Your Daily Tolkien Ping! Coming from many sources, these articles will cover many aspects of Tolkien and his literary works. If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post articles such as this let me know. Enjoy!
Posted on 11/19/2002 2:56:49 PM PST by JameRetief
Part I
Let's talk about Dwarves. I imagine John Rhys-Davies' portrayal of Gimli will result in quite a few Web site homages to both the actor and the character. Right now I can't find anything really useful for Dwarf research. Oh, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of Web sites which mention the fact that Dwarves were one of the races of Middle-earth, and they may cite the Appendices in some fashion and rehash what anyone with a complete copy of The Lord of the Rings and maybe even The Silmarillion could easily find out by skimming a few pages.
But does anyone really know the full score on Tolkien's Dwarves? Did Tolkien know the full score? Well, probably not even Tolkien himself knew enough about his Dwarves to write much beyond what has been published, but a great deal of information has come to light through the years. Let's take a look at how the Dwarven civilization arose, and see what Tolkien told us, and what we may reasonably infer about it. But it's important to understand how Tolkien's conception of the Dwarves evolved, for as his ideas changed so did their imaginary history.
Most people know the Dwarves of The Hobbit were given names from Scandinavian mythology in a rather haphazard fashion. When Tolkien used the demand for a sequel to the popular story as an opportunity to publish something about his personal mythology, he found himself confronted by the necessity of incorporating the Scandinavian Dwarf names into the complex world he'd been inventing for years.
At first Tolkien tried to explain away the names as an "editorial concession": "These dwarves are not quite the dwarfs of better known lore. They have been given Scandinavian names, it is true; that is an editorial concession. Too many names in the tongues proper to the period might have been alarming...." (J.R.R. Tolkien, "Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", p. 31).
In fact, Tolkien was a bit put off by his own use of the Scandinavian names at first. The story of The Hobbit was, after all, devised originally to entertain his children. Tolkien contrived many tales, most of which have been lost because they were either never written down or were only slightly begun. But it is apparent from at least three of Tolkien's fairy-tales that he enjoyed borrowing from his linguistically inspired mythology to provide some color and depth to these stories.
Hence, Elrond and the fall of Gondolin intrude into Bilbo's business with the Dwarves, and later on there is an obscure reference to Thingol's mysterious conflict with a family of Dwarves not related to Thorin Oakenshield's people. In Roverandom the enchanted toy dog wanders around the world and eventually is brought close to the shores of Aman, the Blessed Realm, which appears again as the fantastic Elfland visited by Smith in Smith of Wootton Major.
The casual borrowings of elements from the mythology was never the product of intent, but rather the good fortune of necessary story-telling. Story-tellers often reuse the same ideas, names, themes, and even descriptions to keep their stories moving. The repetition of whole passages is common in oral traditions where poets and story-tellers memorize great sagas in pieces and retell the old tales with familiar phrases and descriptions that may or may not always be used in the same fashion for each retelling.
In December 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to E.G. Selby: "I don't much approve of The Hobbit myself, preferring my own mythology (which is just touched on) with its consistent nomenclature -- Elrond, Gondolin, and Esgaroth have escaped out of it -- and organized history, to this rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves out of Voluspa, newfangled hobbits and gollums (invented in an idle hour) and Anglo-Saxon runes." (Christopher Tolkien, "The Return of the Shadow", p. 7)
Clearly when Tolkien first published The Hobbit he viewed it as a separate work, a tale which stood on its own and which merely borrowed some things for convenience' sake from the older, larger mythology which until that time had been shared only with family, C.S. Lewis, and one other close acquaintance.
Christopher Tolkien discusses the issue at some length in The Peoples of Middle-earth: "In this, 'language of Dale = Norse (used by Dwarves of that region)' shows plainly that a major obstacle, perhaps the chief obstacle, to a coherent 'authentication' had by this time been resolved. When my father wrote The Hobbit he had of course no notion that the Old Norse names of the Dwarves required any explanation, within the terms of the story: those were their names and that was all there was to it....But now this inescapable Norse element had to be accounted for; and from that 'rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves out of Voluspa' the conception emerged that the Dwarves had 'outer names' derived from the tongues of Men with whom they had dealings...." (Christopher Tolkien, "Peoples of Middle-earth", pp. 70-1)
This apparent difficulty, so easily resolved by a quickly scrawled note which defined the linguistic fiction Tolkien utilized to explain the relationships of the languages he employed in The Lord of the Rings, eventually led Tolkien to devise a complex and (to me, at least) interesting history for the Dwarves which he had originally never foreseen. Of course, everything which occurred in the Second and Third Ages was contrived directly as a result of Tolkien's agreeing to write a sequel to The Hobbit, with the exception of the story of Numenor. Its downfall, at least, had been written in story form by Tolkien for several years before he wrote The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's original conception of Dwarves was radically different from the noble yet oh-so-haughty race of brave warriors and kings we meet in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In his first mythology, the "mythology for England" which was laid out (nearly completely) in The Book of Lost Tales, the Dwarves were an evil race, led by Fangli or Fankil (a servant of Melko, the Dark Lord). These early Dwarves were enemies of the fairies (Elves) and they fought a terrible war with the Eldar.
