XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: omeallymd@geemail.com   
      
   On 2019-02-18 16:17:35 +0000, Stan Brown said:   
      
   >>   
   >   
   > Come to think of it, was it already useless? In some sense, Aman and   
   > Tol Eressëa were taken out of the round Earth at the end of the   
   > Second Age. Could a Stone see them from Middle-earth?   
   >>   
      
   Very much so. Recall the hobbits' encounter with Gildor and company   
   after their encounter with the Black Rider in the Shire. Tolkien states   
   in _The Road Goes Ever On_  (pp 73-4) that the Elves were journeying   
   back to Rivendell throught The Shire after going to the Tower Hills to   
   look into the Stone for just such purpose.   
      
   "The High-Elves (such as did not dwell in or near the Havens) journeyed   
   to the Tower Hills at intervals to look afar at Eressëa (the Elvish   
   isle) and the Shores of Valinor, close to which it lay.... No doubt   
   Gildor and his companions (...),since they appear to have been going   
   eastward, were Elves living in or near Rivendell returning from the   
   palantír of the Tower Hills. On such visits they were sometimes   
   rewarded by a vision, clear but remote, of Elbereth, as a majestic   
   figure, shining white, standing upon the mountain Oiolosse...."   
      
   The same source reiterates that after the fall of Elendil (assuming   
   that to mean the *House* of Elendil), the High-Elves took back this   
   Stone into their own care. But again, as caretakers, should they not   
   have returned their charge to the rightful owner when that House was   
   restored? I mean, the care of the shards of Narsil were also taken up   
   by the High-Elves, but was reforged and returned to Aragorn when his   
   claim to kingship drew nigh.   
   --   
   Bill O'Meally   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)