Q: Did Fëanor Make All the Palantirs?
ANSWER: Readers cannot agree on who made the palantiri, the seeing-stones of Arnor and Gondor. The confusion arises from the ambiguities that Tolkien intentionally introduced into the histories of the stones in the various texts where he mentioned them. In the chapter “The Palantir” in The Two Towers, Gandalf tells Pippin a little about the history of the stones: “The palantíri came from beyond Westernesse from Eldamar. The Noldor made them. Fëanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years.” If Tolkien had left the matter at that most people would probably be content to infer that he was really hinting that Fëanor alone made the stones.
Now, many people point to the story of Fëanor as told in The Silmarillion. In the chapter “Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor”, we read: “The first gems that Fëanor made were white and colourless, but being set under starlight they would blaze with blue and silver fires brighter than Helluin; and other crystals he made also, wherein things far away could be seen small but clear, as with the eyes of the eagles of Manwë.”
While that might seem to clinch the definitive case, there are two texts where Tolkien seems to challenge the idea that Fëanor was the only craftsman who made stones of seeing. The first such text comes from The Road Goes Ever On, which Tolkien and Donald Swann published in 1967 (10 years before Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion). In the end-notes to the book Tolkien wrote:
The Elves in Rivendell could only be said to “gaze afar” in yearning. But actually the form used in the hymn is palandiriel (part part.), “having gazed afar”. This is a reference to the palantir upon the Tower Hills (the “Stone of Elendil”); see note 2 in Appendix A, Vol. III, p. 322. This alone of the palantiri was so made as to look out only west over the Sea. After the fall of Elendil the High-elves took back this Stone into their own care, and it was not destroyed, nor again used by Men.
So let’s stop and think about that for a moment. If Fëanor made all of the seeing stones, why would he make one that could only see westward over the bent seas (which were not bent until long after his death in Middle-earth) to Valinor? The palantir was probably made before the seas were bent but they were given to Elendil (perhaps Amandil) by the Eldar who secretly visited Andúnië before Numenor was destroyed.
The other text that challenges the idea that Fëanor made all the stones was published by Christopher Tolkien in The Peoples of Middle-earth in an essay his father wrote called “Dangweth Pengolodh”. Purportedly written by the Noldorin loremaster Pengolodh, there is a sentence that reads: “Not even the Seeing Stones of the craftsmen of old could wholly unite those that were sundered, and they and the masters that could make them were few.” It should also be noted that there were at least 8 seeing stones, not 7. The essay “The Palantiri” says there was a master stone in Tol Eresseä.
There is, in fact, no statement that definitively declares that Fëanor and Fëanor alone made all the seeing stones. Hence, there is no real contradiction between the various passages that discuss their history. There was more than one Noldorin craftsman who made stones of seeing.
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