January 14, 2004

The Blue Wizards
Bob Praz

I haven't posted in a while due to an overabundance of homework (which I still have, but am partly ignoring), but since I've looked at this subject before, I might as well respond to it.

I don't know what information you have, -, but I do know that Pallando and Alatar, known in Middle-Earth only as the Ithryn Luin (the Blue Wizards of course, because they arrived at the Grey Havens dressed in sea-blue), went with Saruman into the far east at one point, but whereas Saruman returned, they did not. They were both Maiar of Oromë, and Christopher Tolkien suggests that they were thus sent by Oromë (who probably best knew the far lands of Middle-earth out of all the other Valar) to journey into the east and remain there. Alatar, along with Curunir (Saruman) and Olorin (Gandalf), was among the original three wizards chosen by a council of the Valar to be sent to Middle-earth, but Aiwendil (Radagast) was added to the group by Yavanna, and Pallando was taken by Alatar as a friend. In one of his letters, Tolkien said this of the Blue Wizards: "What success they had I do not know; but I fear they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were the founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

So there you go, that's all I could find or think of; I hope it helps. Most of this information can be found either in Unfinished Tales (a very good book if you haven't read it, with lots of extra information about various things) and at the Encyclopedia of Arda website.