Gandolf and Gandalf'

Gandolf Left An Invisible Mark On Bilbo's Door
That Only The Dwarves Could See
Stay a While...


*Gandolf*	*Gandalf*

What follows is a revised text of what I have presented before, based upon further reflection and referral to my notes.
I also have the good fortune to include comments (referenced by an *) and Cornish word definitions (referred to by an §) from the renown futurist expatriot Celtic scholar, Abednego Tregarthen (2121-1999 CE), who you will come to know as one of the famous Tregarthen triplets.Abednego, as will all the brothers, will suffer from dyslexia, a reversal of letters in his writings in this case, caused, no doubt, from writing a future letter first, or a present one later.

(I am adding Tregarthen comments as I get them...)

I am Gandolf, the obscurely known and all but forgotten brother of Gandalf. You may know my brother from The Hobbit *, at least, you may think that you know him.

My brother is the eldest by ten minutes of us two. Our birth occurred as the evening star rose on Calà-Me[May first] as the first Beltane* fires flickered as beacons on the hills on a night a very long time ago. We are thus children of the goddess' rebirth. Our mother, Gwerghsys, was human and of royal blood and bore us apart from all humans in a grove of Sycamores. She told us later that, until the last night, she never saw our father, named Gwyn An Lagas [White of Eye] for he was spyrys[færie], and he wooed her invisibly at night. She told us that after the last time that our father knew her, our mother absently rubbed one eye with her hand that had touched whes-has-gos*, or some drops of their lovemaking. As a result, she gasped at the sight of a vague shape she now saw withdrawing from her. Our father stopped at the sound of recognition, for it is forbidden for humans to see færie. He loved her too much to pluck out her offending eye, as is the custom of that folk; instead, he touched her pregnant stomach, winked at her, and vanished forever.* Both my brother and I immediately spoke to our father from our mother's womb and thanked him for sparing her.* We bear his prykys[marks], I in my right eye, Gandalf in his left, to this day.

We were born with kennen-genesygeth [birth cauls] and with rich, full heads of hair: Gandalf silver blond, gwyn [white]; I du[black]. Our mother says that when I cried, Gandalf's hair turned black, and mine white at Gandalf's. She says that my hair lightened if she lay me on a dark blanket, just as my brother's darkened when laid on a fair one. For these reasons, our mother often failed to distinguish us correctly. At twelve years and one*, our hair turned gray* immediately after we initiated ourselves to our lifes' art in the solempnyta-delleth[wizardry], and no one could tell us apart, without lie or boast, from that day. Even I, who am cledhek[left-handed], and my brother who is dyghowyas[right-handed], became dorn-dheu [ambi-dexterous], on that day.

We were born at a time of great superstition. It was commonly believed that gevellow[twins] were the product of the supernatural. If the common folk were to discover that one of the twins were light and the other dark, they would interpret it--wrongly, I submit--as we were spawned of evil. Considering our birth cauls, the marks in our eyes, our ceaselessly changing hair, and an invisible father that could not come forth in the flesh, our mother feared for our lives, hid me, sent me away, the dark one, as an infant to her homelands, and kept her eldest at her breast. As you can see, the world only knows of her one son, Gandalf*.

My mother's gave me to her Mammeth[midwife] and my wet nurse, who took me away on my first mid-summer's eve*, and raised me in the west country. Penpystryor-Ughel [head wizard] of the ancient Dumnoni*, was my tutor until we were of age, at which time my brother and I reunited.

On our twelfth year and a day, my brother and I vowed to act as one, but apart. We chose to be that one persona that every one called Gandalf. This arrangement has proved very successful for us because 'Gandalf' can be in different lands at the same time, or 'Gandalf' can be one place today and show up an impossible distance away on the next. This only furthers our (Gandalf's) reputation as a wizard.

Of the two of us, the last born is kensa[alpha], and the first born dewetha [omega]*, curiously. It was, in fact, I who arranged for the little party at Bilbo's house; I who gathered the dwarves together; I who marked Bilbo's door with my stick lorgh-hüda[wizard's wand]; and I who made the dwarves show up in ones and twos in Bilbo's parlor. It was also I who conceived the idea of, and I who nominated, Bilbo the Burglar. I was with the party at the beginning, and I must say that nothing was amiss when I left them. You can believe it when I say that my eldest brother came in at the end and took all of the glory and credit, because that is what he did, and that is his gwary[role].

Again, it was I (I who love tanow-creft [fireworks]) who many years later arranged for Bilbo's birthday party, and it was I who set Frodo off on his reverse quest to return the bysow-onen[one-ring]. I conceived the plan to destroy Sauron by destroying the arweth-peller[Talismans] that Bilbo had inadvertently brought back. You can believe me again that Gandalf played his part, especially at the end, after I had set up the entire affair, because that is how it truly happened.

For those who are interested, the first principal of our magic is that the sum total of our art always equals nyns-üs-nahe[zero]. Yes, we know about nil, about no thing, about that which is every thing. In fact, we never create anything, we merely perform dygemysky§. If we want fire, we disentangle elemental fire from the remaining elements*. We are very good at the art of pointing humans and the simple folk towards the fire and distracting them away from the little storm of rain, wind, and mud somewhere in the corner of their attention.

