The Wizards of Middle-earth — Who the Five Istari Really Were

Quick Answer: The Istari are the five wizards of Middle-earth: Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast and the two Blue Wizards. They were not men but Maiar, lesser spirits of the same order as Sauron, sent by the Valar around the year 1000 of the Third Age in the bodies of old men. Their mission was to rouse the free peoples against Sauron, never to rule them or to fight power with power. Istari is Quenya for "wise ones" (singular Istar); in Sindarin they are the Ithryn. Gandalf alone stayed true to the mission to the end.

The word "wizard" does a lot of work in Tolkien. In The Hobbit Gandalf looks like a fairy-tale conjurer with fireworks and a pointed hat. By the time the reader reaches the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and the essay "The Istari" in Unfinished Tales, the wizards have become something stranger: angelic spirits who chose, or were chosen, to live inside aging bodies, to be hungry and tired and afraid, and to win their war by persuasion rather than by force.

This guide covers who the Istari were, where they came from, what each of the five did, why two of them failed, and what all of their names mean in the Elvish languages. It is part of our series on the races of Middle-earth, and like every post in that series it points you to the languages Tolkien built those names from.

What the Istari Were: Maiar in the Shape of Men

To understand the wizards you have to start above them. In The Silmarillion, the world is shaped by the Ainur, spirits created by Eru Ilúvatar before the world existed. The mightiest of those who entered the world are the Valar, the Powers who govern Arda. Below them are the Maiar, spirits of the same kind but of lesser degree, who serve the Valar as helpers and companions.

Some of the Maiar are famous in their own right. Melian, the queen of Doriath, was a Maia. Ossë and Uinen of the seas were Maiar. So were the Balrogs, who were seduced by Morgoth early on (see our guide to the Balrogs of Middle-earth). And so, crucially, was Sauron, once a Maia of Aulë the Smith, who became Morgoth's chief servant.

That is the key to the wizards. When Sauron rose again in the Third Age, the Valar did not come themselves, as they had come against Morgoth in a war that broke the shape of the world. Instead they sent five Maiar, beings of the same order as the enemy. Tolkien is explicit in Unfinished Tales that the Istari were clothed in bodies of Men, real and not illusory, subject to fear, weariness and the temptations of the flesh. They aged, though very slowly. They could be hurt and they could be killed.

They were also bound by a rule. The wizards were forbidden to reveal themselves in majesty, to rule the wills of Elves or Men by fear, or to match Sauron's power with power of their own. They were meant to be counsellors, kindlers, and encouragers. Everything that goes wrong with the order starts from that limit, and everything that goes right with Gandalf comes from his acceptance of it.

When the wizards came

According to the Tale of Years in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, the Istari appeared in Middle-earth about the year 1000 of the Third Age, roughly when the shadow first fell on Greenwood the Great and it began to be called Mirkwood. They arrived by sea at the Grey Havens. Círdan the Shipwright, who met them, judged the grey-clad one who came last to be the greatest, and secretly gave him Narya, the Ring of Fire, one of the three Elven Rings. Saruman, who came first, later learned of the gift and resented it. That small moment at the Havens is the seed of the whole rivalry.

The Five Wizards at a Glance

The Valar who sponsored each wizard come from Tolkien's notes published in Unfinished Tales, and they explain a lot about the characters. Saruman was chosen by Aulë, the craftsman Vala, which is also the Vala Sauron once served. Gandalf was the choice of Manwë and Varda. Radagast was sent at the request of Yavanna, the giver of fruits. The Blue Wizards went with Oromë, the great hunter who rode farthest in Middle-earth.

Gandalf: Olórin, Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim

Gandalf is the wizard everyone knows, and the one whose story is complete. In Valinor he was Olórin, the wisest of the Maiar, who dwelt often in the gardens of Lórien and visited the house of Nienna, from whom he learned pity and patience. When Manwë asked who would go to Middle-earth, Olórin at first refused, saying he feared Sauron and was too weak. Manwë answered that this was the more reason to go. That reluctance, in Tolkien's design, is part of why he succeeded where Saruman failed.