These early evil dwarves gave way to a more neutral race, who were old and never-dying. "Never comes a child among them, nor do they laugh," Tolkien wrote in "The Nauglafring", the first story in which his Dwarves played a prominent role. "They are squat in stature, and yet are strong, and their beards reach even to their toes, but the beards of the Indrafengs are he longest of all, and are forked, and they bind them about their middles when they walk around." (Tolkien, "The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two", p. 224).
The Nauglath were master smiths and scientists in this early conception. They traded freely with Elves, Men, and Orcs, having no particular dislike for any race above others. In "The Nauglafring" the hoard of the dragon Glomund is brought to Tinwelint, king of the woodland Elves and father of Tinuviel, and though he at first seeks to dispose of the cursed gold he is persuaded by Ufedhin, a Gnome who has lived among the Nauglath, to contract with them to work the treasure into a new colection of wonders. But Urin's curse immediately takes effect, and Tinwelint has no sooner made his bargain with Ufedhin than he begins to suspect the motives of the Gnome.
So Tinwelint alters the terms of the bargain and keeps Ufedhin and most of his followers prisoners while the Nauglath work on half the treasure. True to their word and friendship, the Nauglath appear at the appointed time with the reworked treasure and Tinwelint agrees to let them work on the other half of the hoard. But now Ifedhin is embittered by months of imprisonment, and he persuades the Nauglath to demand an unreasonable price from Tinwelint for shaping the gold into new treasure. Thus the curse ensnares the Nauglath, who demand bags of gold and silver and Elven maidens to take home with them, and Tinwelint becomes enraged.
The story hardly resembles the reconstruction Christopher Tolkien published in The Silmarillion, and it need not be compared closely with "The Ruin of Doriath". "The Nauglafring" belongs to a different mythology, a different world completely. And its evil Dwarves, like old men steeped in craft and science and bereft of female counterparts in their race, have no place in the Middle-earth which took shape in the 1930s and 1940s.
Tolkien retained some of the ideas of the relationship between Tinwelint and the Nauglath, but as he expanded his history and world to encompass the hobbits and their world the Dwarves became a new race. They retained their traditional affinity with mining, smithing, and living below ground, but now they became the product of the good-hearted meddling of Aule the Smith, the impetuous Vala who couldn't wait for the Children of Iluvatar to awaken.
Aule's children, the first Dwarves, experienced a brief period of awareness before Iluvatar and Aule put them to sleep. Aule then placed them in far separate caverns throughout the northern world, and there they slept until sometime after the awakening of the Elves. Many people have speculated on precisely when the Dwarves would have awoken and ventured forth into the wide world. It is almost certain that since the Elves did not encounter any Dwarves on the Great Journey the Dwarves were still asleep. The Eldar passed through at least two mountain ranges were Dwarves had been left by Aule.
According to "Annals of Aman" (Christopher Tolkien, "Morgoth's Ring"), the Dwarves first appeared in Beleriand in Valian Year 1250 (about 250 Valian Years before the deaths of the Two Trees, and 200 Valian Years after the Elves awoke at Cuivienen). "Grey Annals" (Tolkien, "The War of the Jewels") agrees with the older work but adds and revises a few details. Here the Dwarves have more ancient dwellings in the far east than Nogrod and Belegost, the cities they construct in the Ered Luin. And yet, in The Peoples of Middle-earth the essay "of Dwarves and Men" (written about the same time as The Lord of the Rings) suggests the Broadbeams and Firebeards awoke in the northern Ered Luin.
We can reconcile these apparent contradictions by suggesting that the Dwarves, when they awoke, may have wandered the world seeking one another. Durin woke alone at Mount Gundabad according to the essay in Peoples, and the fathers of the Ironfists and Stiffbeards awoke as far east of the Iron Hills as Gundabad was east of the northern Ered Luin, and the fathers of the Blacklocks and Stonefoots awoke at least as far east of the Ironfists and Stiffbeards as they were of Durin. It is difficult to imagine where these Dwarves were placed, but if we use the maps provided in The Shaping of Middle-earth as a guide, one may infer there were two ranges of mountains which Tolkien did not draw on the maps.
