Dwarrowdelf – The translated Westron name (orig. Phurunargian) which meant ‘Dwarf-delving’ and was applied by Men to the great underground city of Moria.
Dwarves – The Children of Aulë the Smith of the Valar, of all ‘speaking-peoples’ the only race not created by the direct will of God – though He intervened in the hour of their Making, adopted them, amended their design and commanded that their Seven Fathers remain asleep until after the appearance in Middle-earth of the Elves, whom He had long before purposed should be the first to walk the world. Later the Seven Fathers awoke for the second time, and went abroad, and commenced the works of their hands; and after a time spent in these labours, like all peoples they wandered ever westward, until they crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand, and there encountered the Elves – and so entered the records of the Ages.
They called themselves Khazâd, but the Elves called them Naugrim, the Stunted People, and Nogothrim, which means ‘Dwarf-folk’, and Gonnhirrim, ‘Stonemasters’; and other names besides. But there was seldom great love between Elves and Dwarves – as so often between natural and adopted children – and as the First Age wore away, and the tragedies of that time unfolded, enmities arose between the races, the memory of which lingered into later days and was never entirely eradicated.
Of the three Elder Races – Elves, Dwarves and Men – it was undoubtedly the Dwarves who exhibited the greatest love for the lands of Middle-earth and the treasures to be found there. For the Elves were, from the beginning, destined to find their long home on further shores, away from Middle-earth to the West. And although Men loved the creations of the world after their own fashion, they continually aspired to greater things, desiring to be like the Elves. Not so the Dwarves. Their love of possession for its own sake was balanced by the delight they took in ever more majestic and skilful feats of craftsmanship. From their beginnings they throve, the miner’s chisel and smith’s forge bringing them riches, power and great influence over the affairs of the Elder Days.
Of their origins the Dwarves told little to strangers; the small amount which is recorded in the Red Book comes from the tales of Men of Dale, who dwelt near them for many years and had commerce with them. The first of their race to enter the lands of the Elves in the west were the Noegyth Nibin, the ‘Petty-Dwarves’, who mined and delved in Beleriand long before the coming of the Noldor from the deeps of the Sea. It was this people who excavated the caves of Narog – in their own tongue Nulukkizdin – but they were fugitives from their own people, and the Sindar did not love them; and there was persecution of this people by the Elves of the woods; which only ceased when more Dwarves, of the true race of the Khazâd, came into Beleriand in later years.
These second-comers were altogether a more impressive people; indeed, long before their crossing of the Ered Luin into Beleriand, they had already created for themselves many vast and populous cities in the east of Middle-earth, the most ancient of which was Moria, but the most westerly of which were the twin cities of Nogrod and Belegost, delved in the eastern side of the Blue Mountains.
The Dwarves of these cities had much to do with the Elves during the First Age, both good and evil. They fought on occasion with the Eldar against Morgoth (see AZAGHL), and traded with Caranthir’s people, and made roads into Beleriand, and delved the halls of Thingol, and performed many works of craft and smithwork on behalf of the Eldar – yet somehow there was never the same kind of abiding affection between the peoples which is the most cherished memory of Elves and Men. And on occasion the Dwarves marched against the Eldar, being seduced from their good sense by their lust for riches or their desire for vengeance. It was Dwarves of Nogrod who murdered King Thingol Greycloak of Doriath, and Dwarves of that same city who sacked Menegroth and stole the Nauglamir, made long before by their own forefathers; and it was a Dwarf who betrayed Túrin Turambar.
To the south-east, on the far side of the Misty Mountains, there stood the Gates of a city already of vast dimensions and legendary repute: Khazâd-dûm, the ancestral Halls of Durin, eldest and most royal of all the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves. The Golden Age of Moria lay still in the future but even in the First Age it was already the greatest of all Dwarvish accomplishments. The almost endless dolven Halls, Deeps, Levels, roads, chambers and pits were lit with glittering crystal lamps; the walls, cut with marvellous skill from the living rock with scarcely a chiselmark, shone with banners, helms, shields, proud spears of steel and corslets of silver set with gems. Far below, in the Deeps, patient miners worked with pick and basket, while masons above busily extended old roads or carved new, lofty chambers to the glory of Durin’s name. At the great Eastern Gate, mail-clad guards watched over the Vale of Azanulbizar and the lovely lake of Kheled-zâram.
Such was the splendour of Moria in those days. Its power was too great to overcome and it remained inviolate throughout the tumults of the First Age; while Nogrod and Belegost were ruined when Beleriand was drowned under the Sea. Thus many dispossessed Dwarves of those cities flocked to Khazâd-dûm, swelling its numbers and its craft. And so the realm grew ever more rich and powerful while outside was ruin and a Change of the World.
Although Dwarves had always been wealthy, the discovery of mithril under the roots of Barazinbar early in the Second Age made the inhabitants of Moria fabulously rich. The Smiths of the High-elves (who did not share the ancient prejudices of their Grey-elven kin against Dwarves) eagerly founded a settlement near the west-wall of Moria, to engage in trade for this metal, most prized by all Elves. And the friendship that existed between Elves of Eregion and Dwarves of Moria was the greatest that has ever been between the two peoples. Yet when war swept over the lands of Eriador, the Moria-dwellers, fearful for their treasures, shut the doors of the city. Thus Khazâd-dûm survived the War of the Elves and Sauron, and the long dominion of the Lord of the Rings over Middle-earth during the Accursed Years of the Second Age.
Nevertheless Moria fell at last. In 1980 Third Age the miners were once more tunnelling down into the roots of Barazinbar, seeking the full extent of the mithril-lode. At the heart of the vein slept an evil spirit from the Realm of Morgoth. Somehow it had escaped from the ruin of Thangorodrim at the end of the First Age – and had been slumbering in the depths of the mountain ever since. The Balrog slew Durin VI and, the following year, his son Náin I; then the Dwarves of Durin’s House fled from Moria, never to return while the Third Age lasted.
