Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [252]
The palantíri could not themselves survey men’s minds, at unawares or unwilling; for the transference of thought depended on the wills of the user on either side, and thought (received as speech) 21 was only transmittable by one Stone to another in accord.
NOTES
1 Doubtless they were used in the consultations between Arnor and Gondor in the year 1944 concerning the succession to the Crown. The ‘messages’ received in Gondor in 1973, telling of the dire straits of the Northern Kingdom, was possibly their last use until the approach of the War of the Ring. [Author’s note.]
2 With Arvedui were lost the Stones of Annúminas and Amon Sûl (Weathertop). The third palantír of the North was that in the tower Elostirion on Emyn Beraid, which had special properties (see note 16).
3 The Stone of Osgiliath had been lost in the waters of Anduin in 1437, during the civil war of the Kin-strife.
4 On the destructibility of the palantíri see p. 529. In the entry in the Tale of Years for 2002, and also in Appendix A (I, iv), it is stated as a fact that the palantír was captured in the fall of Minas Ithil; but my father noted that these annals were made after the War of the Ring, and that the statement, however certain, was a deduction. The Ithil-stone was never found again, and probably perished in the ruin of Baraddûr; see p. 529.
5 By themselves the Stones could only see: scenes or figures in distant places, or in the past. These were without explanation; and at any rate for men of later days it was difficult to direct what visions should be revealed by the will or desire of a surveyor. But when another mind occupied a Stone in accord, thought could be ‘transferred’ (received as ‘speech’), and visions of the things in the mind of the surveyor of one Stone could be seen by the other surveyor. [See further pp. 530 – 1 and note 21.] These powers were originally used mainly in consultation, for the purpose of exchanging news necessary to government, or advice and opinions; less often in simple friendship and pleasure or in greetings and condolence. It was only Sauron who used a Stone for the transference of his superior will, dominating the weaker surveyor and forcing him to reveal hidden thought and to submit to commands. [Author’s note.]
6 Cf. Gandalf’s remarks to the Council of Elrond concerning Saruman’s long study of the scrolls and books of Minas Tirith.
7 For any more ‘worldly’ policy of power and warlike strength Isengard was well placed, being the key to the Gap of Rohan. This was a weak point in the defences of the West, especially since the decay of Gondor. Through it hostile spies and emissaries could pass in secret, or eventually, as in the former Age, forces of war. The Council seems to have been unaware, since for many years Isengard had been closely guarded, of what went on within its Ring. The use, and possibly special breeding, of Orcs was kept secret, and cannot have begun much before 2990 at earliest. The orc-troops seem never to have been used beyond the territory of Isengard before the attack on Rohan. Had the Council known of this they would, of course, at once have realized that Saruman had become evil. [Author’s note.]
8 Denethor was evidently aware of Gandalf’s guesses and suspicions, and at once both angered and sardonically amused by them. Note his words to Gandalf at their meeting in Minas Tirith (The Return of the King V 1): ‘I know already sufficient of these deeds for my own counsel against the menace of the East’, and especially his mocking words that followed: ‘Yea; for though the Stones be lost, they say, still the lords of Gondor have keener sight than lesser men, and many messages come to them.’ Quite apart from the palantíri, Denethor was a man of great mental powers, and a quick reader of thoughts behind faces