The first "missing" range would be the Misty Mountains, located eastward of the Ered Luin and probably extending north from the sea of Helcar. The second "missing" range (unnamed) could be about midway between the Misty Mountains and the Orocarni, the Mountains of the East. These mountains need not be as extensive as the Misty Mountains, which Melkor supposedly raised to bar Orome's path as he hunted the Dark Lord's evil creatures in Middle-earth.
Alternatively, the Ironfists and Stiffbeards may simply have been placed in the far northern mountains, and somehow preserved through the War of the Powers which resulted in the destruction of Melkor's fortress of Utumno. Wherever they awoke, if the Dwarves at first sought for each other, the tradition that they held conclaves at Gundabad begins to make better sense. Durin woke alone and he wandered through the Misty Mountains for a long time, apparently for years. He must eventually have wandered back into the north and there, perhaps, found his people.
Gundabad may therefore be the oldest Dwarf city in Middle-earth, and as the Dwarven populations grew they eventually returned to their homelands to build new cities. Durin would have stayed in the central lands where he awoke, but in time he led some Dwarves south to found the city of Khazad-dum. Hence, we may guess the Dwarves dispersed sometime around Valian Year 1250, and they would have been awake no more than 100-122 Valian Years (the Teleri crossed Ered Luin in VY 1128). These Valian Years were equivalent to approximately 9.58 years of the Sun (Tolkien, "Morgoth's Ring", p. 58).
Let us assume, for convenience' sake, the Dwarves awoke no earlier than VY 1130. The next 120 Valian Years would have been equivalent to 1149.6 years of the Sun. Durin probably lived all through this time, and that is why he was called Durin the Deathless. The average lifespan for a Dwarf, based on the genealogy provided in The Lord of the Rings, appears to have been around 250 years. The Dwarves appeared to marry around their 100th year, so they could have been into their 12th generation by VY 1250. If the other fathers of the Dwarves lived only 250 years (of the Sun), the kings who led the dispersal could have been the 10th of each of their respective lines.
The Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod therefore lived as close neighbors to the Sindar for nearly 2400 years before the rising of the Sun and Moon (in terms of years of the sun). At the very least, there must have been 23-24 kings in both Belegost and Nogrod during those long years under the stars. During that time the Dwarves established a close friendship with Thingol's realm (but they did not venture near the Sea nor visit Cirdan's people in western Beleriand).
The story of the Petty Dwarves, the Noegyth Nibin, requires some consideration, however. They claimed to have been in Beleriand before the Elves came. That would mean the Dwarves must have awakened earlier than 1130. The first Eldar reached Beleriand in Valian Year 1115. The Noegyth Nibin were outcasts from the other seven houses, not really an eighth house but apparently their numbers were sufficient to sustain a community for the equivalent of many generations (the last of their kind died in First Age year of the Sun 500, when Hurin killed Mim).
Since the Elves awoke in Valian Year 1050, there are only 65 Valian Years (a little more than 600 years of the Sun) available for the Dwarves to awaken, converge on Mount Gundabad, and divest themselves of the Noegyth Nibin. Things get a little tight even if we suppose the Dwarves awoke soon after the Elves. Still, we can suppose the Dwarves awoke before the Great Journey and that they began seeking each other before the War of the Powers. That would remove them from harm's way and places their awakening at the latest in Valian Year 1090 (the year the Valar began their assault on Melkor).
In fact, it may be convenient to suppose the Dwarves awoke during the war. Therefore they would have gone unnoticed by the Valar, who had already discovered the Quendi, and we are provided with a reasonable span of 25 Valian Years (about 239.5 years of the Sun) before the Eldar entered Beleriand. In that time, the first outcasts from the Dwarven community must have been relatively few, probably too few to really establish a community, but they may have lived in Beleriand long enough to welcome other outcasts.
The only real grief which lay between Dwarves and Elves in ancient times was the accidental hunting of the Noegyth Nibin by the Sindar. The Sindar did not recognize the Petty Dwarves as fellow rational Incarnates, and that seems to be due to the Noegyth Nibin's secretive nature and occasional hostility to strangers. The Elves ceased hunting the Noegyth Nibin once they met the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod, but they appear to have divulged their actions to the Dwarves, who conveyed this news to other Dwarves. Tolkien wrote that the Dwarves were offended by the hunting of the Petty Dwarves, and it may be this was the ancient grudge whose embers smoldered in the Third Age (as Tolkien noted in the Appendix to The Lord of the Rings).
Through the many generations the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod expanded their contacts with the Elves. They apparently traded with the Elves of Eriador, or at least had some knowledge of them, for they informed the Sindar when the eastern Elves began fleeing to the deeper woods and the hills to escape those of Melkor's creatures (primarily the Orcs, it seems) which began spreading through Middle-earth.
