Palantir, and Luciferian Stone

Alexander J. Ford

Spring, 2025

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A Foreword:

 

In the summer of 1955, Tolkien received a letter from the poet W.H. Auden, writing to inform him that Auden had been asked to appear on a broadcast later that fall—to speak on the Lord of the Rings. Being both a friend and an early champion of Tolkien’s work (against a backdrop of rather hostile literary criticism) Auden kindly inquired after any specific points that Tolkien might like him to make on the program. He also asked if Tolkien would supply him a few ‘human touches,’ that is, anecdotes about the process of authoring of the Lord of the Rings. 

 

Now, Auden had the unfortunate habit of throwing away letters that were sent to him once he’d read them, and so Tolkien’s reply may well have been consigned to the bin—were it not for the fact that a carbon-paper copy of this particular correspondence was kept by Tolkien in his own files.

 

Near the end of the professor's response—during the course of which Tolkien recounts some charming ‘discoveries’ that he made in first drafting the story (confessing for example that he was as mystified as Frodo was when Gandalf failed to meet them at the Prancing Pony), we encounter a most interesting bit of information regarding the origin of the Palantíri. Tolkien writes:

 

“I knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the ‘rhyme of lore’ that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree.”

 

As with any good philologist, a carefully placed word rarely has just the one meaning. That he ‘recognized’ the rock of Orthanc to be one of the seven is to say of course that this particular group of alliterative lines had been with him for some time. The specific significance of the seven stones in the history of Gondor, however, was not revealed until later when it first occurred to Tolkien to write that a curious black stone was flung from the window of Saruman’s high house at the destruction of Isengard.

 

But there is, I think, another reason why Tolkien may have chosen to say that he ‘recognized’ the stone. There is an unmistakable similarity between the wizard Saruman’s divining orb; the holy stone in the mysterious spire, which is the secret source of some knowledge concerning things that are otherwise occluded; and historic traditions of similar divining stones. But then, 'similarity' is a perhaps poorly chosen word. Likeness, maybe, or 'alignment' perhaps would be most appropriate—nearest, that is, to the methodology that Tolkien so carefully observed. Tolkien’s work is not a representation of history, but rather, is in alignment with it. And it is on account of that alignment that the very same scholarly rigor which we afford to the study of the great poetic works of history can be authentically applied to Middle-earth as well, and yield such wonderful fruit. 

 

In unfolding the historical context that gave rise to this particular literary thread in Middle-earth, the purpose is not to remove the mystery from Tolkien, but, to point with clarity toward the place where the roots of that mystery really lie. And so one wonders after the full extent the historical milieu in which Tolkien may have recognized his Palantíri, and beyond, if there is something essential in the nature of the Seeing-Stones that can be clarified by regarding them as a reflection of the broader landscape of Indo-European symbolism. This is our task. 

 

But first: what exactly does Tolkien say of his stones? A quick survey of what's written in the primary source will serve. With that to guide us we may turn to the Anglo-Saxon materials and then tread backward, in search of the Indo-European spring from which many of Tolkien's mythopoeic devices flow.

 

 

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The Text

 

The first appearance of a Seeing Stone occurs at the conclusion of Book III in the Two Towers. After Saruman’s voice fails to enchant the company he shrinks away in defeat from the iron balcony, through the shuttered window, and out of sight. Just then, at the precise moment that utter ruin folds around Saruman like a mantle:

 

“…a heavy shining thing came hurtling down from above. It glanced off the iron rail, even as Saruman left it, and passing close to Gandalf’s head, it smote the stair on which he stood. The rail rang and snapped. The stair cracked and splintered in glittering sparks. But the ball was unharmed: it rolled on down the steps, a globe of crystal, dark, but glowing with a heart of fire. As it bounded away towards a pool Pippin ran after it and picked it up.”

 

This is the Orthanc-stone, one of the seven Stones of Kings. Of course the very name 'Palantír' is a Quenya compound comprising Tir meaning ‘to watch,’ and Palan, meaning ‘far and wide.’ While they ride for Minas Tirith Gandalf recalls some of the stones’ history to Pippin. He defines the name as ‘that which looks far away.’ 

 

In the beginning there were more than seven of these stones, though how many is unknown. They were wrought in Valinor (‘maybe’ by Fëanor himself, Gandalf postulates), far to the west beyond Westernesse in days most ancient, before the first rising of the moon. In truth the Palantíri were precursors to those greater jewels, the Silmarils, for before them, Tolkien tells us that Fëanor crafted “other crystals… wherein things far away could be seen small but clear.” For now however, we’ll set the linkage between the Silmarils and the Palantíri aside. So much for their origins: In the divine lands of the utter west, in the early days of the world, above and beyond the art of Saruman—Gandalf tells us—“and beyond Sauron’s too.” 