We understand the duality of the world's opposites*, that there is no light without dark, for example. Dark is no better; dark is no worse than light--neither can exist in and of itself; both need the other in order to be at all. Both polarities also need that which is both it and its opposite as their higher context of their existence. Order cannot exist without chaos; in without out; left without right; fire without ice. And fire, for example, must exist within a logically prior state that includes both fire and ice.This I demonstrated in spectacular fashion by consuming a large cube of rew [ice] in Bilbo's punchbowl with a tansys [conflagration] of bright blue fire emanating apparently from my finger (if one had been alert to tap some innocuous nearby stones, the stones would have crumbled to dust from their intensely brittle frigidity). I still receive requests for this feat as recently as tomorrow*.

It follows from this cunning that in order to create good means that we must separate da [good], from that which is both good and evil and yet neither -- the process of necessity also must create tebel [evil]. It was very frustrating to us at first, then liberating when we saw this as a limitation no more*. We see many of our fellows fail trying to embrace only good and expel evil -- they are doomed to failure and many fall victims to the evil they inevitably create.

The writer Tolkien* has told you of Gandalf as a single being, that is our brotherly agreement and our pact. What Tolkien will not tell you is that 'Gandalf' has never died or perished* even though we may be discarnate for centuries. None of us die; who we really are ever dies; who we really are cannot die; we are prest a-vew [eternal]. The name Gandalf is best interpreted technically in our art as I am that; and Gandolf as that am I. You may recognize the similarity to the Hebrew ineffable name I am that I am or I am. We are, therefore, I am that am I.*

We both recognize that the only reality, the only true substance, and the only sawor[essence] of all is the totally subjective reality that is simply I am. All duality, the life of opposites that we all live in every day, springs from a reduction, a contraction, a separation of this singularity. The I am can separate itself into honen[self], and aral[other]; or into I and that, but it remains always the that just as it remains the I. I am that am I is the experience of the I am recognizing itself in all existence and non-existence.

As our brother and Self the barth§Taliesin sings:

I am the reconciler.
I hold the opposites in either hand
And, without letting them approach,
Allow them to comingle.
In the moment of reconciliation
I am the centre,
The tree at the storm's heart,
The reflection of the true night,
An alembic of light and dark.
... [fragment illegible] ...

My words themselves
Are a balance and a blending
Of wisdom and folly.
... [fragment illegible to the end]

Note 1:

The author of this page had the good fortune to discover the above manuscript fragment rolled inside another much longer manuscript. This outer manuscript was housed originally in an obscure library said to be frequented by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Both manuscripts are believed to have been acquired by the fabulous Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts on August 20, 1890.

Most of the outer manuscript is damaged and badly stained as if it had spent a considerable time below ground or in a musty place. The inner scrap was folded in two with its writing surfaces facing each other; the ink appearing to have partially bonded the two halves together, rendering the last part of the MS illegible. To the casual eye, the fragment could easily appear as merely a blank scrap of parchment. The outer manuscript had several feet of blank parchment at the end, and it was here at the very end that the author noticed the scrap when he unrolled the original fully.

The hand of the inner fragment is different than that of the outer and is slanted slightly to suggest the author may have been left-handed. Close scrutiny of the MS reveals faint blue lines ruled precisely nine millimeters apart by today's measurement, which the original scribe appears to have disregarded almost completely.

The outer manuscript was tied by two pieces of maroon colored cloth ties, badly decomposed, each end clipped precisely at an angle of fifty-one degrees*, and tied in a curious and fiendishly difficult knot to untie even in its advanced state of decline, at precisely the third points of the rolled up scroll.

Unfortunately for modern scholars, the wing that housed this fragment and the curious collection of which it was a part, along with the whispers amongst the eldritch caretakers of arcane connections to rituals long since abandoned -- the G. O. Lovecraft Wing -- burned completely to the ground in a freak thunderstorm out an otherwise cloudless and moonless night on March 15, 1937, closing forever further examination of this remarkable document.*

Note 2:

The pictures above are adapted from Tim Kirk's work Gandalf and Bilbo that the author found at ftp://ftp.math.uni-hamburg.de/pub/misc/tolkien/ . I have taken great liberties with portions of the originals in order to render suitable 'recreations' of the likenesses of the brothers.

Note 3:

After fruitless attempts by the author to make any artful interpretation of the poem fragment, the author includes the interpretation by John Matthews on page 86 of his book The Songs of Taliesin / Stories and Poems From the Book of Broceliande, London, The Aquarian

Note 4:

The purported author of the fragment writes in his mamyeth or mother tongue, or his mother's mother tongue, Cornish. This author has attempted to translate as best as possible with his limited skills what he makes out the words to be. Many words and phrases were marginal in the original, at best. The author has retained many important technical words of the original colinear with the present text. Any further help with the translation effort will be greatly appreciated. All errors of translation are the author's.

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