In Middle-earth he wore many names, and he lists several himself in The Two Towers when Faramir asks about him. The Elves called him Mithrandir, the dwarves called him Tharkûn, and in the South he was Incánus. Gandalf itself is the name used by men of the North, from an Old Norse name Tolkien took from the list of dwarves in the Völuspá.

Unlike Saruman, Gandalf never settled anywhere. He walked, endlessly, between the Shire, Rivendell, Gondor and the wild lands, which is exactly what his Elvish name describes. We explain that name in depth in Gandalf's Elvish name Mithrandir.

Death and return

In Moria, Gandalf faced Durin's Bane, a Balrog: one Maia against another, both diminished in the flesh. He fell, fought it from the deepest roots of the mountain to the peak of Zirakzigil, and died. In The Two Towers he tells Aragorn that he passed out of thought and time and was sent back, his task not yet done. He returned as Gandalf the White, taking the place Saruman had forfeited, with greater power but the same humility.

His one famous Elvish spell in the books also comes from this journey. On Caradhras, kindling a fire in the snow, he cries out in Sindarin, Naur an edraith ammen, "fire be for the saving of us". It is a good example of how the wizards used the Elvish tongues: not as incantation for its own sake, but as the speech of the Wise. You can find that line and its grammar in our collection of Lord of the Rings Elvish phrases.

At the end of the Third Age, his task complete, Gandalf took ship at the Grey Havens with Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond and Galadriel, still wearing Narya. He is the only one of the Istari who went home.

Saruman: Curunír, the Man of Skill

Saruman came first and was accounted the chief of the order. He was given the white robe and led the White Council. In the early centuries he traveled widely, studied the lore of the Elves, and became the greatest expert in Middle-earth on the Rings of Power.

That expertise ruined him. Around the year 2759 of the Third Age he took up residence in Orthanc, the tower in the ring of Isengard, with the permission of the Steward of Gondor. In the tower he found one of the palantíri, the seeing-stones, and through it Sauron ensnared him. By the time of The Fellowship of the Ring he had come to desire the One Ring for himself, imprisoned Gandalf on the pinnacle of Orthanc, and begun breeding his own soldiers, the Uruk-hai. He calls himself "Saruman of Many Colours", a breaking of the white light that Gandalf openly criticizes.

His Elvish name is Curunír, which our canon notes break down as curu "skill" plus -(n)dir "man": the Man of Skill or the Man of Craft. It suits a Maia of Aulë and it suits his fall, since skill without wisdom is exactly what destroyed him. The name Saruman itself is from the language of Rohan, again built by Tolkien from Old English searu, "skill, device, cunning". We cover Isengard, Orthanc and the names around them in Saruman, Isengard and the Elvish names of the White Hand, and the Rohirric side in the language of Rohan.

His end is one of the bleakest in the book. Broken by the Ents at Isengard (see Ents and Huorns), stripped of his staff and his rank by Gandalf, he drifts north and turns the Shire into a small tyranny as "Sharkey". When Gríma Wormtongue kills him at Bag End, his spirit rises as a grey mist, looks to the West, and is blown away into nothing by a cold wind. The Valar do not take him back.

The film Saruman

In Peter Jackson's films, Christopher Lee plays Saruman, and the films keep the main arc. The extended edition of The Return of the King moves his death to Isengard, with Wormtongue stabbing him on top of Orthanc, and drops the Scouring of the Shire entirely. Saruman's Elvish lines in the films, including the incantation on Caradhras, are film material written by David Salo, not Tolkien's own text.

Radagast the Brown

Radagast is the wizard Tolkien says the least about. He was sent at the urging of Yavanna, and in Unfinished Tales he is described as forsaking the mission by becoming too absorbed in the wild creatures and plants of Middle-earth. He lived at Rhosgobel, near the western eaves of Mirkwood, and was a master of shapes and hues, a friend of birds and beasts.

