it's really difficult to say, i mean gandalf, elrond, and aragorn all did somethings definantly magical in LotR and yet frodo and the others weren't awstruck or especially fearfull. the same goes for the hobbit, though bilbo is said to have seen gandalfs magic as especially potent he's not seen groveling before awsome power. also the dwarves apparently knew some pretty good magic themselves if you go by the song they sang in bilbos home.

and yet the hobbits are said to be especially non-magical. if someone did something like what gandalf did on the hill on the way to moria against the "hounds of sauron" i'm sure i'd be more than just impressed and i'm used to thinking about things magical though i've never seen the truly supernatural. the hobbits, if magic is so rare in their lives, should be at gandalfs feet in homage. even though i'm sure he wouldn't have accepted it the same could be said of thom bombadil.

tolkien seems to send a mixed message. and when you add in the stories of the first age it stays just as muddled. well that's my thoughts on the matter for now. hope this starts a lively debate, especially as it relates to rpg's and the gaming i hope soon starts here.

                                                                                  ibun aka scott

Your blooming right m8, the same thing has bugged me for ages! There dose seem to be a lot of wizzies around and elves for magic to be rare. Then again i guess it depends wot you call rare.

One thing you have to recognize is that the whole progression of the works are from a beginning in which you have only gods to the end of the Return of the King where the last of the magical beings is leaving the world.

Tokien doesn't dwell on the magic, but it is obviously mainly of divine origin. Much of the first age is about the gods making the world. There you have tons of magic. Then you have Elves who are not particularly magical until they come to live with the gods. At that time they are bathed in the magic of the gods and are taught how to work create magical items. Again we don't know what allows them to make magical items only that they are highly skilled craftsmen, and the results of their labor have great power.

We also find the fallen gods under Melkor using magic of their own to create Orcs and Trolls, with an implication that all the evil creatures were the result of Melkor working to counter the good creatures. Thus Orcs were Elves perverted by his magic.

The whole war of the Elves is waged using magical weapons. Again it's crafted with the residual magic and knowledge they gained while living on the blessed isle.

By the second age you have less magic, and it's still derived from again the same residual divine source, or by Numenorians who picked up the magic living as close to the blessed isle as possible.

The rings were all of Melkor's making or teaching to Elves and Dwarves. The Wizards or Istari are all simply lesser gods, as was Sauron. So again all the magic is divin in nature.

So by the 4th age as man takes full posession of Middle-Earth all the magic is basically a few residual items.