Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [253]
9 Note the passage in The Two Towers IV 5 where Faramir (who was born in 2983) recollected seeing Gandalf in Minas Tirith when he was a child, and again two or three times later; and said that it was interest in records that brought him. The last time would have been in 3017, when Gandalf found the scroll of Isildur. [Author’s note.]
10 This is a reference to Gandalf’s words to Peregrin (The Two Towers III 11): ‘Who knows where the lost Stones of Arnor and Gondor now lie, buried, or drowned deep?’
11 This is a reference to Gandalf’s words after the death of Denethor in The Return of the King V 7, at the end of the chapter. My father’s emendation (arising from the present discussion) of ‘Denethor did not presume to use it’ to ‘Denethor would not presume to use it’ was (apparently by mere oversight) not incorporated in the revised edition. See the Introduction, p. 18.
12 Thorongil (‘Eagle of the Star’) was the name given to Aragorn when he served in disguise Ecthelion II of Gondor; see The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (I, iv, The Stewards).
13 The use of the palantíri was a mental strain, especially on men of later days not trained to the task, and no doubt in addition to his anxieties this strain contributed to Dene-thor’s ‘grimness’. It was probably felt earlier by his wife than by others and increased her unhappiness, to the hastening of her death. [Author’s note.]
14 An unplaced marginal note observes that Saruman’s integrity ‘had been undermined by purely personal pride and lust for the domination of his own will. His study of the Rings had caused this, for his pride believed that he could use them, or It, in defiance of any other will. He, having lost any devotion to other persons or causes, was open to the domination of a superior will, to its threats, and to its display of power.’ And moreover he had himself no right to the Orthanc-stone.
15 1998 was the year of the death of Pelendur, Steward of Gondor. ‘After the days of Pelendur the Stewardship became hereditary as a kingship, from father to son or nearest kin,’ The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, I, iv, The Stewards.
16 The case was different in Arnor. Lawful possession of the Stones belonged to the King (who normally used the Stone of Annúminas); but the Kingdom became divided and the high-kingship was in dispute. The Kings of Arthedain, who were plainly those with the just claim, maintained a special warden at Amon Sûl, whose Stone was held to be the chief of the Northern palantíri, being the largest and most powerful and the one through which communication with Gondor was mainly conducted. After the destruction of Amon Sûl by Angmar in 1409 both Stones were placed at Fornost, where the King of Arthedain dwelt. These were lost in the shipwreck of Arvedui, and no deputy was left with any authority direct or inherited to use the Stones. One only remained in the North, the Elendil Stone on Emyn Beraid, but this was one of special properties, and not employable in communications. Hereditary right to use it would no doubt still reside in the ‘heir of Isildur’, the recognized chieftain of the Dúnedain, and descendant of Arvedui. But it is not known whether any of them, including Aragorn, ever looked into it, desiring to gaze into the lost West. This Stone and its tower were maintained and guarded by Círdan and the Elves of Lindon. [Author’s note.] – It is told in Appendix A (I, iii) to The Lord of the Rings that the palantír of Emyn Beraid ‘was unlike the others and not in accord with them; it looked only to the Sea. Elendil set it there so that he could look back with “straight sight” and see Eressëa in the vanished West; but the bent seas below covered Númenor for ever.’ Elendil’s vision of Eressëainthe palantír of Emyn Beraid is told of also in Of the Rings of Power (The Silmarillion p. 292); ‘it is believed that thus he would at whiles see far away even the Tower of Avallónë upon Eressëa, where the Master-stone