Sauron
Sauron is the title character and main antagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the same work, he is identified as the Necromancer, mentioned in Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit. In Tolkien's The Silmarillion, he is described as the chief lieutenant of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. Tolkien noted that the Ainur, the "angelic" powers of his constructed myth, "were capable of many degrees of error and failing", but by far the worst was "the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron"; the Ainulindalë, the cosmological myth prefixed to The Silmarillion, explains how the supreme being Eru initiated his creation by bringing into being innumerable spirits, "the offspring of his thought", who were with him before anything else had been made. The being known as Sauron originated among these as an "immortal spirit". In his origin, Sauron therefore perceived the Creator directly; as Tolkien noted: "Sauron could not, of course, be a'sincere' atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure."In the terminology of Tolkien's invented language of Quenya, these angelic spirits were called Ainur.
Those who entered the physical world were called Valar the most powerful ones. The lesser Ainur who entered the world, of whom Sauron was one, were called Maiar. In Tolkien's letters, the author noted that Sauron "was of course a'divine' person". Tolkien noted that he was of a "far higher order" than the Maiar who came to Middle-earth as the Wizards Gandalf and Saruman; as created by Eru, the Ainur were all good and uncorrupt, as Elrond stated in The Lord of the Rings: "Nothing is evil in the beginning. Sauron was not so."Rebellion originated with the Vala Melkor. According to a story meant as a parable of events beyond Elvish comprehension, Eru let his spirit-children perform a great Music, the Music of the Ainur, developing a theme revealed by Eru himself. For a while the cosmic choir made wondrous music, but Melkor tried to increase his own glory by weaving into his song thoughts and ideas that were not in accordance with the original theme. "Straightway discord arose around him, many that sang nigh him grew despondent... but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first."The discord Melkor created would have dire consequences, as this singing was a kind of template for the world: "The evils of the world were not at first in the great Theme, but entered with the discords of Melkor."
However, "Sauron was not a beginner of discord. Sauron was not one of the spirits that began to attune their music to that of Melkor, since it is noted elsewhere that his fall occurred later; the cosmic Music now represented the conflict between evil. Eru abruptly brought the Song of Creation to an end. To show the spirits, faithful or otherwise, what they had done, Eru gave independent being to the now-marred Music; this resulted in the manifestation of the material World, Eä, where the drama of good and evil would play out and be resolved. Entering Eä at the beginning of time, the Valar and Maiar tried to build and organize the world according to the will of Eru; each Maia was associated with one of the powerful Valar. As a result, Sauron came to possess great knowledge of the physical substances of the world and all manner of craftsmanship—emerging as "a great craftsman of the household of Aulë". Sauron would always retain the "scientific" knowledge he derived from the great Vala of Craft: "In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, he remained mighty in the lore of that people."
Sauron's original Elvish name in Valinor was Mairon, but this name was not used anymore after he joined Melkor. In Beleriand, he was called in Sindarin Gorthu "Mist of Fear" and Gorthaur "The Cruel". However, during the Second Age, Sauron continued to call himself Tar-Mairon. Melkor opposed the other Valar, who remained faithful to Eru and tried to carry out the Creator's designs. Within the larger universe, they focused on developing the world of Arda. Around this time, Sauron fell victim to Melkor's corrupting influence: "In the beginning of Arda, Melkor seduced him to his allegiance."As for Sauron's motives, Tolkien noted that "it had been his virtue that he loved order and coordination, disliked all confusion and wasteful friction". Thus, "it was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him". For a while, Sauron kept up the pretence that he was a faithful servant of the Valar, all the while feeding Melkor information about their doings.
