tanaquiljall

( Day 28: Great Service He Could Have Rendered )


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A long, long, long time ago, elena_tiriel gave me the quote:

'Mithrandir was lost!' said Faramir. 'An evil fate seems to have pursued your fellowship. It is hard indeed to believe that one of so great wisdom, and of power — for many wonderful things he did among us — could perish, and so much lore be taken from the world.'

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 4, Ch 6, The Forbidden Pool

and asked What were Faramir's inner thoughts and emotions, his reaction?

Day 317

He fleeth as it were a shadow

A part of Faramir selfishly cried out for all he had not time to learn. Not of magics and mysteries, but of the history of the world. For Mithrandir’s memory surely reached back into days now forgotten and lands unvisited.

Could he have recalled, if only Faramir had thought to ask, his speech with Gondor’s Kings? Or shared truths of the far North, where mayhap still dwelt dragons and dwarves from the legends of the Horse-Lords?

Yet the days had always been too short to learn all the world could teach, and Faramir's own end no doubt was hastening to meet him.

rakshathedemon asked for the first meeting of Elrond and Gandalf.

This is another drabble in my Elrond series.

as part of the Mighty among both Elves and Men series

Day 118

Don't judge a book by its cover

At the approach of the traveller, Elrond wondered briefly why Círdan had committed the Red Ring to this last of those from over the sea. Whereas Curunír had sought to impress and impose his will on others with voice and bearing, Mithrandir cloaked himself in the body of a weary old man: a little stooped, frail, weathered.

Yet. Elrond saw, the spirit that looked out from under those bushy brows was fierce and strong like an eagle, steady on its course as the stars, bright as the Flame Imperishable.

Elrond smiled ruefully to himself: Círdan had, as always, chosen wisely.

elena_tiriel asked: How did Gandalf manage this?

He got leave of Denethor, how I do not know, to look at the secrets of our treasury, and I learned a little of him, when he would teach (and that was seldom).

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 4, Ch 6, The Forbidden Pool

Day 56

News from afar is seldom sooth

"Ever you come seeking aid, Mithrandir." The Steward's tone was scornful. "What aid or comfort do you bring, that Gondor should bare its secrets to you?"

Gandalf checked his impatience that the enemies of the Enemy were thus divided, and spoke softly. "I bring tidings from other lands that may profit Gondor – and its lord."

Denethor shrugged coldly. "I know enough of such matters for our needs."

Gandalf spoke more softly still. If Sauron spied on Denethor's court, a little disinformation might serve two ends. "Yet perhaps you would learn more of one your father doted on as a son...."


Note: Aragorn says, after his encounter with Sauron through the Orthanc-stone at the Hornburg: "To know that I lived and walked the earth was a blow to his heart, I deem; for he knew it not till now." (The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 2, The Passing of the Grey Company) Yet we're also told in The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion: The Stewards that "many believed that Denethor, who was subtle in mind and looked further and deeper than other men of his day, had discovered who this stranger Thorongil in truth was"; and, in Unfinished Tales, Part 4, Ch 3, The Palantíri, that "it seems fairly plain that he [Denethor] had at once turned to the Stone as soon as he came to power."

If Denethor did suspect that "Thorongil" was the Heir of Isildur, it seems to me likely that Sauron would have picked up on that and used it to manipulate Denethor long before he actually did so in the final days of the Siege of Gondor. I can therefore see a situation in which Gandalf, without realising quite what a direct "hotline" Sauron had into the Citadel, might spread some disinformation about the death of "Thorongil" to throw Sauron's spies off Aragorn's scent.