 

Stepping a bit forward in the history of the stones (to manage the scope somewhat) we turn our attention to the Fall of Númenor. Tolkien tells us in the final pages of his Unfinished Tales that some number of Palantíri had been made an “inalienable gift” by the elves of Valinor to Elendil’s bloodline, beginning with his father. When Númenor was destroyed, seven of those stones were saved and carried east over the sea. It is unclear whether the seven that survived were indeed all of the stones given to Elendil's line, or, whether some of that number perished in Númenor and only seven were able to be preserved. In either case, Elendil carried three and his two sons Isildur and Anárion carried two each. In passing we might observe that this episode gently calls to mind the rescue of the Penates by Anchises, carried out of the sack of Troy by Aeneas and his son Ascanius. Perhaps a subject for another time.

 

Elendil and his sons founded two kingdoms of Númenorean heritage in Middle-earth: Arnor in the north, and Gondor in the south. His three stones Elendil positioned in Arnor. One at the tower on Amon Sûl or Weathertop toward the Misty Mountains, another at the city of Annúminas north of the lands that would later be called the Shire, and one at the tower of Elostirion, west of the Shire-lands to overlook the sea. His sons placed their four in Gondor: one at Orthanc in the ring of Isengard, one in the white tower of Minas Tirith. Another in the sister tower at Minas Ithil, and the fourth was placed under the Dome of the Stars in Osgiliath, on the river Anduin. This was the initial configuration of the Seeing-Stones as Elendil’s line placed them, establishing both cities and fortifications, we might say, with black stones as their symbolic foundations. 

 

In the Unfinished Tales Tolkien also provides us with a detailed description of the Palantíri's function in scrying. We learn that each stone has two poles, which must be aligned to the poles of the earth in order to sit "upright." Properly oriented, the stones function like lenses through which a skilled scryer can peer in order to gain sight over a remote location. To look into the west, he explains, one must stand on the opposite side of the stone and peer through it into the west, like a lens, and so on. 

 

For our purposes, we ought to step back a moment and summarize the critical qualities of the Palantíri: Their origins lie in a mystical land, long ago and far away deep in the west. This was the land where the celestial beings of creation made their home in the earthly realm. The stones were carried to Middle-earth oversea, gifts from the elvish race of forerunners, and became symbols of the royal lineage of men. The stones were viewed as the birthright of the Kings, of the house of Elendil—as Gandalf named them: "The Stones of Kings." They were initially positioned in a foundational capacity in building the kingdoms of men. Perfectly spherical, black in color "like glass" or "crystal," and possessed of an inner fire, the stones could be used to divine special knowledge through scrying; through esoteric vision or sight. Each exhibited a microcosmic quality, according to its form ("globes," Tolkien called them) and, according to the proper alignment of its poles with those of earth. 

 

Of course we know Tolkien's Palantíri are, on the face, something of an early-modern picture of divination; the magician gazing into his crystal ball. And we understand, as Tom Shippey carefully detailed in the final pages of The Road to Middle Earth, that the Palantíri serve to make a point about the perils of speculation, there in the text. But by digging much further into the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic ideas surrounding precious stones, and their eventual uses for diviners, and through revealing a linkage between those ideas, coronation rituals, and foundation rituals, it will become clear that the Palantíri exhibit a far more complex relationship to historical traditions than Tolkien scholars may yet have recognized.

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The Crystal Ball in Antiquity

 

How interesting it was to discover that the publisher of both the Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings—Allen & Unwin—also published Audrey L. Meaney’s review of Anglo-Saxon grave sites in 1964. Of specific interest in her gazetteer are the inclusions of small spheres of quartz crystal (and other precious stones) with funerary deposits—usually in the graves of women. Many examples have been discovered, and hang now among the jewelry exhibits and the funerary exhibits in museums across England. By 1981, Meaney produced a more in-depth survey of funerary rites, but also of amulets, charms, and the healing practices of the Anglo-Saxons. Wondering after the history and origins of the crystal ball as we know it today, to compare to the works of Tolkien, there's hardly a better place to begin. After all, it's very unlikely that analogous artifacts like the Kingmoor Ring with its apotropaic inscription were somehow unknown to the professor.

 

It is typical to find that grave deposits were associated with the body in terms of the object’s use. For example, a bronze ring found near the finger bones, a brooch unearthed lying near the collar bone, a necklace at the throat. The crystal ball of the Anglo-Saxons was of a size appropriate to rest within the palm of the hand. It was usually set into a pair of metal bands and fitted with a loop at the top, in order that it could be hung from a chain or cord. Curiously, its canonical position in the grave is below the waist in the area of the knees. Scholarly consensus holds that such positioning is an indication that these objects were worn hanging like pendants from the belt. That is all well and good.

 

The oldest crystal balls discovered in England date to the late 5th century, commensurate with the expansion of Germanic-speaking settlement in England from the mainland. We find, as well, similar crystal balls in Germanic graves behind on the continent—also positioned between the knees. These continental amulets are distributed along the Rhine, around the Upper Danube, and even as far as France, suggesting both that the tradition of their use was widespread, and further, that they were brought over to England very early on by the Anglo-Saxons in accordance with a well established practice. 

 

Some four hundred years prior, in the first century AD, similar crystal ball amulets begin to appear in Sarmatia, in Hungary. The very oldest crystal balls of this particular type yet identified were unearthed in Greco-Scythian graves dated to the third and fourth century BC; some eight hundred years before the Anglo-Saxons first carried them to England. So we can begin to understand just by taking stock of the archaeological record that there was apparently a set of deeply related traditions, which made use of strikingly similar crystal ball amulets all across the Germanic world. Moreover, those traditions seem to have been inherited by the Germanics from an earlier source. 