Thus, when the Valar made Almaren as their first physical abode in the world, "Melkor knew of all, done. They still did not perceive Sauron's treachery, for he too became "a being of Valinor". At some point, Sauron left the Blessed Realm and went to Middle-earth
Tirion
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Tirion upon Túna was the city of the Noldor in Valinor, it was from here that Finwë ruled, where his sons Fëanor and Finarfin lived. The green hill of Túna was located in the steep-walled valley of Calacirya; this valley is the only pass through the Pelóri, the massive mountain-chain on the west of Valinor. Upon the crown of the hill the Elves raised Tilion: their largest settlement west of the sea; the walls and terraces were white, the sand in the streets was said to be of grains of diamond, white crystal stairs climbed from the fertile land beneath to the great gates. The centre of the city was dominated by Ingwë's tower, Mindon Eldaliéva, whose silver lantern shone far out to sea. Beneath the tower was the house of Finwë, first High King of the Noldor. Here was the Great Square, where the white tree Galathilion flourished, the site of Fëanor's infamous oath; the towers of the city could be seen reflected in the nearest part of the sea. After most of the Vanyarin Elves resettled further into Valinor to Valmar and Taniquetil, the rule of Tirion was given to Finwë.
From this time onwards Noldor lived in Tirion, though it is that as well some Teleri and Vanyar lived in the city at least as part-time residents, such as Finarfin's wife, the Telerin princess Earwen. Many years of bliss followed, it was during this time that Fëanor created the Silmarils. After Morgoth was released from three ages of imprisonment, he saw and began to desire the Silmarils, he came to Tirion and told Fëanor lies about his younger brother, saying that Fingolfin desired to usurp Fëanor's position as heir to Finwë. It was because of this that Fëanor, after a heated argument with Fingolfin, drew his sword threatening his brother's life. For this Fëanor was banished from Tirion by the Valar. Finwë went to Formenos with his elder son and Fingolfin became King of the Noldor in Tirion. After Morgoth murdered Finwë and stole the Silmarils, Fëanor assembled the Noldor at the Great Square, where he urged the elves to go with him back to Middle-earth, to avenge their king and reclaim the Silmarils, to see that their lives in Tirion were a prison brought upon them by the Valar.
In the end only a tenth of the population remained when Fëanor, his brothers and his and their children departed, though some followed their new king only reluctantly, some would soon after follow Finarfin back to Tirion. Nearly 600 years passed; when all the kingdoms of the elves in Middle-earth were in ruins, Eärendil sailed into the west in search of Valinor to ask for the assistance of the Valar in the war against Morgoth. Eärendil arrived in Tirion on a day of festival in Valinor when the city was all but empty, only when he had turned his back on the city and began to return was he approached by a herald of the Valar. More than 3,000 years followed before Tirion was for the first time seen by mortal eyes—soldiers of the king of Númenor, deceived by Sauron, landed in on the shores of Eldamar and camped around Túna, which the fleeing Elves emptied; when the men of Númenor were buried under falling hills, along with all the Undying Lands, was taken out of mortal reach forever. Ingwë, First King, High King of all Elves Finwë, Second King.
Fingolfin, second son of Finwë. Fëanor, first son of Finwë. Finarfin, third son of Finwë. In the early versions of Tolkien's mythology, the city was called Kôr; this is found in the History of Middle-earth books edited by Christopher Tolkien and published by Harper Collins from 1983 to 1990 in Volume I. House of Finwë
Elf (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Elves are one of the races that inhabit a fictional Earth called Middle-earth, set in the remote past, they appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described more in The Silmarillion. Tolkien had been writing about Elves; the modern English word elf derives from the Old English word ælf. Numerous types of elves appear in Germanic mythology, the West Germanic concept appears to have come to differ from the Scandinavian notion in the early Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxon concept diverged further under Celtic influence. Tolkien would make it clear in a letter that his Elves differ from those "of the better known lore", referring to Scandinavian mythology. By 1915 when Tolkien was writing his first elven poems, the words elf and gnome had many divergent and contradictory associations. Tolkien had been warned against using the term'fairy', which John Garth supposes may have been due to the word becoming used to indicate homosexuality, although despite this warning Tolkien continued to use it.
By the late 19th century, the term'fairy' had been taken up as a utopian theme, was used to critique social and religious values, a tradition which Tolkien along with T. H. White are seen to continue. One of the last of the Victorian Fairy-paintings, The Piper of Dreams by Estella Canziani, sold 250,000 copies and was well known within the trenches of World War I where Tolkien saw active service. Illustrated posters of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem Land of Nod had been sent out by a philanthropist to brighten servicemen's quarters, Faery was used in other contexts as an image of "Old England" to inspire patriotism. According to Marjorie Burns, Tolkien chose the term elf over fairy, but still retained some doubts. In his 1939 essay On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien wrote that "English words such as elf have long been influenced by French. Traditional Victorian dancing fairies and elves appear in much of Tolkien's early poetry, have influence upon his works in part due to the influence of a production of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in Birmingham in 1910 and his familiarity with the work of Catholic mystic poet, Francis Thompson which Tolkien had acquired in 1914.