Tolkien mentions two other facts about these early Dwarves which are seldom discussed. The first is the fact that the early Dwarves, prior to their contact with the Sindar, specialized in working with iron and copper and preferred working in stone rather than wood. But they were not artistic and were quite functional in their architectural design and the making of tools and weapons. Tolkien notes that the Dwarves were deeply influenced by their association with the Elves, acquiring artistic influences from them.
The other fact is that the Dwarves fought among themselves. Although the nature of these feuds or wars is never discussed, it may be that if there was a primeval Dwarven community it dispersed not so much due to population pressure but perhaps in part due to rivalries among the various houses. As the Dwarven population grew food would be more and more difficult to acquire (except through trade with the Elves) unless the Dwarves grew their own, and the essay on "Dwarves and Men" says they preferred not to grow food if they could avoid doing so. And yet as the population increased the Dwarves would also have to develop greater sophistication in governing themselves, and thus rival factions may have developed.
This is, of course, entirely speculative, but it seems evident that Tolkien envisioned some close interaction among the early Dwarves which eventually was replaced by more distant and cool relations. Durin the Deathless appears to have been generally revered by all the Dwarves as the eldest of their race and the longest lived. He would have possessed a considerable presence among their early kings after the other fathers had died off. Durin's Folk, the Longbeards, were not directly descended from him -- not in the first generations. Unlike the other fathers Durin did not have a mate made by Aule. So he had to find a wife from among the children or grand-children of the other fathers. And his people were originally recruited from the other houses as well. The Longbeards would thus have been the most cosmopolitan and mainstream group of Dwarves as variations in customs and preferences began to appear among them.
Durin's presence among the early Dwarves begs the question of when they actually began founding cities. He is credited with founding Khazad-dum, which bears the distinction (among Dwarf cities) of being the only location named for the entire Dwarven race ("Khazad-dum" = "Dwarf-mansion"). It may be incorrect to suppose that Gundabad served as a home for the Dwarves for very long. Durin may have brought the Dwarven people south to Khazad-dum instead, and though he was called Deathless because he long outlived the other fathers of the Dwarves, the day did come when he died.
Suppose that critical event which led to the dispersion of the Dwarves across Middle-earth were the death of Durin? If he had been the glue holding them together in a united tradition, and if their increasing numbers had gradually strained their ability to support themselves, then Durin's successor and his fellow kings may have decided that the time was ripe for a change in Dwarven society. Instead of all Dwarves living together the six other houses departed from Khazad-dum and returned to the lands where their forefathers awoke.
Hence, the Broadbeams and Firebeards journeyed westward in the footsteps of the Eldar and they settled in Ered Luin. They built the cities of Belegost and Nogrod and, looking west, wandered down into Beleriand to see what the new neighborhood was like.
For the equivalent of the next 3,000 years (of the Sun) the western Dwarves participated in the history of the Eldar, until the ending of the First Age of the Sun. And then the world changed for everyone.
Next week we'll examine the history and cultures of the Dwarves after the rising of the Sun and Moon.
Part II
Most of what we know about Dwarven culture and customs is derived from Tolkien's writings concerning Durin's Folk, the Longbeard Dwarves of Khazad-dum, Erebor, and the Iron Hills. Durin's Folk were possibly the most outgoing of all the Dwarves, interacting with Elves, Men, and Hobbits to one degree or another. The Elves of Ered Luin (the Firebeards and Broadbeams) were also closely associated with Elves and probably interacted with Men in the Second and Third Ages as well as the Shire Hobbits in the Third Age, but they seem to have become relatively few in number after the First Age.
People view the Dwarves as secretive and somewhat xenophobic, but this is not completely accurate. Tolkien indeed said "they are a tough, thrawn race for the most part, secretive, laborious, retentive of the memory of injuries (and of benefits), lovers of stone, of gems, of things that take shape under the hands of of the craftsmen rather than things that live by their own life." So, how secretive were they? Tolkien tells us that the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost freely shared their knowledge with the Sindar in exchange for Melian's teaching, and they also exchanged knowledge later with the Noldor. On the other hand, the Petty Dwarves were so reclusive and hostile to the Sindar they seemed like vicious animals which should be hunted.
The secretive nature of Dwarves is perceived to extend to their language, which they taught to few, but Tolkien doesn't say they taught it to none (even though Gandalf makes such a statement before the West-gate of Moria in "A Journey in the Dark", the author is often at odds with his own characters over matters of "fact", of which he himself is the final arbiter). Some Elves did in fact study the Dwarf-tongue, and learned as much of it as they could, and as the Dwarves would teach (if there were indeed such limits). The most resourceful scholar Tolkien wrote about was Pengolod, a half-Noldo/half-Sinda Elf of Gondolin who joined the Lambengolmor, the Masters of Tongues, a school of loremasters founded by Feanor in Aman and who (apparently) joined in the rebellion of the Noldor even though Feanor had long since ceased to work with languages.
