Magic of Middle Earth

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

For this post I'm going to talk about skill-magic, since I've been thinking about it recently. So, multiple people in this thread have pointed out that the working of this magic is just 'knowing the lore of things,' like High Craft/Mysteries of the Trade (GURPS Thaumatology and GURPS Fantasy, IIRC).

Some of these methods are listed under Low Magic on the GURPSwiki.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

EDIT: Relating to this, I vaguely recall something about great craftsmen putting so much of themselves into some great works that they are literally 'lesser' after making them, as when Feanor made the Silmirils or Sauron forged the One Ring (the latter perhaps being partially a way to preserve his power in a world that was fading; of course, he put so much of himself in it that the Ring had a personality and made choices, and he was massively weakened when he lost it). If I'm interpreting that correctly, one way to represent that might be to treat these items as Gadgets (with Can Be Stolen), and rearrange the maker's points (reducing attributes, advantages, and skills as necessary, or adding disadvantages) so that a lot of them are in the item.

Spellwise this sounds like Classic's Inspired Creation or Soul Creation. In 4e Inspired Creation cost 5 HP and 10 FP which are recovered normally (in Classic it cost 1 HT permanently) while Soul Creation (a Classic only spell) costs one point of HT and 5 levels in the relevant skill permanently.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland poked fun at this by saying that this can happen to wizards by accident. If they do it intentionally then there is no hope for them.

There was a related joke inspired by Warcraft where a human and a female elf are undressing and at the end the Elf goes "Let me guess, all your intellect was in your clothes".

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by maximara

In the Lord of the Rings universe, what exactly does it mean to be a wizard? says the exact opposite:

And I should care about what some guy on the Internet says... why?

Merriam-Webster states the archaic meaning of "Wizard" is wise man : sage. It says nothing about this original version of the word meaning "user of magic".

Oxford states the origin as "late Middle English (in the sense ‘philosopher, sage’): from wise + -ard."

To paraphrase something Tolkien himself once quipped, he wrote the Oxford English Dictionary. He was not enslaved to what it said. His Elves are not exactly what the OED says elves are, his Dwarves are not exactly what the OED says dwarves are, and lo! his Wizards are not exactly what the OED says wizards are.

Tolkien was often in the business of giving "the real story behind myths." In this case, he is suggesting that our stories about wizards casting spells, carrying staffs, living in towers, using crystal balls COME FROM THE ISTARI, not the other way around. He does this on purpose. Our stories of wizards are just versions that have been corrupted from being handed down for millennia, and in the meantime we've been inventing new wizards that never existed.

The Tolkien gateway states, regarding wizard:

"Wizard is a translation of Quenya istar (Sindarin ithron): one of the members of an "order" (as they call it), claiming to possess, and exhibiting, eminent knowledge of the history and nature of the World. The translation (though suitable in its relation to "wise" and other ancient words of knowing, similar to that of istar in Quenya) is not perhaps happy, since Heren Istarion or "Order of Wizards" was quite distinct from "wizards" and "magicians" of later legend; they belonged solely to the Third Age and then departed, and none save maybe Elrond, Círdan and Galadriel discovered of what kind they were or whence they came." The Istari in the Unfinished Tales , J.R.R. Tolkien

There is nothing about magic or spell casting in that.

I completely agree with what that article (Tolkien's own words) states, but you're missing the point. The quote isn't saying that Wizards have nothing to do with magic; it's saying that the term wizard is derived from words meaning wise, which is a nice coincidence, but that otherwise the term is just an approximation. The statement isn't trying to define exactly what a Wizard is, just clarify to whom the term applies and how well it fits.

As I said. given Tolkien was a professor of literature one has to be careful what one reads into his use of "wizard". The Elves of Nargothrond example above could just as easily be read as 'with stealth and ambush, with extreme skill (wizardry") and venomed dart... pursued all strangers...'

As someone who has extensively and repeatedly read Tolkien for nearly his entire life, I daresay I am careful about understanding how he uses the word wizard. I could even go on about how his use of the word changes depending on which text it appears in. The word wizard in The Hobbit, for instance, does not refer to Istari, but something more akin to a member of the White Council, because the idea of the White Council didn't yet exist when he wrote The Hobbit.

When Tolkien uses the word wizardry of the Elves of Nargothrond, he means magic. He absolutely does not use the word in its slang sense of great but mundane skill.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

When Tolkien uses the word wizardry of the Elves of Nargothrond, he means magic. He absolutely does not use the word in its slang sense of great but mundane skill.

But that is not a "slang" but an archaic meaning of the word. Like the "archaic" meaning of "horrorable" was "to inspire horror" rather than its modern "awful".

