Jul 5, 2026 · 1 hr 57 min · 16 segments
The Istari were never young and aged only slowly; Alan and Shawn will have to settle for only one of those two. Join The Man of the West and The Lord of the Mark as they continue their three-part…
Folks, since we're talking about the Istari in this episode, and actually all three of these episodes, we wanted to spend some time digging into these guys and their many names, and we've decided that Gandalf and his many, many, many, like Turin/Aragorn names-
Well, I thought we'd start with Saruman, 'cause, well, he would certainly want us to put him first.
No, and we're gonna start with his most common name, of course, which is Saruman.
... we're told, of course, that this is the name that he was given in the languages of Northern Men.
So we shouldn't be surprised to learn that Tolkien basically got this name from Old English.
And this comes from Old English saru, which is actually a, a little variation on the Old English word searu, uh, with an E in there, S-E-A-R-U, and that means skill or cunning or, uh, device or art.
Folks, since we're talking about the Istari in this episode, and actually all three of these episodes, we wanted to spend some time digging into these guys and their many names, and we've decided that Gandalf and his many, many, many, like Turin/Aragorn names-
Well, I thought we'd start with Saruman, 'cause, well, he would certainly want us to put him first.
No, and we're gonna start with his most common name, of course, which is Saruman.
... we're told, of course, that this is the name that he was given in the languages of Northern Men.
So we shouldn't be surprised to learn that Tolkien basically got this name from Old English.
And this comes from Old English saru, which is actually a, a little variation on the Old English word searu, uh, with an E in there, S-E-A-R-U, and that means skill or cunning or, uh, device or art.
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