 

Several questions begin to weigh on us at this point: what essential significance was afforded to the crystal ball, such that it was so widely known? What was it used for, and how was it used? In order to answer these questions, several far-reaching trains of thought will have to proceed more or less in-tandem. First, that the ancients held the nature of precious stones to be fundamentally tied to the element of water. Second, that water—on account of symbolic associations with light, and thereby with translucence and reflectivity—has long been among the principle vehicles for divination. And third, owing to a certain affinity for the sun exhibited by no other stones than gemstones, that the gemstone was believed in one way or another to confer a warming, curative effect to the body. We will examine all three together, and see then what can be learned about the heritage of Tolkien's Seeing Stones at last.

 

In the fourth century AD a curious poem appears, written in Greek, called the Orphic Lithica. The most recent English edition of this work (at the time of writing) is a lyrical translation conducted by Charles William King in 1880. The poem details many precious stones and their uses both medicinally and ritualistically—among them, of course, is the crystal. We learn here that the crystal was used in a kind of liturgical fashion; that the gods would be more likely to acquiesce the prayers of those who held crystal balls in-hand. We learn too that the crystal was taken to bear a strong likeness to the sun on account of its special ability to conjure fire from daylight, when clear and therefore ‘most virtuous.’ Next we are told that the crystal—despite its sympathetic bond to the sun and ability to produce flame—remains icy-cold to the touch even if plucked directly from the fire. This quality is perhaps best understood in the sense that the crystal, if used like a lens to focus sunlight and kindle a flame, never itself heats up to such a degree; throughout the process it can be handled and can thus plucked, 'cold, from the fire.' And finally, Orpheus tells us that the stone has its medical uses, particularly for allaying sickness of the liver. In the Lithica, then, we can already see all three trains of thought well-formed. There is the particular in-dwelling fire, a magical icy or watery quality, and, a curative, healing function.

 

Recall that by the time the Orphic Lithica is authored, crystal ball amulets have been present in Germanic graves all across Northern Europe for at least three hundred years, and will travel to England with the Anglo-Saxons in only a few decades. We will reproduce the entire relevant section here, beginning at line 170:

 

Take in the pious hand the Crystal bright

Transparent image of the Eternal Light, 

Pleased with its lustre, every god shall hear

Thy vows with favour and concede thy prayer.

But how to test the virtue of the stone, 

A certain way I will to thee make known:

Without fire’s aid to raise the flame divine,

This wondrous gem lay on thou splintered pine;

Forthwith, reflecting the bright orb of day,

Upon the wood it shoots a slender ray,

Caught by the unctuous fuel this shall raise

First smoke, then sparks, and last a mighty blaze.

Such we the fire of ancient Vesta name,

Loved by the immortal all, a holy flame;

No fire terrestrial with such grateful fumes,

The fatted victim on their hearth consumes.

Yet though of fire the source, strange to be told,

Snatch from the flame the stone—’tis icy cold!

Girt round his loins with this, the sufferer gains

A sure relief from nephritic pains.

 

Three hundred years before this poem was authored, we can find some of these same themes in Rome—most prominently the likeness between crystal and ice—which indicates that such ideas were, even in those days, likely matters of diffuse and common knowledge. Perhaps the author of the Lithica was referencing Roman writers directly. In book 37 of his Natural History, Pliny writes: “Crystal is only to be found in places where the winter snow freezes with the greatest intensity.” He goes on to propose that the root of the Ancient Greek word 'κρύσταλλος' (krustallos), from kruos, or “cold,” alludes to this fact. For our purposes Pliny affirms that the watery quality of crystal was not a Roman invention, but rather, was held in some degree to have been learned from the Greeks. Prior, in book 36 when discussing the formation of specular stones Pliny likewise includes the following aside: “It would appear that this substance is originally a liquid, which, by an animating power in the earth, becomes congealed like crystal…” 

 

He goes on to make several points, among which is that crystal was esteemed in particular by ladies—a curious conjunction with their later disposition in the graves of Germanic women. He observes too that crystal bears a striking resemblance to a certain set of stones called ceraunia, or ‘thunderstones.’ Without delving too far into the particulars, it’s worth noting that a thunderstone is a fixture of many Indo-European lapidary traditions. They were believed to have been formed either by lightning striking the earth, or, to have fallen from the heavens with the strike of lightning. Recall the way in which Tolkien chose to reveal the rock of Orthanc—falling unexplained from the sky. According to some folk customs which hold that lightning never strikes the same place twice, ceraunaie were often present in various apotropaic contexts—architectural, talismanic, and so on. 

 

A final comment as it pertains to Pliny’s treatment; there a contemporary treatise by Dioscorides (De Materia Medica) in which he adds to Pliny’s picture that the special hardening process which is imagined to render crystal from ice, is facilitated by the activity of the rays of the sun. And so again, between Pliny and Dioscrorides we see all three trains of thought. The triad of crystal-water-sun will emerge much later as a fixture of Medieval literature, with the solar component linked to the body.