"The word wizard comes from the Middle English word ‘wys’ meaning ‘wise’. In this sense, it first appeared in English in the early 15th century. As a word used to describe a man with magical powers, wizard did not start to be used until around 1550." - Macmillan Dictionary word of the day

So, as I said, "wizard" originally meant something akin to 'great but mundane skill'. Though it picked up its 'user of magic' barely a century after coming into being.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by maximara

But that is not a "slang" but an archaic meaning of the word.

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=wizard
"As a slang word meaning "excellent" it is recorded from 1922."
Tolkien originally wrote the Nargothrond story in the nineteen teens, and revised it in the thirties and again in the fifties. I don't happen to know when the word wizard was included, but odds are this meaning of the word was pretty darn new when Tolkien wrote it. And it doesn't fit Tolkien's style AT ALL.

So no, wizard meaning great skill is NOT archaic.

"The word wizard comes from the Middle English word ‘wys’ meaning ‘wise’. In this sense, it first appeared in English in the early 15th century. As a word used to describe a man with magical powers, wizard did not start to be used until around 1550." - Macmillan Dictionary word of the day

So, as I said, "wizard" originally meant something akin to 'great but mundane skill'. Though it picked up its 'user of magic' barely a century after coming into being.

That definition doesn't mean great but mundane skill, it means wise. Wise has an older sense of "knowledgeable" that Tolkien uses all the time. If you have wisdom, you have knowledge. And this what Tolkien says the Wizards are: knowledgeable.

The word wizard originally referred to a philosopher or sage. Philosophy and magic were largely the same thing in Medieval thought. I think it's no coincidence that the distinction of "one who performs magic" started to be used smack dab in the middle of the Renaissance, when science began to distinguish itself from magic.

And the word wizardry didn't appear until around 1575, shortly after the word wizard started to be used for someone who uses magic. It NEVER meant the use of mundane but great skill OR the use of great knowledge until the slang usage of the 1920s appeared.

So to reiterate: The Silmarillion says that the Elves of Nargothrond use magic to deal with threats to themselves, because it says they use "wizardry."

[Inky]

Since it looks as if the original sense of "wizard" was about the book-learning kind of "wisdom", it wouldn't really be a very good fit for describing great skill in hunting down trespassers, even if you ignore the thing about the word "wizardry" apparently not having been used for that.

I think "wizardry" is probably used a bit more carelessly in the Middle-earth books than "wizard", even once Tolkien decided that "wizard" was going to mean specifically the Five Istari. The definition he gave does say "magic of the kind popularly ascribed to wizards". In other words, definitely magic (whatever definition of "magic" you're using), but the user is not necessarily a wizard in the Istari sense, just doing the kind of magic wizards do - or possibly just a kind of magic that an uninformed hobbit might think is what wizards do.

[Farmer]

On the word "wizard", this is an interesting side note:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...sensitive=true

Also interesting that the use of the word was picking up ahead of 1997 (first publication of Harry Potter). My conjecture is that the rise of D&D in the 80s, and associated fantasy fiction, drove it (but I haven't researched to check).

The publication of The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954) do not seem to have had any appreciable increase in overall usage in literature (which is a little surprising, but again I haven't delved into it to understand why that might be).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Farmer

O
The publication of The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954) do not seem to have had any appreciable increase in overall usage in literature (which is a little surprising, but again I haven't delved into it to understand why that might be).

There wasn't enough fantasy literature before the 60s to be influential on. Much o the early 60s stuff was influenced by Conan more than anything. Mass LOTR influence came after the hippies of the late 60s took to it.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There wasn't enough fantasy literature before the 60s to be influential on. Much o the early 60s stuff was influenced by Conan more than anything. Mass LOTR influence came after the hippies of the late 60s took to it.

Not surprising as a lot of the literature in the 30's-60's period was science fiction focused Look at spaceship for instance.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Inky

Perhaps (and I've an idea Tolkien may have said this somewhere) the right songs can become part of the world song and change what happens.

Music (including song) is absolutely central to magic in Middle Earth. One example is the battle using songs of power in the tale of Luthien and Beren--perhaps the most overt description of spell casting in the stories (well, to my memory, anyway). One could argue (and I'm nearly certain I've read or heard Tolkien scholars say this) that Gandalf's hunches about the importance of Hobbits and Gollum were because he partially remembered the strain of music representing them in the Music of the Ainur.

[khorboth]

I've just gotta say that any Tolkien thread going into serious linguistic analysis warms my heart. And would 100% make him proud.

So, as far a Wizards go, I think we need to differentiate between Wizards and wizards. Just like the difference between Men and men. The Wizards are those Maiar who were assigned specific tasks by the Valar. On the other hand, anyone can be a wizard at a given task. Just like women, such as Eowen, can be of the race of Men.