O! I hear the tiny horns Of enchanted leprechauns And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming! As a philologist, Tolkien's interest in languages led him to invent several languages of his own as a pastime. In considering the nature of who might speak these languages, what stories they might tell, Tolkien again turned to the concept of elves. In his The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien develops a theme that the diminutive fairy-like race of Elves had once been a great and mighty people, that as Men took over the world, these Elves had "diminished" themselves; this theme was influenced by the god-like and human-sized Ljósálfar of Norse mythology, medieval works such as Sir Orfeo, the Welsh Mabinogion, Arthurian romances and the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Some of the stories Tolkien wrote as elven history have been seen to be directly influenced by Celtic mythology. For example, "Flight of The Noldoli" is based on the Tuatha Dé Danann and Lebor Gabála Érenn, their migratory nature comes from early Irish/Celtic history.
John Garth sees that with the underground enslavement of the Noldoli to Melkor, Tolkien was rewriting Irish myth regarding the Tuatha Dé Danann into a Christian eschatology. The name Inwe, given by Tolkien to the eldest of the elves and his clan, is similar to the name found in Norse mythology as that of the god Ingwi-Freyr, a god, gifted the elf world Álfheimr. Terry Gunnell claims that the relationship between beautiful ships and the Elves is reminiscent of the god Njörðr and the god Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir, he retains the usage of the French derived term "fairy" for the same creatures. The larger Elves are inspired by Tolkien's personal Catholic theology—as representing the state of Men in Eden who have not yet "fallen", similar to humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, a closer empathy with nature. Tolkien wrote of them: "They are made by man in his own likeness, they are immortal, their will is directly effective for the achievement of imagination and desire."In The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien includes both the more serious "medieval" type of elves such as Fëanor and Turgon alongside the frivolous, Jacobean type of elves such as the Solosimpi and Tinúviel.
Alongside the idea of the greater Elves, Tolkien developed the idea of children visiting Valinor, the island-homeland of the Elves in their sleep. Elves would visit children at night and comfort them if they had been chided or were upset; this theme, linking elves with children's dreams and nocturnal travelling was abandoned in Tolkien's writing. Along with Book of Lost Tales, Douglas Anderson shows that in The Hobbit, Tolkien again includes both the more serious'medieval' type of elves, such as Elrond and the Wood-elf king, frivolous elves, such as those at Rivendell. In 1937, having had his manuscript for The Silmarillion rejected by a publisher who disparaged all the "eye-splitting Celtic names" that Tolkien had given his Elves, Tolkien denied the names had a Celtic origin: Needless t
Palantír
A palantír is a fictional magical artefact from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. A palantír is described as a crystal ball, used for both communication and as a means of seeing events in other parts of the world or in the distant past or in the future; when one looks into a palantír, one can mentally communicate with other such stones and anyone who might be looking into them. Fashioned of a dark crystal, they were indestructible by any means men possessed at the end of the Third Age, they were of various sizes. The Stone of Osgiliath had power over other stones including the ability to eavesdrop; the smaller stones required one to move around them, thereby changing the viewpoint of its vision, whereas the larger stones could be turned on their axis. A wielder of great power such as one of the Maiar like Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone, the experience of Peregrin Took and Saruman. According to Gandalf, it is beyond the skill of both Sauron and Saruman to create the palantíri, while Sauron cannot make the palantíri "lie", or create false images, he could show selective images to create a false impression in the viewer.