 

Continuing for the moment with our consideration of the crystal ball in a Roman context, we will suddenly have to step forward quite a bit to find a commentary on Livy, dated 1617, by de Vignere. This work contains a list of artifacts allegedly discovered in a Roman urn, and included in the list are two crystal balls; "deux pommes des crystall, une autre moindre." Similarly, a 1729 treatise by a Montfaucon describes twenty crystal balls discovered in an urn beneath a house, just outside Rome. However, neither account seems well-evidenced. Meaney, however, was convinced that despite the fact that the crystal ball’s esoteric significance could be traced back in the direction of Scythian heritage (and thereby, toward the Pontic-Caspian steppe), the Germanics must have encountered it first among the Romans. She writes: "even if the crystal balls originated in the Black Sea area or further east, probably they ... were transmitted to the Germans mainly through the Romans ..." 

 

And yet, we know that by the time Pliny describes the virtue of the crystal, they are already being buried in Sarmatian graves. By the time the Lithica appears, the Germanic tradition covers Northern Europe and reaches Scandinavia. Even if we were to take up the position that the Romans were the source of the Germanic tradition(s), surely there would be more archaeological evidence than, apparently, none at all. And so, as-to the issue of origin, here we must content ourselves instead to gaze wistfully in the direction of Scythia. 

 

More likely than a Roman source for the Germanic amulets per se, it may be, that the Indo-European lapidary lore of the earlier Romans either did not preserve, or did not foment the amuletic crystal balls that we find with such commonality among the Germanics. The Germanics, on the other hand, would perhaps either have developed the amulets and disseminated them among their progeny in Northern Europe, or, inherited them more directly from a Scythian source. So it seems, and so we return to the issue of the Germanic crystal ball and its usage.

 

What little scholarly discourse has been afforded to puzzling over the purpose of these amulets through the years, has been complicated somewhat on account of the fact that a large portion of crystal balls found in Anglo-Saxon graves are curiously, and deliberately, associated with another item. As it happens, many crystal pendants are not unearthed alone, but rather, are found resting within the bowl of an ornate spoon—that is, having been placed in the spoon to form a pairing. These spoons are often richly decorated, and made of silver or leafed in gold. Further, they typically exhibit perforations in the bottom of the bowl (sometimes arranged in an emblematic shape). These perforations have led scholars to refer to them as ‘sieve spoons.’ Therefore, any proper understanding of the significance of the crystal ball among the Anglo-Saxons and their Germanic cousins must account for its relation to the sieve spoon.

 

As is so-often the case with modern scholarship there is ample work to the effect of cataloging instances of these artifacts in the material record. However when it comes to understanding the purpose of the object, thoughts are relatively scant—and what of it there is, is hardly satisfactory. Meaney, for her part, only advances few suggestions as-if in formality, in the final paragraphs of her otherwise exhaustive survey. She suggests that they bear some similarity to wine-straining or mead straining utensils, as others had also noted. Therefore, perhaps only women wealthy enough to afford to import wine, or, to be buried in graves so richly as the ones in which these items are found, fancied such ornamental straining utensils. It follows that they took some pleasure in displaying their sieve spoons on their belts as a show of station. Perhaps sensing the credulity required of such a disappointing explanation, a passing reference to the Beowulf is supplied, in support of the idea that even in wealthy contexts it was taken as the duty of the woman of the house to serve the drink. 

 

With this explanation no mind is paid to the fact that the so-called ‘sieve’ spoons often exhibit perforations too small or scarce to adequately strain a serving of wine or mead at all. One finds it difficult to imagine pouring a glass of wine through some of these spoons, in increments. While it’s true that the spoons do bear some resemblance to strainers, we would suggest instead that the resemblance is down to the fact that the function served was similar, but was not at all the same. Most damning however is that such an explanation disregards the presence of the crystal ball entirely; an item which was quite plainly of high value, and, as we have seen, was the specific subject of at least eight centuries' worth of metaphysical reverence—likely more.

 

In truth there has been a fair amount of argument between a relative handful of scholars on these subjects. Some hold that there is no evidence for the use of crystals in any magical context prior to the advent of Christianity—a position which is patently mistaken. Others have noted, and quite rightly so, that the obvious explanation for the crystal-spoon pairing in Germanic graves points toward the well-documented practice of preparing healing concoctions by ‘steeping’ a precious stone in certain medicinal tinctures. The process, sometimes called silvering, involves dipping the crystal into a cup—or an entire well—thereby conferring some benefit. The tincture is then consumed. In other versions, ‘scrapings’ of crystal or gemstone are prepared in the tincture to be drank. It’s much more likely that the sieve spoon was used to wash or pour-over the crystal in the medicinal tincture, and on account of that, these items are so tightly associated in the graves. In light of all this, we ought to plainly dispense with Meaney’s contention that the spoon and crystal ball were only loosely independent symbols; that the one served to advertise a woman’s role as the pourer-of-wine, and that the other was a fire-symbol that laxly associated the woman with tending the household. 

