerned in the history of the North-west of Middle-earth. 'I think,' he wrote, 'they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Numenorean range: missionaries to unoccupied lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and "magic" traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

This footnote was always interesting to me because Tolkien actually started a sequel to the Lord of the Rings which he abandoned, called The New Shadow. He said it proved to be too sinister and depressing because - "Then I of course discovered that the King's Peace would contain no tales worth recounting; and his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron; but that almost certainly a restlessness would appear about then, owing to the (it seems) inevitable boredom of Men with the good: there would be secret societies practising dark cults, and 'orc-cults' among adolescents."

So I always wondered if the secret cults potentially created by the Blue Wizards that outlasted the Fall of Sauron and these dark cults that sprang up during the King's Peace were one and the same. ??

Another reference to the Blue Wizards is in HoMe volume XII, Peoples of Middle-earth. In Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien mentions a section of the Istari essay that was illegible, but after studying it for years, he was able to make most of it out:

"No names are recorded for the two wizards. They were never seen or known in lands west of Mordor. The wizards did not come at the same time. Possibly Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast did, but more likely Saruman the chief (and already over mindful of this) came first and alone. Probably Gandalf and Radagast came together, though this has not yet been said...(what is most probable)... Glorfindel also met Gandalf at the Havens. The other two are only known to have existed by Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast, and Saruman in his wrath mentioning five was letting out a piece of private information.

(The reference of the last sentence is to Saruman's violent retort to Gandalf at the door of Orthanc, in which he spoke of 'the rods of the Five Wizards'.) Another note is even rougher and more difficult:

The 'other two' came much earlier, and 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 the 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.

At the words in the citation from this text in Unfinished Tales 'Of the other two nothing is said in published work save the reference to the Five Wizards in the alterncation between Gandalf and Saruman,' my father wrote: 'A note made on their names and functions seems now lost, but except for the names their general history and effect on the history of the Third Age is clear.' Conceivably he was thinking of the sketched-out narrative of the choosing of the Istari at a council of the Valar (Unfinished Tales p. 393) in which the Two Wizards (or Blue Wizards, Ithryn Luin) were named Alatar and Pallando."


And that's all I have on the Blue Wizards. Even though the Istari chapter in Unfinished Tales only has a few specific mentions of them, it's still an interesting chapter to read because it tells a lot of specifics about the Istari in general.

Anna