Wick (John Macleod II): Week 6 – 13 February

I was thinking the other day about Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is frequently referred to as a wizard but, as many have observed, he doesn’t really do much in the way of magic. Sure, his wand lights up, but so does my phone; not only that, but it could probably navigate me through Moria using Google Maps, and tell me the best place to get a pizza while I’m down there too. Gandalf doesn’t even produce an egg from the Lord of the Nazgûl’s ear, or saw Galadriel in half. So exactly what kind of a wizard is he?

Wick at Sunset

The word derives from the Old English wys, meaning of course “wise”: so a wizard was originally just a wise person. It’s the same sort of word as drunkard (a person who gets drunk), sluggard (the technical term for a botanist specialising in molluscs) and buzzard (a hawk that hums to itself to pass the time). It only seems to’ve taken on its modern meaning of a sorcerer in late medieval/ early modern times. Tolkien the philologist knew all this from the inside, which is doubtless why Gandalf is as much a counsellor as as he is a wizard. As for how he got started in life, I expect he went to Hogwarts like all the other magical children of his day (“You’re a wizard, Gandalf!”) where he was put in Gryffindor House (Saruman being a born Slytherin). Then on to Discworld’s Unseen University where he majored in making rings disappear.

(More) Snowdrops

After that it all gets a bit vague, though judging by many of the album covers of my youth I assume he started a prog rock band with Merlin and made it big in Germany for a while. The -alf ending in Gandalf, by the way, simply means “elf”. It’s the same root word that appears in Alfred (elf-ræd, or “elf counsel”, i.e., wise) and Alvin (elf-wine or elf friend). Still, however he started out, I like to think of Gandalf keeping up the party’s spirits on their quest to the Dark Lands with a few simple illusions, and of him sitting round the campfire of an evening inviting Boromir to pick a card, any card…

I’ve lost my arm!

TECHNICAL STUFF

Two milestones to note this week: first of all, I’ve started the yoke pattern, and I’ve just started the gussets. A word on the yoke. In order for it to fit, I’ve had to tweak the pattern to something shorter and wider than the original. As the lady is fond of cables I’ve inserted a few to act as borders between the various pattern banks—this way I can keep the proportion of the patterns to each other the same, and still extend the width of the jumper. Making it shorter is more challenging, because fewer rows in height inevitably leads to fewer stitches in width. However, as the original already truncates the centre pattern slightly for the collar, I’m going to follow suit; and will just knit the pattern until I reach the desired height and then stop, and hope it looks okay. (Fingers crossed…)

Finally this week, we’ve been sent photos of a very stylish gansey knitted by Sigrid in Germany. It’s a cardigan based on a Cornish knit-frock design, with moss stitch diamonds among other patterns. It looks great (and note the buttons, a nice touch); many congratulations to Sigrid and many thanks to her for sharing it with us!