 

What is clear is that both the spoon and the crystal ball are assimilated to some healing function according to a qualitative, watery mechanism. It’s along this line of rationale that we can begin to fold in a discussion of the gemstone’s role in divination. When, then, did the crystal ball first become an object for speculation (specularii); for scrying; how old is the notion of crystal-gazing? Quite simply: It's difficult to argue for a date much earlier than the Renaissance. Forays further into history uncover traditions that are noticeably less concerned with peering into a crystal ball or gemstone, and instead, which are more concerned with other surfaces or objects that exhibit an esoteric relationship to light. It appears that later, only, did the mystical importance of precious stones acquire this particular 'modern' function. Prior to the Renaissance the gemstone, in the medieval canon that is, appears instead to function primarily as a healing object more-so than a focus for speculation. By contrast the most common historical implement for divination by gazing—or speculation—is surely a bowl of water; a scrying dish. But also frequently employed are mirrors, fingernails, ink poured in the hands, and even in some instances, the polished blade of a sword. Upon reflection it’s not altogether difficult to understand how the higher crystal-lore in medicine might have unraveled into the lower art of crystallomancy in divination.

 

Elsewhere I have attempted to describe a certain tendency toward involution, saying that once there was a theurgic dance, now there is only idiotic motion. Eliade and Hall have both discussed the same idea after their own fashion, far better than I, as did Cioran, as has any with eyes to see and the gall to look. The ritual often persists long after the purpose of the ritual has dissolved into the mist history. The theurgic dance here, if you will, can be thought of as the notion of the gemstone as it was to the natural philosophers. Over many centuries these ideas are preserved, even if they are not well understood: The gemstone, though earthy, is at once alike to water; that it enjoys some special relationship to the sun, evidenced in its brilliance, in its in-dwelling or esoteric fire; not unlike the body itself; clay, animated by spiritual fire and living water, and that the gemstone is an agent of the Indo-European solar healing traditions. But because of these magico-religious healing properties, it seems that the gemstone came to be regarded as an object of 'divine knowledge.’ On account of that decadent generalization, it is suddenly positioned to fall prey (during the Renaissance, as the case here may be) to a more vulgar mentality. As an object of divine gnosis, it might be scrutinized in the form of a proto-materialistic art, and be made to render special knowledge to some mundane practitioner. And so we arrive at the image of a crystal ball so well known today: A thing from which charlatans purport to wring data for the benefit of credulous customers. Protestant hammers and chisels, then, lay only just around the corner. So the mill turns. 

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Wolfram's Grail-stone

 

At this point, it's prudent to focus our attention on a certain detail only hinted at thus far: the perception of a metaphysical link between the body and the gemstone. It’s from this vantage—having isolated what is essential to the symbolism of the heavenly stone—that Tolkien’s Palantíri will reemerge in rather fascinating consistency with the mystical character of foundation stones. Nowhere is this set of occult, poetic ideas more eloquently assembled than in Wolfram von Eschenbach's 12th century epic Parzival.

 

Parzival has often confused scholars. In the Grail legends—that is, in the series of medieval texts that crop up from France, to England, to Germany (all within about 25 years of one another) which are concerned with the Holy Grail, Parzival is utterly unique. In all other Grail traditions, the object itself is of course some sort of dish, cup, serving platter, goblet, or what have you. Linked to the Christian Passion, the Grail is either the very cup from which Christ offered his blood at the last supper, or, was used to collect blood and water from his wound upon the cross. According to many, these cups are one and the same. In Parzival however, the Grail is a stone. 

 

G. Ronald Murphy has done fantastic scholarship on the subject where before there was little; toward the end of positioning Wolfram’s Grail-stone not as a thing we must chalk up to the eccentricity of its author, but rather, as a symbol that bears a great deal of resonance with the Christian tradition. “Wolfram’s stone Grail,” Murphy observes with disappointment, “is often allowed by scholars of Grail legend to disappear quietly into the waste forest of mystifying and unintelligible metaphor.” Understanding the Grail-stone as an extension of earlier Indo-European lapidary lore, albeit in a Christianized form, then, we can turn to Evola’s treatise on the Grail Mystery and its Hyperborean roots. But first, what of Wolfram and his stone?

 

In surveying the litany of qualities and abilities that Wolfram apportions to his Grail-stone, Murphy first recognizes three essential functions. For one, many qualities of the Grail-stone align it with the blessed sacrament of the altar. For two, the Grail-stone is quite clearly assimilated to the holy sepulcher in Jerusalem. And finally, the Grail-stone is evidently a metaphor for the body of Christ himself. “The only rock I can think of that can fulfill all these requirements,” he concludes, “including that of being the Holy Sepulcher in a sense both metaphorical and yet real, is the altar stone.”

 

The altar stone in this context refers to the increasing pressure for Christians to be able to consecrate a table for Mass during the Crusading eras. It was something of a problem for pilgrims and crusaders to find a sensible way to perform the associated rituals abroad—often times on board a ship or in foreign lands far from a church, for example. Where before mass took place at a fixed location; where the consecration was established architecturally, and, according to the permanent disposition and enshrinement of reliquaries, by Wolfram’s era ‘portable altars’ had become quite popular across Europe. Hardly a museum on the continent is absent a lavishly decorated example of just such an altar. 

