Star of the Dunedain
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2018 6:05 pm
I know over the years many have thought about the Star of the Dunedain and how many points it might have. My conclusion based on the works of Tolkien was five points. We know the Island of Numenor was as a five pointed star and Tolkien when he drew the cover for the Return of the King, he showed five pointed stars there. Some of this confusion comes from Robert Foster's book "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth - a lovely tome but one that has some inadvertent errors in it. Foster had used as a reference an early version of The Lord of the Rings in which the publisher erroneously published this information. It wasn't corrected until the publication of Indo's 50th Anniversary Edition. In the Scull and Hammond index under Elendil it says:
"emblems of ( Seven Stars of Elendil and his Captains, had five rays, originally represented the single stars on each of the seven ships (of 9) that bore a palantir; in Gondor the Seven Stars were set about a white- flowered tree, over which the Kings sat a winged crown)"
I made a version of the Star. It looks like an old west Sheriff's badge which caused me to wonder if Tolkien didn't mean it that way since he was so fond of Old West and "Red Indian" stories as a kid. In the center, I've added a glass cabochon with Elendil's name in Sindarin with a star pattern somewhat mimicking Tolkien's drawing.
"emblems of ( Seven Stars of Elendil and his Captains, had five rays, originally represented the single stars on each of the seven ships (of 9) that bore a palantir; in Gondor the Seven Stars were set about a white- flowered tree, over which the Kings sat a winged crown)"
I made a version of the Star. It looks like an old west Sheriff's badge which caused me to wonder if Tolkien didn't mean it that way since he was so fond of Old West and "Red Indian" stories as a kid. In the center, I've added a glass cabochon with Elendil's name in Sindarin with a star pattern somewhat mimicking Tolkien's drawing.