The Wisdom of the Shire

From the moment of Gandalf’s creation by the Valar he has appeared in the body of an ordinary old man, stooped and wrinkled with a grey beard. He’s the template for a wise counselor—a trustworthy mentor. As soon as he arrives at the Grey Havens he immediately sets out exploring Middle-earth as a self-described “stone doomed to rolling.”*

He becomes a helper to all of the good peoples of the lands, studying their histories and lore, while also traveling in disguise to distant countries, spying on the sinister inhabitants of Middle-earth. Gandalf visits the Shire from time to time, however, simply to relax. (Even though he’s an Istari he has the body and needs of a human.) For centuries he’s been hanging out, off and on, in the land of the Halflings, studying the curious little people called Hobbits.*

Like them he enjoys teatime and good ale and probably knows more about the family histories of the Bankses, Burrowses and Bagginses than they do. He’s also taken up the curious habit, or “art” as the Hobbits call it, of smoking Old Toby’s Leaf.* The wizard has become so enamored of the Shire he’s gone a little native.

What is it about Hobbits that are so appealing to Gandalf? As he says to Frodo concerning Hobbits, “You can learn everything about them in a month, but after a hundred years they can still surprise you in a pinch.” The Shire-folk are small, but they have huge hearts. They’re good-natured, indomitable and quick-witted. And they never cheat at games (a point Frodo reminds Gandalf of with pride). Not only does Gandalf want to preserve this unique place from the coming wrath of Sauron, he senses the inhabitants of the Shire will be integral in some way in defeating that dark power.

When Bilbo meets Gandalf outside his front door at the start of The Hobbit he sees the wizard as a sort of cheap conjuror—one step above, say, a traveling button salesman or a Sackville-Baggins. Gandalf is known for his wonderful fireworks, of course, but he seems a little shady to Bilbo. Not quite respectable. But that’s all part of Gandalf’s modus operandi. If he told people who and what he really was, they would be either terrified of him or think he was crazy. He hides his power and his keen intelligence so he can fit in and observe without drawing too much attention to himself.*

Cloaking oneself in modesty is a rare thing in our day and age, when people are encouraged to be as brash and outrageous as possible. It seems like the only people who do succeed are the ones who preen and blow their own horns the loudest. (The Internet, sadly, affords too many people this opportunity.) Politicians brag and boast about what they’ve done or say they’ll do in a never-ending quest to substantiate their existence. For an Istari like Gandalf, the proof is in the pudding: your actions are all that count.

Even though Gandalf is filled with a hidden might (which becomes more prominent after his resurrection as Gandalf the White) the wizard does not dare to wield the One Ring. He knows that if he attempts to use Sauron’s tool for good the very nature of the evil Ring will ultimately corrupt his righteous intentions and make him just as evil as Sauron. The One Ring is like a nuclear bomb. It has great power—but only the power to destroy.

Knowing your own limits is a concept that is not taught very often. We’re told to push ourselves at all costs in a victory-or-nothing society. Winner takes all. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. These are the hubristic apparitions of a trickle-down world. Gandalf might be a cranky old coot sometimes (especially with Peregrin Took) but he does not suffer from an ounce of hubris. Saruman and Sauron possess this flawed character trait of overweening pride, and it is the downfall of them both. Hobbits are the ultimate underdogs, the “little guy,” and neither one of the villains sees them coming before it’s too late.

Because Gandalf understands he cannot defeat Sauron alone he enlists everyone he can to be on his ragtag team—Hobbit gardeners, churlish Dwarves, talking trees, and a throne-less wandering king with a broken sword. A good leader sees talents in people who might have been overlooked because of some minor defect. That same leader respects and nurtures those talents, building up confidence instead of tearing it down.*

Rather than serving as an instigator of the action, Gandalf is the archetypal messenger or guide who sets the inhabitants of Middle-earth on their various paths, and reappears at crucial times in their adventures to either steer them in the right direction, or literally pull them from the fire. He’s like a grumpy yet benevolent grandfather, especially to the Hobbits who, for their part, are Gandalf’s unruly grandchildren.

At certain points Gandalf purposefully leaves the Shire-folk to their own devices so that they can grow and learn on their own. In The Hobbit he sends Bilbo and the Dwarves into the dread forest of Mirkwood alone (much to the ire of Thorin and the dejection of Bilbo). Gandalf warns them to stay on the path no matter what. Failing to heed his warning will most likely result in their untimely deaths. Of course they don’t listen to him, and Bilbo is forced to find an inner strength he did not know he possessed to save his companions on more than one occasion.

Those of us who are parents know the precarious nature of trying to teach our children the dangers of the world, yet give them enough slack to make their own way. You can only warn an adventurous seven-year-old boy so many times that pogo-sticking on a snow-covered stairway at night is a bad idea. Sometimes you just have to let them take their lumps and learn the hard way.

Gandalf is more than just a father figure to the Hobbits, however. He’s almost like a guru or spiritual teacher: the Merlin or Obi-Wan Kenobi of Middle-earth. The Lord of the Rings had a huge resurgence of popularity during the late sixties and early seventies, when famous counterculture icons like The Beatles (Tolkien fans themselves) went looking for their own Gandalf in the guise of the Maharishi of India. The notion of a wise old man dispensing wisdom has been in the collective unconscious for thousands of years.*

At the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo whines to Gandalf that he wishes Sauron’s power had not grown during his lifetime, the wizard replies: “All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us.” We can’t complain about our lot in life, Gandalf is saying. We need to have intention and then follow through with that intention. What’s more, he’s telling Frodo that we cannot control what has already happened in the past; we can only decide how we react in the moment. He’s essentially giving Frodo the advice “Be here now,” a tenent of Eastern mysticism filtered into the West.