We know little of the history of the Lambengolmor. They studied Sindarin and probably some Nandorin and Avarin dialects in Beleriand, but much of their knowledge was lost when the Noldorin kingdoms began to fall. Those of the Lambengolmor who survived the destruction in the north eventually settled in Arvernien, and later moved on to the Isle of Balar with Cirdan and Gil-galad, or else they remained followers of the sons of Feanor. In the Second Age Pengolod settled in Eregion and it was probably there he (and possibly others) studied Khuzdul, the Dwarven language. Pengolod was the only loremaster of the Lambengolmor to survive the catastrophic War of the Elves and Sauron, and when the battles were finished he took ship from Mithlond and left Middle-earth forever, last of his kind to grace Middle-earth. With him departed much ancient knowledge which had not been committed to books.
Among the secrets Dwarves were not disposed to give out were their true, inner names, given in Khuzdul and used only among themselves. All the Dwarves of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings use Mannish names, according to their custom. At least, this was the custom among the Longbeard Dwarves from the Second Age onward, if not earlier. Other Dwarves, however, used Khuzdul names. The Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost went by names given in Khuzdul: Azaghal, lord of Belegost, Telchar of Nogrod, Gamil Zirak the Old, the master who taught Telchar.
The Dwarves of Ered Luin may have developed the most sophisticated civilization among their kind during the First Age because of their friendship with the Elves of Beleriand, whose civilization was the highest, most advanced culture in Middle-earth. Great wealth flowed through the Ered Luin, and these Dwarves did not look only to the west. They traded with many of the Men who settled in Eriador, as well as the Nandor and Avari who lived there. It is, however, perhaps a curious fact that the Edain (at least, the Marachians, the Third House of the Edain) retained some traditions of discord or strife with Dwarves from their westward migration. Tolkien doesn't say what happened, but when Turin and his outlaws captured Mim the Petty-Dwarf, one of Turin's men (himself a Marachian) said of himself, "Androg does not like Dwarves. His people brought few good tales of that race out of the East."
Well, Androg's folktales may or may not reflect actual relations between his people and the Dwarves. Such events lay many generations behind him (this conversation occurred around the year 484 of the Fourth Age, and his people had entered Beleriand in 314 -- they had begun settling in Dor-lomin more than 100 years before Androg lived). We don't know which Dwarves Androg's people had trouble with, but they were probably Longbeards, Firebeards, or Broadbeams. No other Dwarven peoples appear to have lived near the Edain's line of migration, which passed straight through Wilderland (Rhovanion) and the Vales of Anduin, where the Longbeards held sway, and over the Ered Luin.
After the Edain reached Beleriand relations between Dwarves and Men improved outside Beleriand, even if they remained icy in the west. The Folk of Bor, the only Easterlings to remain faithful to the Eldar in the Fifth Great Battle, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, were a sedentary (farming) people who were only one of several tribes or clans to migrate to Eriador late in the 5th century. These peoples settled in the northern lands around the Hills of Evendim and they were friendly with the Dwarves. Bor's folk actually passed northward around Ered Luin to enter the Eldarin lands, and they settled in the lands north of the hills where Maedhros' people dwelt.
By the time Thangorodrim fell most but not all of Morgoth's followers had been destroyed. The easternmost forces fled when Morgoth was defeated and they scattered throughout Middle-earth. Some of the Orcs apparently seized Mount Gundabad and infested the northern mountains of Wilderland. The Longbeard Dwarves were hard put to defend themselves against this onslought. They had already begun exchanging service for food with the Edainic men of Wilderland, but now they established an alliance with the Men whereby they were able to drive the Orcs out of the mountains. This unique alliance is documented only in The Peoples of Middle-earth, in the essay "Of Dwarves and Men", which was written sometime after June 1969 (according to Christopher Tolkien).
Tolkien says the Longbeards, "though the proudest of the seven kindreds, were also the wisest and the most farseeing". He goes on to say "Men held them in awe and were eager to learn from them; and the Longbeards were very willing to use Men for their own purposes." These purposes were twofold: to provide the Dwarves with food and to assist them in their wars against the Orcs. The secretivity the Dwarves were known for had by this time been abandoned through necessity and a desire for commerce with other peoples both in Beleriand and in Rhovanion. But it appears that the secretiveness would eventually be restored.
The Longbeard Dwarves were the first to begin using "outer" names taken from the languages of nearby Men. Tolkien writes that the Dwarves were willing to teach their language to Men but Men found it difficult to learn, and yet all the Dwarves were unwilling to give out their true names to non-Dwarves. Hence, to facilitate the alliance the Longbeards learned the language of the Men of Wilderland (just as the Dwarves of Ered Luin learned Sindarin) and they took their "outer" names in this language. It was during the early Second Age that the Dwarves began accumulate a list of names which tradition eventually tied to their race alone. "Durin" is the translation Tolkien offers for the Mannish name which meant "king", and it was more a title than a name which eventually did become a name. "Narvi" would be another example of the name-set drawn from the northern language (essentially a dialect of Adunaic, the language spoken by the Marachians).
With the aid of Men the Longbeards were able to re-establish control over those regions they considered to be theirs by right. This alliance helped pave the way for the eventual alliance between the Longbeards and the Elves of Eregion, but there appears to be one other prerequisite, the migration of the Belegostians to Khazad-dum. These Dwarves had not participated in the war between Nogrod and Doriath, and thus had no tradition of direct enmity with Elves (though Tolkien says memory of the war "poisoned relations of Elves and Dwarves in after ages" despite providing almost no evidence of such poisoned relations).
When mithril was discovered by the Longbeards the Noldor of Lindon took an interest in their resources, and many Noldor settled in the lands west of Khazad-dum, establishing the realm of Eregion. Their chief city was Ost-in-Edhil and they entered into a close friendship and alliance with the Longbeards that lasted a thousand years. At the end of that time the Longbeards were drawn into the War of the Elves and Sauron. They sought to help the beleaguered Eldar of Eregion, and many Elves (including Pengolod) escaped through Khazad-dum to the eastern realm of Lothlorien, but Durin IV's army was driven back to the mountains by Sauron and the West-gate was closed against possible invasion. Matters did not go well in the east, either. Sauron sent armies of Orcs from Mordor and enticed eastern tribes of Men to invade Wilderland.
The Edainic peoples were overrun and pushed back to the mountains or deep into the woods (and this is probably when the Woodmen of Greenwood the Great first appeared). The Longbeards themselves lost control of Gundabad again, the Grey Mountains were infested with Orcs, and communication with the Iron Hills was cut off for a time. When Sauron was finally defeated Khazad-dum was largely an island amid an empty sea, its only friendly neighbor apparently Lothlorien. Elrond had established the refuge of Imladris in northern Eriador but though he was friendly to Dwarves in the Third Age there is no indication that he interacted with them much in the Second Age.
The Longbeards did not forsake their old friendship with the Elves, but as Tolkien says, it waned. By the end of the Second Age Durin V was willing and able to join the Host of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, so his people marched against Mordor. But afterward they seem not to have participated much in the great affairs of Middle-earth. For nearly two thousand years Khazad-dum continued to enjoy great prosperity. The Misty Mountains and Grey Mountains were undoubtedly untroubled by Orcs, Trolls, and Dragons for many centuries, and communication between Khazad-dum and other Dwarven communities was assured.
But when Sauron began to stir again after a thousand years had passed in the Third Age he seems to have pursued a policy of estranging his old enemies from one another. Wherever an opportunity presented itself he destroyed a nation, or took advantage of the downfall of an enemy. The Longbeard Dwarves entered a period of decline when they accidentally awoke a Balrog, apparently the last of Morgoth's great demons of fire and shadow. The Balrog destroyed the civilization in Khazad-dum, killing two of its kings and many of its people. The survivors fled north and east but they never fully recovered their strength. Soon afterward Amroth, king of Lorien, led a migration of Elves south, and the awakening of a great (though unidentified) evil in the mountains as well as the departure of many of their folk seem to have inspired the Elves of Lorien to pass a law forbidding the entry of any Dwarf into their land.
Tolkien does not say exactly how the Dwarves dispersed. The Longbeard kings moved northeast to the Lonely Mountain. But some of the Dwarves living in the northern Misty Mountains or the Grey Mountains quarreled with Fram, a lord of the Eotheod, over the hoard of Scatha the Worm. The Dwarves eventually slew Fram after he refused to surrender the treasure. The Belegostians may have returned to their kin in the Ered Luin. But eventually the Longbeards colonized the Grey Mountains in great numbers, where they drew the attention of dragons and were driven south to Erebor again. This time one of the dragons, Smaug the Golden, followed them, and he seized Erebor in 2770. For the next 171 years the Longbeard Dwarves had no permanent home, except for a colony which survived in the Iron Hills and a few unnamed colonies in the northern mountains.
