Of the Blue Wizards

“[Sauron]’s gathering of armies had not been unopposed, and his success much less than his hope. But this is a matter spoken of in notes on ‘The Five Wizards’. He had powerful enemies behind his back, the East, and in the southern lands to which he had not yet given sufficient thoughts.”

Very little is known of the Blue Wizards, or the Ithryn Luin as they are called in Sindarin Elvish. J.R.R. Tolkien’s view on the degree of their success in opposing Sauron, or failure thereof, changed as the writing of the ‘mythology’ of Middle-earth progressed.

What we know for sure that is that the Blue Wizards travelled eastwards and southwards as “missionaries to ‘enemy-occupied’ lands”. Now Rhûn, Harad and Khand were home to nomadic peoples and confederations of many tribes. Most of these Men were savage and warlike and served the Dark Lord in his armies and paid homage to him: “to them Sauron was both king and god”. The Ithryn Luin had been sent by the Valar “to stir up rebellion” in the far east and south, to help those few who had rebelled from Sauron-worship and keep the region in a constant state of disarray and dissension. It would seem that they gathered some followers and perhaps even disciples, with Tolkien implying that these two Istari were “founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions” and that their legacy outlasted the final overthrow of Sauron.

As for what ultimately became of the Blue Wizards, the early writings leave it up to interpretation:

“[…] 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.”

Not to mention that the same fate did not necessarily befell both Istari:

• one of them could have stayed true to his mission, becoming an unsung hero in the fight against Sauron, the “One Enemy” of all Free Folk
• the other wizard could have fallen prey to greed, hubris and to the machiavellian belief that “the end justifies the means”, becoming a minion of the Dark Lord (Not unlike Saruman, who was corrupted and turned into “an ally or servant of Sauron”).

Later writings, however, shed a little more light on the Blue Wizards. Their Valinórean names were Alatar and Pallando and they both belonged to the household of Oromë, the Huntsman of the Valar. (J.R.R. Tolkien briefly considered that Pallando might have instead been associated with “Mandos and Nienna”, the Doomsman of the Valar and the Lady of Pity and Mourning respectively).

We also learn that challenging Sauron might not have been the first venture of the Ithryn Luin, or any of the Five Istari for that matter, in Middle-earth. While they were preparing for war against Morgoth, “the Dark Power in the North”, all the way back in the Elder Days, the Valar had sent “Five Guardians (great spirits of the Maiar)” to stand watch over the Elves. As Tolkien scholar Carl F Hoffstetter pointed out, these emissaries were clearly the future Five Istari, with the names of Haimenar (tr. Quenyan Elvish: “Far-farer”) and Palacendo (tr. Quenyan Elvish: “Far sighted one”) corresponding to the Blue Wizards.

Coming back to the founding of the Order of Istari, it is said that when the Valar discussed which Maiar should go to Middle-earth “to aid the Free Peoples in their struggle against Sauron”, Oromë himself proposed Alatar as a member of the group and that “Alatar took Pallando as a friend” and companion. J.R.R. Tolkien also drastically changed his mind on the date of the Ithryn Luin’s arrival in Middle-earth, concluding that, although Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast appeared in the Third Age, not all of the Istari came “at the same time”:

“The ‘other two’ came much earlier, at the same time probably as Glorfindel, when matters became very dangerous in the Second Age.”

Thus, the great warrior Glorfindel – reincarnated and with “his spiritual power […] greatly enhanced by his self-sacrifice” during the Fall of Gondolin – was tasked by the Valar with aiding Elrond the Half-elven and Gil-galad, the High King of the Ñoldor, in defending the western lands against Sauron’s assault, while the Ithryn Luin’s purpose was to stall Sauron’s mustering and training of armies in the east. There, they became known as “Morinehtar and Rómestámo. Darkness-slayer and East-helper”. Due to the interference of the Blue Wizards, it took the Dark Lord “some ninety years before he felt ready to open war”. Even so, Sauron overestimated the might of his hosts and downplayed the two Istari’s success in weakening them: although they ravaged Eriador and overran the greater part of Middle-earth, the armies of Mordor were eventually vanquished, as they were not strong enough to withstand the forces of Númenor that came to aid the Elven realms. 

But according to these accounts, the Blue Wizards’ involvement in the battle for Middle-earth did not end there. After the Dark Lord was defeated by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, the two Istari tried to “search out his hiding (in which they failed)”, before resuming their efforts to cause internal strife in the lands of Rhûn and Harad, crippling Sauron’s eastern flank and thus contributing to the Free Peoples’ victory over Sauron in the War of the Ring:

“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.”

As for electing to still keep the fate of the Blue Wizards uncertain: the Ithryn Luin are an enigma of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, much like the characters of Tom Bombadil and Ungoliant. And this leaves room for the readers’ own take on the subject, giving the fans the pleasure of coming up with their own theories and explanations. For a fantasy story to ring true, there must be some mystery to it. The old fairy tales were not bound to the modern cliché of having everything be laid up in front of the audience. I mean who knows how the Evil Queen from the German story Snow White  came to have a magic mirror in her possession? And who knows what sort of fay Rumpelstiltskin from the tale of the same name really is? Nor for that matter the benevolent beings known as Sfânta Miercuri (Anglicized: Holy Wednesday) and Sfânta Duminică (Anglicized: Holy Sunday) from Romanian folklore. I say: let these enigmas stay so and make for subjects of enjoyable debates for many years to come!

Sources

You can find my video on the Blue Wizards here.

• The Nature of Middle-earth, “Note on the Delay of Gil-galad and the Númenóreans”, by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Carl F. Hoffstetter)
• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, “Letter 211”, by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Humphrey Carpenter)
• The Silmarillion, “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”, by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien)
• Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, “The Istari”, J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, “The Palantíri”, by J.R.R Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien)
• The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare, “Saruman”, by Chris Smith
• The Lord of the Rings, Appendix F “The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age”, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Nature of Middle-earth, “Key Dates”, by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Carl F. Hoffstetter)
• The Peoples of Middle-earth, “Last Writings”, by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien)