Why didn't Saruman take Gandalf's Ring?

[azalea]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
I suppose the answer to this question depends how much credence you give to the text in UT. As Artanis said, it was written after the LOTR was written, so Tolkien would not have know that Saruman knew that Gandalf had the ring (whew, I hope that made sense!)

Don't you mean before?

Does anyone think that Saruman could have known Gandalf had Narya through "wizard's intuition?" Perhaps he didn't need to be told, he could just sense it, either when the transfer occured, or when he interacted with Gandalf. (Kind of like when Gandalf "knows" things at different times throughout the books) OR one could speculate about his hearing about it from birds that witnessed it or something.

[cassiopeia]

Er, I don't think so. If Tolkien wrote that Saruman knew Gandalf had Narya after (in UT), then when he was writing the FOTR he didn't realise that fact (i.e. he, I suppose, assumed Saruman didn't know Gandalf had Narya).
Perhaps a bird told Radagast, who told Saruman.
From my earlier quote it says Saruman begrudged Gandalf because he had Narya. Perhaps Saruman wanted the One Ring because he was jealous of Gandalf.
My brain hurts now, so I'm going for lunch.