The stones' gaze can pierce anything except darkness and shadow. A technique called. Knowledge of this technique was lost long ago; the palantíri were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Uttermost West, by the Noldor even Fëanor himself. Many palantíri were made, but only eight are mentioned in Tolkien's published works; the Master Stone was kept in the tower of Avallónë on Tol Eressëa, but no record is made of successful communication from any palantír of Middle-earth to this one. Seven stones were given to the Elf-friends, the Faithful Dúnedain of Númenor as a gift, during the Second Age. Elendil took them with him on his flight to Middle-earth on the nine ships; the stones of Arnor were at Elostirion, Amon Sul, Annuminas. After the destruction of Arnor and its successor states by the Witch-King of Angmar, the stones of Amon Sul and Annuminas were lost in Arvedui's shipwreck in the Bay of Forochel; the stone of Elostirion remained at the Emyn Beraid throughout the Third Age but was aligned only with the Master Stone on Tol Eressëa.
It could only look to the West. The stone of Osgiliath was lost during the Kin-strife when the Dome of the Stars was among the places sacked and burned in the city; the stone was not recovered. As for the other stones of Gondor, Sauron captured the palantír of Minas Ithil in 2002 T. A when the Ring-wraiths took it a second time. Saruman found the palantir of Orthanc when he was given possession of the Angrenost by Beren the Steward; the Anor-stone was used only by the Steward Denethor when he inherited his father's position in Minas Tirith. At the end of the Third Age, the use of palantíri influenced events of The Lord of the Rings. Saruman looked through the Orthanc stone, saw what he thought was an unassailable strength in Mordor, helping to corrupt him; when Pippin touched the Orthanc-stone, he encountered Sauron, attempting to contact Saruman using the Ithil-stone. Sauron thought; when Aragorn, exercising his lawful authority as heir to the Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, used the stone, he revealed himself to Sauron and wrenched the stone's power free of Sauron's will.
As a lawful user of the stone, Aragorn used the stone to see many things and most the attack on the Falas, which he intercepted by riding the Paths of the Dead with Rangers of the North. Denethor's constant use of the Anor-stone in Minas Tirith since becoming Steward of Gondor aged him as he battled with Sauron; the images that he saw steered by Sauron in part plus Faramir's mortal wound convinced him that there was no hope for Gondor, which resulted in his attempted murder of Faramir and his own suicide in the tomb of the Stewards off the Rath Dinen, the Silent Way. After the War of the Ring, only the stone of Orthanc remained in the possession of the king of the Reunited Kingdom as the elves took the stone of Elostirion with them into the West; the Ithil-stone had been lost in the fall of Barad-dûr, the Anor-stone would only show burning hands unless one possessed sufficient strength of will to turn its images elsewhere. One Stone, called Elendil's Stone, was placed in the tower of Elostirion in the Tower Hills, just west of the Shire.
Its location was only known to a few and it remained hidden there until it was taken back to the West with the three Elven Rings. It was unique among the stones brought to Middle-earth, in that it did not communicate with the others and would only look west along the Straight Road to the Master-stone of Avallónë; the palantír of Amon Sûl, most powerful of the three in Arnor, was kept for centuries in the Watchtower of Amon Sûl. When Arnor was divided into three kingdoms, all of them claimed Amon Sûl because of the palantír. Just before Angmar captured and destroyed the Watchtower in T. A. 1409, the Stone was taken to Fornost. It remained there, it w
Gandalf
Gandalf is a fictional character and a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he is a wizard, member of the Istari order, as well as leader of the Fellowship of the Ring and the army of the West. In The Lord of the Rings, he is known as Gandalf the Grey, but returns from death as Gandalf the White. Although known as Gandalf, the character has a number of names in Tolkien's writings. Gandalf himself says, "Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Olórin I was in my youth in the West, forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf. In Norse the name means staff-elf; this is reflected in his name Tharkûn, "said to mean'Staff-man' " in Khuzdul, one of Tolkien's invented languages. In Middle-earth the colour of a Wizard's cloak distinguishes him from other Wizards. For most of his manifestation as a wizard, Gandalf's cloak is famously grey, from this derive a number of his appellations: hence Gandalf the Grey, Greyhame.