By the end of the Third Age the fortunes of three of the seven kindreds had fallen. Nogrod's people were largely destroyed in the war with Doriath at the end of the Third Age. Most of Belegost's people left the Ered Luin early in the Second Age because their city had been destroyed. Those Dwarves who remained in the Ered Luin appear to have been few but they retained control over a region of land between the Elves and the Men of northern Eriador. These Dwarves probably lived in a similar relationship with their neighbors to Khazad-dum's great alliances, but they were few in number and not seriously threatened by Orcs or dragons, so they do not play any roles in the great wars of the Second Age. Tolkien implies they did not march with the Last Alliance, for he says few Dwarves fought on either side of that war.
The spread of the custom of taking outer names in Mannish languages from the Longbeards to other kindreds probably occurred in the Third Age, perhaps as late as after the fall of Khazad-dum. At that time the Longbeards would have begun wandering the lands and some doubtless settled among other Dwarves. If there was indeed a return of Belegostian-descended Dwarves to Ered Luin, they would have taken the custom with them if it had not preceded them already.
Tolkien says little about the four eastern kindreds. He suggest they (or at least the two easternmost) may have become "evil" in some fashion, but they did not support Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Sauron's relations with the Dwarves are peculiar. Having failed to seduce the Elves with the Rings of Power he seized as many of the Elven Rings as he could during his war with the Elves and took them back to Mordor. There he perverted them in some fashion with the intention of using them to seize control over the great lords of other peoples. Sauron contrived to give seven Rings to the Dwarves, presumably one to each of the lords of the seven kindreds (although this is by no means certain). If that is the case, then Tolkien's remark that tradition said each of the ancient Dwarf-hoards was founded on a ring would imply that the Belegostian lords never left Ered Luin. It seems unlikely they'd have their hoard in Khazad-dum.
The dispositions of the Seven Rings imply something about the Dwarves' history. Sauron eventually decided to take back the Rings (sometime late in the Third Age) and he had to track them down. In the process he only acquired three of the Rings; dragons consumed the other four, according to Gandalf. Of the three Sauron took back, we know that one belonged to the Longbeard kings. This Ring he took from Thrain in 2845, "last of the Seven". So to whom did the other two Rings belong, and when did Sauron acquire them?
Sauron appears not to have visited Eriador in the Third Age. He sent the Lord of the Nazgul north around the year 1300 to found the kingdom of Angmar, and this evil realm worked toward the eventual destruction of Arnor, the northern kingdom of the Dunedain. Angmar was situated in northeastern Eriador, far from Ered Luin but effectively in control of Gundabad. It may be that Gundabad, liberated in the Second Age, was taken by Angmar, or that perhaps it was abandoned by the Dwarves. Or it may be that Gundabad held out, though this seems unlikely.
Nonetheless, Angmar existed for nearly 700 years, and yet at no time was Angmar ever able to assail the Ered Luin. Nor is there any mention of dragons afflicting the Dwarves of Ered Luin throughout the Third Age. So, it seems unlikely that Sauron could have recovered the two Rings from the Dwarves of Ered Luin while the kingdom of Arnor existed. And yet, though Arnor fell in 1974, Amngmar itself was destroyed by Gondor, Lindon, and Rivendell the next year. The Lord of the Nazgul then fled south and was next heard from in the year 2002, when the Nazgul seized the Gondorian city of Minas Ithil. Sauron himself fled east in 2063 when Gandalf entered Dol Guldur to try and determine who the Necromancer really was, and Sauron didn't return to the west until 2460.
It is therefore probably that Sauron made no attempt to recover the Rings of the western Dwarves before 2460. Within a hundred years Sauron began colonizing the Misty Mountains with Orcs and dragons began reappearing in the north and attacking the Dwarves. The Longbeard Dwarves fled to Erebor or the Iron Hills. It may be that dragons also began afflicting the four eastern houses, and that within the next couple of centuries all the great eastern Dwarf realms suffered a fate similar to that of Erebor. This would explain the obscure references in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to the misfortunes of the Dwarves, especially where dragons were concerned.
If he were alarmed about the loss of the four Rings in the east, Sauron may have seized an opportunity to seize the western Rings in the 28th century. Orcs began invading Eriador around 2740 and by the year 2758 Sauron was ready to launch a massive stroke against Gondor, Rohan, and apparently even Eriador. This was the year the Long Winter began, and Orcs were able to raid as far west as the Shire. It is conceivable that the Dwarves of Ered Luin suffered greatly like other peoples at this time, and their kings may have been drawn out and seized by Orcs. Although purely speculative the timeframe for Sauron's Ring-seizing activities is thus limited to about a century. Tolkien does not say when Sauron took back the Rings of the Nazgul but he probably only received these Rings after his power was more secure, which would have been after the end of the Watchful Peace.
