XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: omeallymd@geemail.com   
      
   On 2019-02-20 19:56:41 +0000, Thomas Koenig said:   
      
   >>   
   >   
   > So, why didn't Gandalf use the Stone of Emyn Beraid?   
      
   We don't know that he never looked into it, but in that it is never   
   mentioned I suspect he did not. My guess is that first of all, the   
   palantíri weren't common knowledge, unless one was versed in the lore   
   of Númenor. We tend to think of Gandalf as always having being a   
   general loremaster, but in the essay "The Palantíri" it states that   
   Gandalf only started to take an interest in the lore of Gondor after   
   Bilbo found the Ring and Sauron's return to Mordor. That was when he   
   started to visit Minas Tirith to study its archives and learned much   
   about the palantíri, though he was focused on the lore of the Rings of   
   Power. Not to say he did not already know of the stones through his   
   alliance with Elrond. Secondly, by that time he likely had so much else   
   to keep him occupied that he never got around to it. Sort of like his   
   never getting to sit for a long chat with Bombadil until after the War.   
   When the Orthanc Stone was briefly in his possession, only then is   
   there the mention of his temptation to look into it, though he really   
   had no right to use it and quickly surrendered it to Aragorn.   
      
   --   
   Bill O'Meally   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)