Who is Gandalf?

At the end of our last class we were asked to think about Gandalf’s powers and where they came from. That question caught me a bit off guard as I had never really questioned the source of Gandalf’s magic. To fully answer this question, we have to go far back into Middle Earth’s past to a time before even The Hobbit.

              

 First and foremost, Gandalf is not human, nor is his name actually Gandalf. He is a Maia (plural Maiar), which were spirits that helped the Valar (More spirits. These were created by Ilúvatar, the supreme deity that created Middle Earth, to help him keep order in creation.) shape the world. The Maiar are immortal, so Gandalf was not only around the first time Sauron (Also a Maia) fell, but for thousands of years before that. Gandalf’s true name is Olórin and he is the wisest of the five Maiar sent to Middle Earth. These five Maiar are the five wizards of Middle Earth and were sent solely to help the people of Middle Earth overcome Sauron. While in Middle Earth, they appear as old Men, but are capable of changing their appearance at will. All five of the wizards have a staff, and their powers are focused through this staff. The exact extent of his powers are uncertain, especially since the Valar instructed him not to use his full power while in Middle Earth, but the abilities he does show include controlling lightning, creating a magic shield, making fire, communicating with animals and destroying the bridge when facing the Balrog.

So long story short, where does Gandalf’s power come from? In a way it comes from himself, but ultimately it comes from Ilúvatar, the creator and supreme god of Middle Earth. And despite how rarely he uses it, I have a feeling Gandalf is more powerful than most people assume.

(P.S. This is the barest of summaries of Gandalf and the Maiar and doesn’t even scratch the surface of most of the backstory to Middle Earth. I would definitely check these links out if you want to know more)

Sources:
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Gandalf
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Maiar
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Wizards

Magic, Mysticism, and Merlin

While I was procrastinating perusing Netflix the other day, I discovered that I had not in fact finished watching all of Merlin. (For those of you not familiar with the show, you can get the general idea here.) I of course had to fix this immediately. So I picked up at season 5, episode 6, “The Dark Tower,” where I had left off. A wide variety of magic is portrayed in this show and this episode proved to be no different.

Within the first two minutes of the show, while Guinevere, her brother and some knights are riding back to Camelot, Morgana of course appears to cause trouble. She finds a small clearing in the path of the travelling knights and plants a trap. We see her reach out her hand and mutter a dark-sounding incantation. Almost immediately, about half a dozen snakes materialize with a hiss. The unsuspecting riding party comes trotting through the clearing and chaos ensues. The horses rear in panic at the sight of the snakes, throwing two of the knights to the ground where they get bitten. Meanwhile, Gwen’s brother Elyan yells to her to run, which she does. With the knights distracted, Gwen rides around a corner almost right into Morgana. She turns to ride away, but Morgana reaches out her hand again, this time without using any words, and launches Gwen straight off her horse.

                When Arthur finds out that Gwen has been captured by Morgana, he of course sets out to rescue her. On the first night of the journey, the two knights who had been bitten by the snakes wake up with a shout. Through the dark magic that was in the snakes that Morgana conjured, they both had the same dream of a dark tower. The group determines that this vision was intentional and that the Dark Tower must be where Gwen is being held.

                In the top of the Dark Tower, Gwen is being tormented by yet another type of magic. Morgana has recreated a curse she has used before that uses mandrake roots. A potion is brewed and the roots dipped in it. These are then hung in the sleeping quarters of the victim. This curse causes the victim to hear and see things. In the case of Gwen, she hears screams and threatening laughter, often accompanied by visions of people who could help her, but instead begin laughing or screaming at her. This is probably the most familiar use of magic, the idea of using a potion to have an effect on someone.

                As the rescue party continues on their way to the Dark Tower, they find themselves lost in an impenetrable forest. After spending a day walking in circles, Merlin stumbles across a fairy-like spirit who tells him he must use his mind’s eye to lead the group safely through the forest and warns him that one in the group will not return. The next day, Merlin uses his powers to see ahead at various points on the path and successfully leads the group out of the forest. Once they reach the Dark Tower and climb the stairs, the group becomes separated and Elyan runs on ahead. He finds the room where Gwen is, but discovers she is being guarded by an enchanted sword that fights to the death. He attacks the sword and incapacitates it, only to end up dying from a wound inflicted by the sword, thus fulfilling the prophecy Merlin was given.

The interesting thing about this is the perspective we have on a T.V. show like this versus documents from the Middle Ages. We are aware that Merlin is a fictional show, and very few people would take it as a documentary or factual show. However, if you were to have someone from the future or even some other planet with little solid information on our culture and lives sit down and watch it, they might come to false conclusions and assume that we in some way believed it to be true. In this same way, could it be possible that we are taking some of these stories out of context and giving them more meaning than their writers intended?

Superstitions: Then and Now

Well, since everyone else seems to be talking about Thomas Aquinas, I figured I’d go back to our discussion about superstition and magic. In Magic in the Middle Ages, it mentions medieval superstitions such as:

“Those who found halfpennies or needles could congratulate themselves on their good luck, unless they were so foolish as to dispose of these discovered objects, in which case the luck would turn against them. It was lucky to find a horseshoe or an iron nail, or to meet a hare as it was escaping the hounds. To encounter a raven or an ass was unlucky. Some people believed it could be bad luck to meet a monk or a priest unless one made the sign of the cross.”(88)

While we don’t have many of these superstitions today, there are several that still persist in modern society like crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, walking under a ladder, and opening an umbrella indoors. But where did these superstitions come from? A quick Google search reveals a large number of websites with information on the subject. One that I found particularly useful is an article on the Reader’s Digest website which gives possible histories of modern superstitions as well as some others dating as far back as the Egyptians.

The practice of crossing one’s fingers or legs for luck might be traced back as far as the time of Jesus, and it is suggested that the motion is related to the crucifixion. Knocking on wood is sometimes related to the same thing, but the practice could also be traced back to the belief that spirits lived in trees. By knocking or touching the wood, the person would be invoking these spirits. The Reader’s Digest article relates the superstition of walking under a ladder to the ladder criminals would have to climb before they were hanged; however, another article traces it all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. This article on Livescience.com says that the Egyptians believed triangles to be sacred and a sign of the gods. As such, walking through the triangle formed by a leaning ladder was considered hugely disrespectful to the gods. Similarly, the Chinese viewed the opening of an umbrella indoors to be an insult to the Sun, who they considered a god. This slight could bring bad luck or even death.

There is a lot more information on the subject out there, even on these websites. If this interests you, I would encourage that you check out these two articles.

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/superstitions?page=1

http://www.livescience.com/33507-origins-of-superstitions.html