Gandalf the Istari is mystical but he is not a mystic. He is not seeking disciples or attempting to start a little cult following in the Shire. He wants the Hobbits to come to the realization they can accomplish anything by their own devices. He is a servant of a higher power and seeks out mavericks like Aragorn the Ranger and Faramir of Gondor to be his friends. And who could be more of a freethinker than his boon companion throughout much of the story? None other than that rapscallion Peregrin “Pippin” Took.

One of Gandalf’s best traits is his ability to take a punch and bounce back. When Pippin (the most interminably inquisitive Hobbit in the Shire) steals the palantir from a sleeping Gandalf and comes face-to-face with the horror of the burning eye of Sauron, the wizard knows he must leave for Minas Tirith immediately and take the Hobbit with him. The game has changed and so Gandalf must change with it. And the brief but potent message Gandalf shouts the moment before he slips into the abyss of Moria is ripe with meaning for us all: “Fly, you fools!” Don’t just stand there gaping like an idiot when something goes amiss. Retreat, regroup, and live to fight again.

Gandalf isn’t just a wise man. He is filled with compassion. Before the action of The Lord of the Rings begins Gandalf interrogates Gollum (after the wretch has been captured by Aragorn). But instead of killing the deceitful creature he stays his hand. He feels sorry for the horrid miserable thing, he later tells Frodo, because Gollum has been corrupted by the ultimate power of the Ring. He believes Gollum might have a part yet to play in the defeat of Sauron, and his instinct turns out to be right.

Gandalf must also use his reasoning skills when dealing with the emotional and temperamental inhabitants of Middle-earth. When he meets Théoden—the King of the Rohirrim—whose mind has been poisoned by his servant Wormtongue (turning the once valiant man into a near-paralytic heap of despair), Gandalf-the-psychologist essentially talks the morose Rider of Rohan through his angst with the aplomb of a seasoned depression counselor.

He leads Théoden to a window and enjoins him to look upon the beautiful fields of his homeland, to a place where the storm clouds are pulling back to reveal a shaft of brilliant light. The scales start to fall from Théoden’s eyes. Gandalf tells the King he’d feel stronger with a sword in his hand rather than a staff, and Théoden suddenly agrees. The King of the Golden Hall never looks back, and rides to glory (albeit a glorious death).

On the surface this scene as it plays out in the book might not be as exciting as the film version, where Gandalf uses his staff to blast the demonic presence of Saruman from a possessed Théoden. But I think Tolkien’s version is far more compelling. This Istari doesn’t always have to fall back on magic to achieve his ends. Human insight mingled with the power to persuade is a valuable tool, and is often cast aside for more brutish or bombastic arguments in our own public debates.

Of course none of Gandalf’s interpersonal skills can be used to persuade Denethor, the last Steward of Gondor, from his own staggering malaise. Denethor, suicidally depressed after the death of his favorite son, Boromir (and entrapped by his secret palantir that will only show him visions of horror and Sauron’s impending triumph), is the quintessence of a leader who has lost faith in his own people. He covets the One Ring for himself, hoping to use it against Sauron in a last ditch effort.

The only hope for Gondor is Denethor’s other son, Faramir. Fortunately, the gallant and shrewd Faramir studied with Gandalf in his youth, and wisely lets Frodo and Sam go after he has them—and the Ring—in his grasp. Mithrandir, as Gandalf is known in Gondor, must have impressed upon the young Faramir the perilous nature of attempting to wield an evil power in the name of virtue.

Even the wizard Saruman, an Istari like Gandalf, is not immune from the lust for power. He too hungers after the Ring, despite the fact that he knows he was sent to Middle-earth to watch over and counsel its inhabitants, rather than corrupting and dominating them. When Gandalf is brought back to life by the Valar after his fight to the death with the fire-whip-wielding Balrog, he is cloaked in white, a symbol of his purity—he has become what Saruman should have been.*

It would be wonderful if the leaders and mentors of our world had an inkling of Gandalf’s incorruptibility, wouldn’t it? The more power Gandalf gains throughout The Lord of the Rings, the more indestructible become his virtues. And, as Pippin says, this new white-robed version of Gandalf actually laughs more often than the old Gandalf. As his strength increases so does his humanity, which is usually the opposite of what happens in our world with powerful leaders.

One of the most important pieces of advice the wizard gives in The Lord of the Rings is something he says to Frodo back at Bag End at the start of the epic. He tells the scared Hobbit that he doesn’t know why Frodo has been chosen to bear the burden of the Ring, but the Hobbit’s only choice now is to carry through his task with “heart, courage and wit.” Frodo and his friends do indeed help win the War of the Ring with these three traits, and they do it without losing their sense of what made them Hobbits—their humanity.

At the end of The Return of the King, when Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are riding back home with Gandalf, the wizard stops his horse near the border of the Shire. He tells the reluctant Hobbits they must return home without him. The Hobbits don’t understand. They can’t bear the idea of parting from their dear friend. The wizard informs them he has taught them all he can. They are “grown up” now, he says, and they’re ready for anything the world outside the Shire might throw at them.*

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“If you have been chosen for a particular and challenging task, face it with heart, courage and wit, and never lose sight of your compassion.”