 

In short, the portable altar was a microcosmic object that, when placed on the table, sufficiently consecrated that place for Mass; for the dispensation of the Eucharist. Most altars of this type take the form of a rectangular box, of a size able to be carried by hand, which contained a cutting quite literally called the ‘sepulcher,’ in which a symbolic offering that bore some alikeness to the body of Christ, was deposited. The cutting was then closed by an in-set stone, often a precious stone, as the tomb of Christ was closed. “Many medieval bishops were buried with such portable altars with them,” Murphy explains, “for the journey, and with a very small chalice and paten in their hands. These small chalices and patens were designed to be used directly on the altar stone atop the reliquary box when there was no table at all present.” 

 

Already the reader can begin to understand the full metaphorical scope of such an object: The foundation sacrifice of pre-Christian times, which I have discussed at length elsewhere, has been fully inculturated in one sense. It has taken on the form of Christ’s sacrifice. His body lay literally among the foundations of the Church, and therefore, if you will, the rock and the body both are positioned in the role of the foundation stone of the new City of Ezekiel. In this way all of the Indo-European religious ideas that associate the body of the divine with the birth of the mundane realm, with the origin, structure, and architecture of the cosmos, are re-expressed in the Christian tongue. “Petra autem erat Christus,” writes Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. The stone is Christ. Here, as well, we can start to properly lay our hands around the importance of the fact that Tolkien’s Palantíri are not merely precious stones; they are not merely scrying tools, but also, are models of the earth—unable to function without their two poles properly aligned to the poles of the earth—and further, each of Elendil’s stones are inseparably linked to the foundation of the major cities, and fortifications of the Kingdoms of Men. 

 

As a curious aside, there is a peculiar idea which has persisted on the periphery of the Grail-stone idea, that the Grail was in fact a gem which adorned the crown of Lucifer. The stone was said to have fallen from his crown when he was cast down to earth. This idea was briefly repeated in a playbill for Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, attributed to Wolfram, which scandalized Wagner—as he was aware of its actual provenance. In truth, this story first appears in a 13th century poem titled Wartburtkrieg, in which Wolfram von Eschenbach appears as a fictional character. The unknown author of the Wartburtkrieg thus puts the tale of a gem fallen from Lucifer’s crown into Wolfram’s mouth. It’s that version which the author of Wagner’s playbill mistakenly attributed to Wolfram, and on this account Wagner had the bill quickly amended. What historical interest the episode may have aside, one cannot help but see that Tolkien was aware of this parallel tradition, when he recounted that Beren and Lúthien pried the radiant Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth. 

 

The usage of precious stones in healing arts is an idea that withstood the passage of time, and even the onset of the Christian millennium in Europe. In fact, the Church on several occasions weighed in on the question of whether or not such use of precious stones constituted heresy—against the idea. It’s well established that the miraculous character of the gemstone was self-evident enough, and strong enough to the Medieval mind that it merited ecclesiastical sanction. On one such occasion, at the Council of Sens in France, 1140 A.D., Peter Abelard was rebuked by edict for suggesting, erroneously, that it was the Devil who put the idea in mens’ minds that various herbs and stones have uses in healing procedures. 

 

We know Thomas Aquinas held to the mystical importance of this train of thought, connecting as he did the stone to the body of Christ. Scholars, priests, theologians, and educated types of all position were in general accord with the magical picture of the gemstone. But moreover, and as we see in Wolfram, the Grail-stone was more than a magical object per-se, it “evoked Eden;” it was of Eden, and therefore, exemplified a purer Heavenly character. For this reason does it facilitate the passage of light—a miracle after a fashion—and one which was important not just in the literary realm, but also in the realm of architectural consecration; we come back around to the superposition of gemstone, Grail, and foundation sacrifice. Writing to clarify the theological linkage between light and stone in the age of Wolfram, Murphy explains: 

 

“It was [Abbot Suger] who did more than any other person to give us the miraculously translucent walls of the stone building we call the Gothic Cathedral. It was he who delighted in showing, like Wolfram, that light is sufficiently related to divinity that it can pass through stone. … When he dedicated [Saint Denis Cathedral] in Paris, he even had the king and all the notaries present each place their own stones in the foundation walls propriis manibus, with their own hands, thus identifying themselves with the light-transmitting walls of the building.”

 

The Abbot Suger, in his own work De Consecratione, describes the process of raising the cathedral walls. Some of those who placed stones even brought gemstones and laid them among the foundations, singing as they did: Lapides Preciosi Omnes Muri Tui. All your walls are precious stones. Murphy again notes that in doing so they deliberately identified “themselves in the language of the new church style as being the stones of a heavenly and translucent Jerusalem in the north.”

