I wonder.... Is 'wend' related to 'wander'?

It's that you ask about it. I had already looked it up on Online Etymology:
> link Online Etymology
as I was wondering about the relation with "to wind"
'That long and winding road that leads etc.'

wend "to proceed on," O.E. wendan "to turn, go," from P.Gmc. *wandijanan (cf. O.S. wendian, O.N. venda, O.Fris. wenda, Du. wenden, Ger. wenden, Goth. wandjan "to turn"), causative of O.E. windan "to turn, twist" (see


wind (v.)), from base *wand-, *wend- "turn." Surviving only in to wend one's way, and in hijacked past tense form went.

wind (v.)
"move by turning and twisting," O.E. windan "to turn, twist, wind" (class III strong verb; past tense wand, pp. wunden), from P.Gmc. *wendanan (cf. O.S. windan, O.N. vinda, O.Fris. winda, Du. winden, O.H.G. wintan, Ger. winden, Goth. windan "to wind"), from PIE *wendh- "to turn, wind, weave" (cf. L. viere "twist, plait, weave," vincire "bind," Lith. vyti "twist, wind"). Related to wend, which is its causative form, and to wander. Wind down "come to a conclusion" is recorded from 1952; wind up "come to a conclusion" is from 1825. Winding sheet "shroud of a corpse" is attested from c.1420.

I always think of wend as meaning to meander, to wander, to go slowly.

Yes, welcome and so to MC Quoid. That's what made me associate it with that long and winding road. Wenden is a Dutch verb meaning a moderate change of direction.

It's used in a figurative way as "wenden en keren".
Context: "whichever way you wendt and turn it, it can't be done."

The suppletive past tense of the English verb go, went, was originally the past tense (and past participle) of the verb wend < Old English wendan. The Old English past tense of gān 'to go' was eōde (link). This was also a case of paradigmatic suppletion. This other root for 'to go' was related to the Latin eō, īre. To make matter curiouser, the PIE root for go *ghē- (link) yields Sanskrit √ gam 'to go', gacchati 's/he goes', but Latin veniō and Greek βαινω (bainō) both with the meaning come.

It's an extremely poetic and colorful word.
Welcome McQuoid.

"wend" was the causative of "wind", just like "set" was the causative of "sit", "raise" was the causative of "rise", and "lay" was the causative of "lie".

Ah, the old "lie, lay, lain" business: shades of elementary school.