Mithrandir is a name in Sindarin, the translation of which gives rise to further names for Gandalf: the Grey Pilgrim and the Grey Wanderer. Midway through The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is promoted to the head of the order of Wizards, is thus named Gandalf the White instead of Gandalf the Grey; this change in status introduces yet another name for the wizard: the White Rider. However after this transformation, characters who speak Elvish still refer to the wizard as Mithrandir. At times in The Lord of the Rings, other characters address Gandalf by nicknames disparaging: hence Stormcrow, Láthspell, Grey Fool. Láthspell means'Ill-news' in Old English. Tolkien discusses Gandalf in his essay on the Istari, he describes Gandalf as the last of the wizards to appear in Middle-earth, one who: "seemed the least, less tall than the others, in looks more aged, grey-haired and grey-clad, leaning on a staff". Yet the Elf Círdan who met him on arrival considered him "the greatest spirit and the wisest" and gave him the Elven Ring of Power called Narya, the Ring of Fire, containing a "red" stone for his aid and comfort.
Tolkien explicitly links Gandalf to the element fire in the same essay: Warm and eager was his spirit, for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, succours in wanhope and distress. Merry he could be, kindly to the young and simple, yet quick at times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly, he journeyed tirelessly on foot, leaning on a staff, so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf'the Elf of the Wand'. For they deemed him to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times work wonders among them, loving the beauty of fire, yet it is said that in the ending of the task for which he came he suffered and was slain, being sent back from death for a brief while was clothed in white, became a radiant flame. As one of the Maiar, Gandalf would have participated in the Music of the Ainur at the creation of the world; however he does not attain any prominence. In Valinor, Gandalf was known as Olórin; as recounted in the "Valaquenta" in The Silmarillion, he was one of the Maiar of Valinor of the people of the Vala Manwë.
He was closely associated with two other Valar: Irmo, in whose gardens he lived, Nienna, the patron of mercy, who gave him tutelage. When the Valar decided to send the order of the Wizards to Middle-earth in order to counsel and assist all those who opposed Sauron, Olórin was proposed by Manwë. Olórin begged to be excused as he feared Sauron and lacked the strength to face him, but Manwë replied that, all the more reason for him to go; as one of the Maiar, Gandalf was not a mortal Man but an angelic being. As one of those spirits, Olórin was in service to the Creator and the Creator's'Secret Fire'. Along with the other Maiar who entered into the world as the five Wizards, he took on the specific form of an aged old man as a sign of his humility; the role of the wizards was to advise and counsel but never to attempt to match Sauron's strength with his own, the kings and lords of Middle-earth would be more receptive to the advice of a humble old man than a more glorious form giving them direct commands.
The Istari arrived in Middle-earth separately, around T. A. 1000. He seemed the oldest and least in stature of them, but Círdan the Shipwright felt that he had the highest inner greatness on their first meeting in the Havens, gave him Narya, the Ring of Fire. Saruman, the chief Wizard learned of the gift and resented it. Gandalf hid the ring well, it was not known until he left with the other ring-bearers at the end of the Third Age that he, not Círdan, was the holder of the third of the Elven-rings. Gandalf's relationship with Saruman, the head of their Order, was strained; the Wizards were commanded to aid Men and Dwarves, but only through counsel.
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was an English writer, poet and academic, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, from 1945 to 1959, he was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth within it.
Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings. While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre; this has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more of high fantasy. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning "dead celebrity" in 2009. Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks and pianos in London and Birmingham; the Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town Kreuzburg near Königsberg, where his first known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg, his son Christian Tolkien moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien and Johann Benjamin Tolkien emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family.
In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin never became a British citizen. Other German relatives joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of recent refugees from East Prussia who fled the Red Army invasion and subsequent ethnic cleansing. According to Ryszard Derdziński the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and means "son/descendant of Tolk." Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word tollkühn, meaning "foolhardy", jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State to Arthur Reuel Tolkien, an English bank manager, his wife Mabel, née Suffield. The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, born on 17 February 1894; as a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some think echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In another incident, a young family servant, who thought Tolkien a beautiful child, took the baby to his kraal to show him off, returning him the next morning; when he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them; this left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole a Worcestershire village annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent and Malvern Hills, which would inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm of Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction. Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil, she taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin early. Tolkien could write fluently soon afterwards, his mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and The Pied Piper and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing", he liked stories about "Red Indians" and the fantasy wor
Saruman
Saruman the White is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, he is leader of the Istari, wizards sent to Middle-earth in human form by the godlike Valar to challenge Sauron, the main antagonist of the novel, but he desires Sauron's power for himself and tries to take over Middle-earth by force. His schemes feature prominently in the second volume, The Two Towers, at the end of the third volume, The Return of the King, his earlier history is given in the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. Saruman is one of several characters in the book illustrating the corruption of power; the name Saruman means "man of skill" in the Mercian dialect of Anglo-Saxon. Saruman first appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings; the Lord of the Rings describes a quest to destroy the One Ring, a powerful and evil talisman created by the Dark Lord Sauron to control Middle-earth. Sauron lost the Ring in battle thousands of years before the beginning of the story, it is now held in secret in the Shire by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, who passes it on to Frodo Baggins, one of the story's main protagonists.