His objectives achieved, or his resources exhausted, Sauron appears to have disregarded Eriador after the Long Winter. There were no more massive incursions of evil things in the northwest and by 2845 he had recovered as many of the Rings of Power as he could have. The misfortunes of the Dwarves were thus coming to their end, and their fortunes (at least those of the Longbeards) began rising again.
I should point out that Sauron may have had another opportunity to seize two of the Dwarven Rings: the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, fought from 2793 to 2799. All seven kindreds mustered armies for the war of vengeance against the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. Although Tolkien doesn't say any of the lords other than Thrain (Durin's Heir, king of the Longbeards) participated directly in the war, it is not impossible that at least two did lead forces to Thrain's aid, and they could have been captured or slain and their bodies taken. If so, Sauron could have recovered the Rings in this fashion.
Despite their decline in the western lands Dwarves continued to travel across Eriador and doubtless through Wilderland, journeying between Ered Luin and Erebor, or Ered Luin and the Iron Mountains, and perhaps travelling further to the eastern lands of the Dwarves. The purposes of these journeys are seldom stated. When Thorin and Thrain settled in the Ered Luin after the War of the Dwarves and Orcs many of the Longbeards heard about their new home and went to join them, so there must have been a steady though small stream of traffic westward.
In "The Quest for Erebor" (Unfinished Tale) Christopher Tolkien collated fragments of texts his father had written in attempts to explain (mostly through Gandalf) how the expedition of Thorin and Company to Erebor was arranged in 2941. In the course of one discussion Gandalf admonishes Gloin for thinking too little of the Shire folk because the Dwarves never sold them any weapons. One may infer from this remark that the Dwarves were indeed selling weapons to someone, but Tolkien doesn't indicate to whom. Perhaps the Elves needed weapons, but they should have been capable of making their own. It seems more likely the Dwarves would have supplied the Dunedain of Eriador with weapons. The Rangers seem an unusually well-equipped core of soldiers to be wholle sustained by a "wandering folk". If the Dunedain needed to turn to anyone for supplying crafted items the Dwarves seem a logical choice.
But as Eriador's population centers declined throughout the late Third Age it would become more and more difficult for the Dwarves to make a profitable living. The Dunedian continued to dwindle. While Thrain and his small company lived in Dunland they probably traded with the people of Tharbad, but Tharbad was abandoned in 2912 after the Fell Winter resulted in severe flooding. The peoples' reluctance to rebuild their town implies there was simply too little economic reason to do so. Bree also went into a period of decline, possibly around the same time, though it seems to have depended more on the traffic of the east-west road than on traffic coming up from the south.
Markets for Dwarven crafts thus were in short supply by the last century of the Third Age: the Shire, the Buckland, Bree, and a few scattered Dunedian. Possibly some Elves also traded with them. The restoration of the Kingdom under the Mountain in Erebor in 2941 meant that the colony of Longbeards probably departed soon afterwards to join Dain II in the east. This would have reduced competition for trade, but Sauron's subsequent return to Mordor in 2951 and the eventual westward migration of many Dwarves must have strained the Dwarves' economy considerably. Who were these Dwarves, travelling from troubled eastern lands? They don't seem to be Longbeards, who had a strong kingdom in Erebor and still probably held the Iron Hills in force. It seems more likely they were from the eastern kindreds, whose lands may have been ravaged or threatened by great wars in preparation for Sauron's assaults on the west. Hence, at the end of the Third Age there may have come an influx of eastern Dwarves who might help rejuvenate the Ered Luin.
The victory over Sauron within a few years led to the restoration of the Kingdom of Arnor and the expansion of the Shire. The Dwarves of Ered Luin must eventually have benefitted from the influx of colonists from the south, from the extension of Rohan's authority over Dunland, and from the growth of the Shire. It may be that when Durin VII eventually resettled Khazad-dum early in the Fourth Age the Dwarves of Ered Luin also experienced a sort of renaissance, their last bloom before the final, sad diminishment and disappearance of their race.
Author: Michael Martinez
Published on: November 19 & 26, 1999
Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth
Your Daily Tolkien Ping! Coming from many sources, these articles will cover many aspects of Tolkien and his literary works. If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post articles such as this let me know. Enjoy!
1) Who was Tom Bombodil? by Gene Hargrove
2) Celeborn Unplugged by Michael Martinez
3) Speaking of Legolas... by Michael Martinez
4) A Bit of Light: Visions and Transformations of the Ring Quest by Cara J. Loup
5) Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves! - Part One and Two by Michael Martinez
 Ring Ping!! |
Hey, we've been learning Elvish, Tengwar, etc. at the Yamada Language Tolkien Site which has a lot of 
links.
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