LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 05 - The White Rider

[Lalwendë]

I'm not replying to myself here. No, I have a new thought, though a slightly odd one. Almost as soon as I woke up this morning I started wondering if Gandalf, if he was 'reborn' as Gandalf the White, would still be a keen smoker? I thought - surely he wouldn't be a smoker at all, if he has trouble thinking of the name he has commonly gone by in Middle Earth, then why would he still have a pipe-weed habit? Yet there is one reference to him requesting pipe-weed after his resurrection:

'That is just what we should like, too,' said Gandalf. 'We are not tired. We have been taking things easy. We were wet, cold and hungry, but all that you have cured. Come, sit down! And if you have any pipe-weed, we'll bless you.'

and in HoME an earlier draft has Gandalf add:

Ours has long since been finished

Which means he was including himself in the request.

This is on the return to Bree in RotK. I then decided (by way of scientific comparison or something similar) to compare this to references to Gandalf's habit in FotR and I could find just four references. So there isn't a huge difference, and this could possibly be accounted for by the lack of pipe-weed in the southern lands where much of the action takes place.

Yes, an odd thing to think of, but surely he wouldn't have retained the habit?