 

Many bishops and Abbesses wrote on the specific virtues of each variety of precious stone, committing them to a Christian canon of mysticism which carried intellectual weight in those days. In the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo we find a clear exposition of the train of thought that positions the Grail-stone not just as the heritage of Paradise, but more specifically, in the waters of Paradise. His commentary on the book of Genesis includes a curious passage on the subject. St. Augustine explains that God fashioned mankind de limo terrae; of the [clay of the] earth, and takes care to point out that by clay, water is deliberately intoned—not simply dust; linking the Christian idea with the great maze of mythopoeic thought that went before; unknowing, perhaps, but nevertheless in-conistency with the Indo-European traditions that persisted in the European mind for millennia. In our survey of the symbolism of the index finger, we explored the deep connections between water, blood, hepatocentrism, and the Hyperborean healing tradition. For now, the point is only to apprehend that in this Medieval discussion of the gemstone we hear again echoes of some familiar ideas: Wetness defines life, dryness defines death. It's a thought process which is evidenced throughout the Indo-European languages, and signals to us that we are dealing with a deeply ancient principle. This notion we have termed “Two-Bloodedness,” in the foregoing studies: the blood-flowing; fiery, vital, and red on the one hand, on the other the blood spilt, dried, bruised, and cold. The former renders us the words for ichor, liver, and life, and the latter rendering us the words for cold, corpse, etc. And so St. Augustine calls his readers’ attention to the fact that mankind was of an elemental commixture, which defines liveliness: limus enim aquae ac terrae comixtio est. “Just as water collects and coagulates the earth together in a mixture of water and earth, thus creating clay,” he explains, “in the same way the living-spirit [anima] of the body gives life to the material of the body, thus holding it together in harmonious unity and not permitting the body to fall into dissolution.” 

 

Following this discussion Augustine goes on to describe the river of Paradise, which irrigates the garden and thereafter is divided into the four major rivers that flow over the face of the earth, according to the Medieval picture. This heavenly gemstone; its formation in the high places of the world, as ice, and flowing down into the world takes on now a similar character. Originating in the celestial realm, the river of Paradise communicates the sacred stones—which, like the human body, and like the body of Christ are at once of earth and water; which are ‘invigorated’ in this way, and so are of course attributed healing powers, restorative powers, etc—down into the mortal realm. We can understand in this way too, quite simply, how the watery nature of the stone is superimposed with this picture of an in-dwelling or esoteric fire—enlivened or ensouled after the same qualitative mechanism as-is man himself, the stone exhibits an analogous fiery anima. 

 

Tolkien’s description of the Palantíri perhaps returns to the reader’s mind, here again, for he described the stone as having just such an in-dwelling fire. Not to be remiss, either, we pause to take note that the Medieval picture of the eye; of the function of light and sight; involved rays of light being emitted directly from the viewing source, and acting upon the object to be viewed. The eye was not, as we understand it today, believed to be a passive receptor of light. Rather, the eye and the sun were much the same, the eye of man and the solar eye of God, emitted light out into the world watchfully. It’s hardly necessary to gesture toward the surveilling eye aflame atop the tower, away in Tolkien's utter East. Rather, we observe that the Palantíri’s inner fire and far-seeing function, together with the eye-ignited all share in this confluence of ideas. It's most consistent with historical thought, that Tolkien's seeing-stones involve an in-dwelling light and therefore a special correspondence with sight. 

 

"The Carbuncle and the Leek-green stone," St. Augustine writes of the river of Paradise "are there." Glossing over the fact that these two stones and their respective colors are central to Wolfram’s depiction of the Grail-stone and of its procession, we can move forward briefly to the lapidary writing of St. Hildegard of Bingen. Her lifetime may well have overlapped Wolfram’s own, at the end. Hildegard develops the ideas of St. Aquinas, repeated by Albertus Magnus, with roots in Rome and further, as we have suggested to Greece wherefrom they were carried, and so on. The following passage from Murphy’s study on the subject will suffice to summarize, and release us back to the more obscure issue of the Palantíri’s role as foundation stones. He explains:

 

“Wolfram uses all four threads of the Christian tradition on gems: he uses Augustine’s gem-laden rivers of Eden for the Grail and Gahmuret; Hildegard’s for the medicinal maintenance of keeping Anfortas alive; Bishop Marble’s for the analogy of person and gem, for Parzival and Conwiramurs. He uses the more scientific tradition found in Albertus Magnus, in Arnoldus Saxo, and even in the later Thomas Aquinas to establish the nature of all gems as water, water that will culminate in the ruby and jasper gems of the flowing baptismal font, and in the tears of repentance, compassion, and happiness."

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Elendil, and the Stones in Exile

 

There has been much discussion over the term Lapis Exilis, by which Wolfram names the Grail-stone. In comparing the tradition to Tolkien, we first wonder—does not the name imply that the Grail-stone was the ‘stone in exile;’ surely here again we find an alignment between Tolkien’s thought and the mythopoeic material of history. The Luciferian Stone, as Evola calls Wolfram’s Grail-stone (and all of the associated scholarship which we have thus-far enumerated, that lies beneath the surface of this symbol), is much the same. Hildegard tells us that Lucifer was covered in gems by God, and seeing his reflection in the mirror, believed himself first God’s equal, and quickly thereafter, his superior—hence the fall, and hence perhaps the notion in the Wartburtkrieg that the Grail-stone fell from Lucifer’s crown. In Evolian terms, the Luciferian stone is only a ‘heavenly stone,’ and in his seminal work on the pre-Christian origins of the themes that characterize the Grail cycle, he first touches on that most confusing name: Lapis Exilis. If it is indeed only meant to characterize the Grail-stone as being of-exile, in the Luciferian sense—light-bringer, that is, the heavenly stone which descended; the precious stone of Paradise, aflame and flowing down from some celestial source—we can obviously connect the Palantíri to the same mythemes. Carried from the land of Valinor, the home of celestials, borne by Elendil in exile from the fall of Númenor into the realm of Middle-earth. 

