: Yeah, this can get confusing.
: You might choose to remember that Wizards in LotR are not quite wizards, but, if I may venture to say, a mesenger type superior being.
: The "wizards" in Roverandom were men-in-the-moon, Sand people, and old men.
: IMHO "wizard" is just a term that Tolkien likes to throw around.
: We're talking direct connections to character origins, so, let's, for the time being, forget the term.
: Mr. Martinez is in the process of mustering up more references, so, for your viewing pleasure, this letter written by JRR:

: 240 To Mrs Pauline Gasch (Pauline Baynes)

: [Pauline Baynes, who was illustrating THE ADVENTURES OF
: TOM BOMBADIL, pointed out that typescript of the title
: poem described Tom as wearing a peacock's feather in his
: hat, but the version in the galley-proofs had the reading
: 'a swan-wing feather'.]

: 1 August 1962 76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
: Dear Mrs Gasch,

: I am sorry that you have been bothered by this detail. There
: have been a number of minor changes made at various times in
: the process of assimilating Tom B. to the LORD OF THE RINGS
: world.

: The peacock's feather belongs to an old draft. Being unsuitable
: to the L.R. this becomes in the L.R. (I p. 130) 'a long blue
: feather'. In the poems as now to be published Tom appears (in
: line 4 of the first poem) with a 'swan-wing feather': to
: increase the riverishness, and o allow for the incident in the
: second poem, the gift of a blue feather by the king's fisher.
: That incident also explains the blue feather of the L.R. Poem
: one is evidently, as said in the introduction, a hobbit-version
: of things long before the days of the L.R. But the second poem
: refers to the days of growing shadow, before Frodo set out (as
: the consultation with Maggot shows: cf. L.R. I p. 143). When
: therefore Tom appears in the L.R. he is wearing a blue feather.

: As far sa you are concerned peacocks are out. A swan-feather in
: the first poem; and a blue one after the kingfisher incident.

: For instance, in the altercation with the kingfisher, I found
: that no variety likely to be in our parts of the world has a
: scarlet crest. (Scarlet BREASTS are more likely though ones I
: know are pinkish!) Also, more interesting, I found that the
: bird's name did not mean, as I had supposed, 'a King that fishes'.
: It was originally THE KING'S FISHER. That links the swan
: (traditionally the property of the King) with the fisher-bird;
: explains both their rivalry, and their special friendship with
: Tom: they were creatures who looked for the return of their
: rightful LOrd, the true King.

: Do not be put off by this sort of thing unless it affects the
: picture! The inwardly seen picture is to me the most important.
: I look forward to your intepretation. The donnish detail is
: just a private pleasure which I do not expect anyone to notice.
: (E.g. the hanging up of a kingfisher to see the way of the wind,
: which comes from Sir T. Browne; the otter's whisker sticking
: out of the gold, from the Norse Nibelung legends; and the three
: places for gossip, SMITHY, MILL, AND CHEAPING (market), from
: a medieval instructive work that I have been editing!) With
: very best wishes

: Yours sincerely
: Ronald Tolkien

: In the end notes, Humphrey Carpenter explains the Thomas Browne reference:

: Sir Thomas Browne, VULGAR ERRORS, III Chapter 10: 'That a
: Kingfisher, hanged by the bill, showeth where the wind la

: Seanith