Jul 19, 2026 · 1 hr 59 min · 21 segments
After the Kings, Gondor declined into a Middle Age of fading knowledge and simpler skills. Alan and Shawn find that surprisingly familiar. Join The Man of the West and The Lord of the Mark as we begin…
Katie McKennaGuestThe Palantiri were no doubt never matters of common use or common knowledge, even in Númenor.
Only kings and rulers and their appointed wardens had access to them, and they were never consulted nor exhibited publicly.
Their use involved no peril, and no king or other person authorized to survey them would have hesitated to reveal the source of his knowledge of the deeds or opinions of distant rulers if obtained through the stones.
After the days of the kings and the loss of Minas Ithil, there is no further mention of their open and official use.
There was no answering stone left in the north after the shipwreck of Arvedui, last king, in the year 1975.
Two things contributed then to the neglect of the stones and their passing out of the general memory of the people.
It was reasonably assumed that it was destroyed by the defenders before Minas Ithil was captured and sacked, but it was clearly possible that it had been seized and had come into the possession of Sauron, and some of the wiser and more far-seeing may have considered this.
It would appear that they did so and realized that the stone would be of little use to him for the damage of Gondor unless it made contact with another stone that was in accord with it.
It was for this reason it may be supposed that the Anor stone, about which all the records of the stewards are silent until the War of the Ring, was kept as a closely guarded secret, accessible only to the ruling stewards and never by them used, it seems, until Denethor II.
The second reason was the decay of Gondor and the waning of interest in or knowledge of ancient history among all but a few even of the high men of the realm.
Gondor, after the kings, declined into a middle age of fading knowledge and simpler skills.
And before we start with our discussion, I think we should first mention what Christopher Tolkien explained in the introduction to Unfinished Tales about this section.
And that is between the first edition of Lord of the Rings, which came out, remember, 1954 and 1955-
The Palantiri were no doubt never matters of common use or common knowledge, even in Númenor.
Only kings and rulers and their appointed wardens had access to them, and they were never consulted nor exhibited publicly.
Their use involved no peril, and no king or other person authorized to survey them would have hesitated to reveal the source of his knowledge of the deeds or opinions of distant rulers if obtained through the stones.
After the days of the kings and the loss of Minas Ithil, there is no further mention of their open and official use.
There was no answering stone left in the north after the shipwreck of Arvedui, last king, in the year 1975.
Two things contributed then to the neglect of the stones and their passing out of the general memory of the people.
It was reasonably assumed that it was destroyed by the defenders before Minas Ithil was captured and sacked, but it was clearly possible that it had been seized and had come into the possession of Sauron, and some of the wiser and more far-seeing may have considered this.
It would appear that they did so and realized that the stone would be of little use to him for the damage of Gondor unless it made contact with another stone that was in accord with it.
It was for this reason it may be supposed that the Anor stone, about which all the records of the stewards are silent until the War of the Ring, was kept as a closely guarded secret, accessible only to the ruling stewards and never by them used, it seems, until Denethor II.
The second reason was the decay of Gondor and the waning of interest in or knowledge of ancient history among all but a few even of the high men of the realm.
Gondor, after the kings, declined into a middle age of fading knowledge and simpler skills.
And before we start with our discussion, I think we should first mention what Christopher Tolkien explained in the introduction to Unfinished Tales about this section.
And that is between the first edition of Lord of the Rings, which came out, remember, 1954 and 1955-
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