 

And yet scholars have interpreted the origin or meaning encoded in the term in various ways. Lapis Erilis, or the Lord’s stone; Lapis Elixir, or the alchemical magnum opus; Lapis Betillis, which according to Hagen might be a reference to the sky-fallen stone of Greek lore; or more simply Lapis Ex Coleus, the stone out of the sky. “In reality,” Evola observes with clarity and conviction rare among the institutional scholars of today, “the Grail is susceptible to all of these meanings.” To this grouping of superimposed meanings, and growing out of the belief that through Tolkien we can engage with authentic historical scholarship, we will advance one further, which to our knowledge has yet to be proposed.

 

Following the philological root of the word exilis, we find the same issues that confused early scholars. Exilis is typically translated as ‘thinness,’ or ‘slenderness,’ and so Wolfram’s stone was initially called (somewhat bafflingly) a slender stone. The Latin in fact is a conjunction of two words, the first of which Ex- is self explanatory, but the second of which is most interesting: Iles. If a Greek heritage is accepted, the word descends from something like εἰλεός (Eileos), meaning ‘to shut-in’ or to bind-up, binding perhaps directing us to a critical Proto-Indo-European spiritual idea, but nevermind. In the Pontic-Caspian lineage that root is rendered *welH, or ‘to roll, turn, wind.’ The obvious heavenly connotation is clear—a heavenly stone is of course a stone that could be metaphorically called ‘winding,’ or Exilis, of the turning sky; of the wheel or the mill of the empyrean. Perhaps we are content to stop here. A similar reading would have us halt as well, the stone that rolled ‘out of heaven.’ Fair enough. 

 

And yet, there is a related root in the Proto-Indo-European; *wel-, meaning ‘to see, or perceive.’ And suddenly it’s as if a great door is thrown open. Hundreds of words in all of the Indo-European tongues descend from here; Seeing-Stone, or the stone which watches: Lapis Ex-Iles. 

 

Of course we do not mean to suggest that Tolkien deliberately wove this unbelievably complicated thread all the way through his literary accomplishments, but rather, we mean to make the point with conviction that Tolkien’s work belongs in the company of the great poets of history, because these threads are authentically preserved in Middle-earth, because they are able to be found there just as readily as they are to be found in the archaeologists’ trenches. It is to say that Tolkien’s achievement stands above and apart from modern literature, according to this peerless quality. In setting out to craft a mythology for England, as he once offered, with humility, it’s according to this spectacular metric that his readers the world over—knowing or unknowing—unanimously agree that he succeeded.

 

Now Tolkien’s Palantíri, black as glass, Seeing-Stones, yes, but foundation stones also, bear some curious likeness to the black stone that lay at the heart of the founding of Rome: the Lapis Niger. Dumezil’s book on the subject of the mystical dimension of the Lapis Niger has regrettably never appeared translated into English. Nevertheless it’s through comparison to the Lapis Niger, which scholars agree played some regal role early on in Rome’s history, to analogous coronation stones; to the Scottish Stone of Kings, that we see the Palantíri serving Elendil’s line. The same stone appears having been carried down from heaven in the Tuatha de Danaan—far from being symbol born among the Christians, but again, having been inculturated by Medieval Christian tradition. In Gandalf’s words the “Stones of Kings,” as we know them in history, are folded into the symbolism of the Palantír. A passage from Evola’s study of the Grail lore will be of use:

 

“In these legends, no matter how free of religious overtones, we find again the connection of the Grail, conceived as a heavenly stone, with a mysterious legacy and power associated with a primordial state that was somehow preserved during a period of exile. … The theme of a host of angels descending from heaven with the Grail resembles the theme of the race of the Tuatha de Danaan, which was believed to be composed of divine beings. This race came to Ireland carrying a supernatural stone (the stone of legitimate kings) … The homeland of the Tuatha was Avalon which, according to tradition, is also the seat of the books of the Grail, and which has often been confused … with the place in which the Grail was eminently revealed. … They are described as inhabitants of a Western-Atlantic region, which was visited by Saint Brendan. This region is a facsimile of Avalon … the “Island,” the original homeland and inviolable center of the Tuatha.”

 

The Avalon of the Grail cycle is easily identified with Valinor, and its inhabitants with the Noldor who first awoke and journeyed to that land—who wrought the Silmarils and the Palantiri. To press the point  however we might observe here, at the close, that Tolkien contrived the word “Avallónë” in the Quenya tongue to name the tower in Valinor where the greatest of all the Palantiri abides: the Master Stone, or "The Stone of Avallónë." Elendil set up the first of his rocks in Armor at Elostirion, and from there, Tolkien tells us that he was able to peer across the sea even so far as Avallónë, which comforted him when he longed for the west.

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end.