That was 'a merry passenger, a messenger, a mariner', the acting hero of the poem Errantry.
He also studied wizardry and smithying. I supposed at a time 'sigaldry' should have meant something in between the two, i.e., practical magic, the way to enchant things made by hands. With dark connotations to the word too, not the thing Gandalf would do, per instance, but more like to Necromancer's activities, to control and possess.
My Merriam does not contain such a word, neither Lingvo 9.0 has anything of the kind in its recesses.
Michael Martinez has made a reasearch on the word.
Here are the results. Highly interesting article. The quote:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Michael Martinez
A number of people who have access to books I don't have determined that Tolkien's word "sigaldry" comes from the 13th century poem "King Alisaunder", which is a fanciful retelling of the life of Alexander the Great.
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Sigaldry is mentioned in the Lay of Leithian too, and there is definitely associated with Sauron:
Quote:
Master of Wolves, whose shivering howl (2070)
for ever echoed in the hills, and foul
enchantments and dark sigaldry
did weave and wield. In glamoury
that necromancer held his hosts
of phantoms and of wandering ghosts,
of misbegotten or spell-wronged
monsters that about him thronged,
working his bidding dark and vile:
the werewolves of the Wizard's Isle
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That's all I could come up with. People in possession of OED may find some more, I suppose