He is not a villain. In The Fellowship of the Ring Saruman uses him, honestly and without suspicion on Radagast's part, to lure Gandalf to Isengard, and it is Radagast's request to the eagles that lets Gwaihir rescue Gandalf from the tower top. Saruman sneers at him as a simple fool; Tolkien's narration is gentler. If Radagast failed, he failed through love of the world rather than desire to rule it. You can read more about Gwaihir and his kin in our guide to the Great Eagles of Middle-earth.

Tolkien gives no Elvish name for Radagast in the published texts. His Valinorean name, Aiwendil, appears in Unfinished Tales, but we do not break it down here because it is not in our verified vocabulary.

The film Radagast

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy gives Radagast a much larger role than Tolkien did, with a rabbit-drawn sled, a hedgehog named Sebastian, and an investigation of Dol Guldur. All of that is film-only. In the book of The Hobbit Radagast is mentioned exactly once, by Gandalf, as his cousin. See our piece on The Hobbit films and their Elvish for how the trilogy handled the rest of its additions.

The Blue Wizards: Alatar and Pallando

The two Blue Wizards, the Ithryn Luin, are the great mystery of the order. In Sindarin ithryn is the plural of ithron "wizard" and luin is "blue", the same word as in Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains. They are never named in The Lord of the Rings; Saruman's remark about "the five wizards" is almost the only hint the main text gives.

In the notes collected in Unfinished Tales, Tolkien names them Alatar and Pallando, and says they went with Saruman into the East but never returned. Much later, in a late essay published in The Peoples of Middle-earth, he gave them different names, Morinehtar and Rómestámo, and a different date of arrival, much earlier in the Second Age.

Tolkien also changed his mind about what became of them. In one letter he says he fears they failed, as Saruman did, and became the founders or beginners of secret cults and magic traditions in the East. In the late essay he suggests the opposite: that their task was to cause division and confusion among Sauron's servants in the East, and that without them Sauron's eastern armies would have been far greater. Both answers are Tolkien's; neither is final.

The Rings of Power series on Prime Video introduces a "Stranger" and other figures who draw on this mystery. Those storylines are the show's invention, not Tolkien's text.

Why Saruman Fell and Gandalf Did Not

Tolkien returns to this contrast again and again, and it is the real theme of the wizards. Both were Maiar of great power. Both knew more about Sauron than anyone else alive. The difference was in what they wanted.

Saruman wanted order. He looked at the chaos of Middle-earth and decided that the Wise should rule, for everyone's good. His speech to Gandalf in Orthanc is all about Knowledge, Rule and Order, and about allying with the rising power to steer it. That is precisely the domination the Valar had forbidden, and it made him a lesser copy of Sauron.

Gandalf wanted the free peoples to be free, even if that meant they made their own mistakes. He refuses the Ring when Frodo offers it, because he knows he would wield it out of pity, to do good, and that the good would become terrible. He trusts hobbits, a people everyone else overlooks (see Hobbits of Middle-earth). He spends centuries in small acts of encouragement: a word to Thorin, fireworks for Bilbo, a visit to Denethor.

The wizards are a story about power held in check, which is why they belong next to the Ring itself. Our explainer on the One Ring inscription and the Black Speech shows the other side of that coin: power whose whole purpose is to rule.

Do Wizards Use Magic?

Tolkien was famously wary of the word "magic". The wizards rarely do anything that looks like a spell. Gandalf lights fires, breaks a bridge, holds a door with a word of command, and in The Hobbit splits a rock with his staff. Saruman's real weapon is his voice, which in the chapter "The Voice of Saruman" can make anyone who hears it believe him.

Their power is mostly the power of their nature: Maiar wearing the flesh of men, carrying the knowledge of the West. Gandalf's greatest strength, in the books, is that he knows more than anyone and uses it to make others braver. Elvish is part of that knowledge. Every wizard in the books speaks the tongues of the Eldar, and their names are a record of how the Elves saw them.

The Wizards in Elvish

Here are the attested Elvish names and words connected to the Istari, with their meanings and a pronunciation guide. All glosses come from our verified Elvish vocabulary database.