Early in The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf describes Saruman as "the chief of my order" and head of the White Council that forced Sauron from Mirkwood at the end of Tolkien's earlier book The Hobbit. He notes Saruman's great knowledge of the magic rings created by the Elven-smiths. Shortly afterwards, Gandalf breaks an arrangement to meet Frodo and guide him out of the Shire to Rivendell to keep the Ring safe from Sauron's agents. Frodo and Gandalf are reunited at Rivendell midway through The Fellowship of the Ring; the wizard explains why he failed to join Frodo: he had been summoned to consult with Saruman but had been held captive. Saruman had proposed that the wizards ally themselves with the rising power of Sauron in order to control him for their own ends. Saruman went on to suggest that they could challenge Sauron; when Gandalf refused both options, Saruman imprisoned him in the tower of Orthanc at Isengard, hoping to learn from him the location of the Ring. Whilst on the summit of Orthanc, Gandalf observed that Saruman had industrialised the green valley of Isengard and was creating his own army of Half-Orcs/Half-Man fighters and Wargs to rival Sauron.
Gandalf's escape from the roof on the back of a Great Eagle left Saruman in a desperate position, as he knew he would now be known as traitor to his former allies, but was unable to procure the Ring directly for himself and therefore could not hope to rival Sauron. In The Two Towers, the second volume of the story, Saruman is the main antagonist. Orcs from Saruman's army attack Frodo and his companions, carry off two of Frodo's closest friends and Pippin; the two escape into Fangorn Forest, where they meet the Ents, protectors of the trees, who are outraged at the widespread felling of trees by Saruman's Orcs. Meanwhile, Saruman prepares to invade the kingdom of Rohan, which has lain invitingly exposed since he had his servant Gríma Wormtongue render Théoden, Rohan's king and defenceless with "subtle poisons". Gandalf frees Théoden from Wormtongue's spell, just as Saruman's army is about to invade. Saruman is ruined when the Riders of Rohan defeat his army and Merry and Pippin prompt the Ents to destroy Isengard.
Saruman himself is not directly involved, only appears again in chapter 10, "The Voice of Saruman", by which time he is trapped in Orthanc. He fails in his attempt to negotiate with the Rohirrim and with Gandalf, rejects Gandalf's conditional offer to let him go free. Gandalf casts him out of the White Council and the order of the wizards, breaks Saruman's staff. Saruman makes his final appearance at the end of the last volume, The Return of the King, after Sauron's defeat. After persuading the Ents to release him from Orthanc, he travels north on foot reduced to begging, he is accompanied by Wormtongue, whom he curses. When they reach the Shire, Saruman's agents—both Hobbits and Men—have taken it over and started a destructive process of industrialization. Saruman governs the Shire in secret under the name of Sharkey until the events of chapter 18 in which Frodo and his companions return and lead a rebellion, defeating the intruders and exposing Saruman's role. After Saruman attempts to stab Frodo, Frodo lets him go.
When Saruman blames Wormtongue for the damage done to the Shire and curses him, Wormtongue snaps and slits his master's throat. Consistent accounts of Saruman's earlier history appear in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, first published in The Return of the King, in the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. All were written in the mid-1950s. Saruman, like Gandalf and Radagast the Brown, is one of five'wizards', known as the Istari, who begin to arrive in Middle-earth circa two thousand years before the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, they are Maiar, envoys of the godlike Valar sent to challenge Sauron by inspiring the people of Middle-earth rather than by direct conflict. Tolkien regarded them as being somewhat like incarnate angels. Saruman travels in the east.