A few notes on sound. The th in Ithron and Mithrandir is the soft th of English "thin". The r is tapped or lightly rolled. Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable when it is heavy, so it is mith-RAN-dir, not MITH-ran-dir. The accent in Curunír marks a long vowel, not stress; we explain the system in Quenya vs Sindarin.

Notice how the Quenya and Sindarin words for "wizard" have different roots and different flavours. Istar is about knowing; it is the High-Elven, Valinorean word. Ithron is the word the Grey-elves of Middle-earth used. This is the same split you find between the two Elvish languages everywhere, which is why we recommend reading what language do the Elves speak in LotR before you pick one to study.

If you want to go further than a list of names, start learning Elvish for free: the course teaches Quenya and Sindarin side by side, with audio for every word. You can also type any English phrase into the English to Elvish translator and see it in both tongues, or put your own name into Elvish script with the Tengwar name generator.

Writing Mithrandir in Tengwar

The wizards' names were written in the Tengwar, the Elvish script Fëanor devised. Mithrandir is a good name to practise with because it contains the th sound, which has its own letter, thúlë, rather than being spelled with two letters as in English. The best way to learn the shapes is to draw them: the Tengwar Scribe lets you write by hand and have the result read back to you, and our Tengwar alphabet guide shows every letter and how the vowel marks sit above them.

The Wizards and the Other Peoples

The Istari were sent to help every free people, and each wizard's story touches a different race of Middle-earth.

• Elves. Gandalf's closest allies are Elrond, Círdan and Galadriel, and he carries one of the Three. See Elves of Middle-earth.
• Dwarves. Gandalf sets the quest of Erebor in motion and holds the key and map of Thráin. See Dwarves of Middle-earth.
• Men. Gandalf counsels Denethor and Théoden; Saruman corrupts Rohan's king through Wormtongue. See Men of Middle-earth.
• Ents. Saruman's felling of Fangorn brings the Ents to war. See Entish and Treebeard's language.
• Orcs. Saruman breeds and arms them and mixes their kind with men. See Orcs and goblins.
• The Nine. The Ringwraiths are the opposite of the wizards: men who took power and lost themselves. See Nazgûl and Ringwraiths.

People Also Ask

Is Gandalf more powerful than Sauron? As a spirit, no. Sauron was among the greatest of the Maiar and had poured his power into the Ring. Gandalf was forbidden to contest him directly, and as Gandalf the White he was still limited by his body and his mission. His victory came from counsel and patience, not strength.

Why are there only three wizards in The Lord of the Rings? Because the Blue Wizards went into the East long before the story begins and never came back west. Saruman mentions five wizards once; the rest of the information comes from Unfinished Tales and Tolkien's letters.

Was Saruman evil from the start? No. Saruman came as the head of the order and did real good for many centuries. His fall came slowly, through pride, his long study of the Rings, and finally through the palantír that let Sauron reach him.

Can wizards die in Tolkien? Their bodies can. Gandalf died fighting the Balrog and was sent back; Saruman was killed by Wormtongue and his spirit was not permitted to return to the West. As Maiar, their spirits do not simply cease.

What language did the wizards speak? All of them knew the Elvish languages and the Common Speech. Gandalf also reads the Black Speech inscription on the Ring and speaks it once at the Council of Elrond, to the horror of everyone present.

Related Reading

• Races of Middle-earth: the complete guide
• Gandalf's Elvish name Mithrandir
• Saruman, Isengard and the Elvish names of the White Hand
• Mithrandir, the AI Elvish tutor
• Balrogs of Middle-earth
• Elves of Middle-earth
• The One Ring inscription and the Black Speech
• Tolkien's Elvish languages: the complete guide
• Elvish dictionary: common words

Learn the Language of the Wise

Every wizard in Middle-earth spoke Elvish, and every name in this article was built from real Quenya and Sindarin roots. You do not need to be a Maia to learn them. Learn Elvish free with Tengwar: 10 lessons open without a subscription, with audio, quizzes and the Tengwar script. Start the free Elvish course, and if you want to practise in conversation, the Mithrandir AI tutor is named after the Grey Pilgrim himself.