Many of those who escaped made their way into the North, to Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, where Náin’s son Thráin I founded the first Kingdom ‘under the Mountain’ (1999 Third Age). But his own son Thorin I, desiring to rule a kingdom of his own, passed still further into the north, to the Grey Mountains, taking with him the greater part of Durin’s Folk. There his people once again began to amass great wealth – until their ancient enemies, the Dragons, heard of this and made war upon them, driving the Dwarves from these mountains and back to Erebor in the year 2590. Yet while the expedition to the Grey Mountains had ultimately failed, the days of the Dwarves did not seem so very hard, for Erebor had already been made rich and fair, and the skill and industry of the returning Dwarves of Durin’s Line soon produced even greater results. Both Erebor and the Dwarf-dwellings in the Iron Hills prospered, until the year 2770, when the greatest Dragon of his time, Smaug the Golden, learned of the treasure under the Lonely Mountain, and came against King Thrór with consuming fire and great wrath. The Dwarves were scattered or slain, the nearby town of Dale was ruined and the surrounding country became a scorched, barren desert. Inside the Great Hall of Thrór, Smaug slept upon a vast pile of wealth and weapons.
Dispossessed yet again, the remaining Dwarves dispersed: some to the Iron Hills, some to Eriador and some to the meagre mines of the Blue Mountains, there to scratch a living as blacksmiths and ironmasters. In the end, Thrór could stand the shame no longer and, in his unreason, resolved to go to Moria. His murder by Orcs there and the bitter six-year war which followed brought about the last mustering of the Dwa
rves of the Seven Houses. In the year 2799, grim, mail-clad warriors bearing spears, mattocks and their beloved axes, marched to Azanulbizar to give final battle against the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. There, many of the Dwarves – and almost all of the Goblins – were slain.
Nevertheless, towards the very end of the Third Age, the fortunes of the Dwarves of Durin’s House unexpectedly revived. In the account he titled There and Back Again, the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins tells of the manner in which Smaug the Dragon came to be slain and the Dwarves of Erebor to regain their inheritance despite the fact that the ancient enmity between Dwarves and Elves (and in this case, Men), nearly led to a disastrous reversal of their fortunes.5 Bilbo himself took a significant part in these events; as a result, the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain thereafter showed great friendship towards Hobbits. More significantly, from this point onwards through the remainder of the Age, the Dwarves of Durin’s Line continued to ally themselves with all other Free Peoples.
Of the reasons for the Dwarves’ ancient feud with the Elves, little is said in the Red Book, but much in The Silmarillion. Each race attributed blame to the other. To Men it might seem likely that the Dwarves’ legendary avarice had played the stronger part in fomenting disagreements between the two peoples. Yet the Dwarves might well have been justified, in their own eyes, in taking exception to the somewhat lordly manner employed by many Elves in their dealings with them (for there was often trade between the peoples). Perhaps, more than anything else, the rift was simply due to cultural differences: for Dwarves were quite unable to perceive any particular merit in trees, skies and hunting under the stars; while the very contemplation of dwelling underground filled Elves with abhorrence – though they did so on many occasions, and often employed Dwarves in the delving of these subterranean kingdoms and fortresses.
At all events, while Elves were often unfriendly, it was the Dragons of Middle-earth who were traditionally the Dwarves’ most deadly enemies. In this, the Dwarves’ own fabulous wealth was their undoing: rumours of some Dwarf-hoard would, nigh and again, reach the ears of one of these avaricious beasts and he would rise up in wrath (and greed), coming against the Dwarf-settlement with fire and claw. Sometimes the Dragon would perish, pierced through by sharp spears and finally dispatched with axe-strokes; more frequently the Worm would conquer, destroying his foes with great gouts of flame and then systematically exterminating the survivors. That attended to, the Dragon would gather all the wealth and weapons into one vast bed, to lie there in watchful sleep till slain by adventurers or dead of old age. As Dragons were extremely difficult to slay (and hardly ever died of old age), a course of events such as this frequently meant permanent exile for the hapless Dwarves – unless some great warrior could be paid to slay the Worm. As exile usually meant penury, the treasure more often remained where it lay.
However, the prerequisite great warriors certainly existed even if their services could not often be employed. The emerging race of Men was a race of Heroes and some of them went in for Dragon-slaying on their own account. And here lie the origins of unfriendly relations between Dwarves and Men; for Dwarves were never slow to claim their own – and a warrior, having won a Dragon-hoard at great cost, was understandably reluctant to yield it up. Many early kingdoms of Men were founded on such hoards – and this did not improve relations between them and the dispossessed owners.
Whatever their relations with Men and Elves – and these were not always bad – Dwarves, like other races, regarded Orcs with unpitying hate. The Orcs, of course, coveted Dwarf-hoards as much as anyone else (not least for the matchless weaponry to be found there); and, as both races habitually dwelt underground, battle and cruel deeds between them were a common occurrence. The Dwarves defended their treasure with grim determination but, as the forces of evil grew in numbers and strength, many of their ancient mansions were taken from them. Even so, the Orcs never managed to enter Moria until the Dwarves were expelled by an enemy of far greater power, late in the Third Age. And even in those fading days, something of the old fire of the Naugrim of the First Age still lingered in the hearts of the Dwarves. But, like the Elves, they had long been a dwindling people, and ceaseless plundering of their ancient works had left them too long without secure dwellings. As a result, few of their records survived, and thus little further is known of their history or lore. For they were a secretive people and few of other race ever succeeded in learning their ancient tongue, Khuzdul (‘The-Speech-of-the-Khazâd’), apart from such words as the Dwarves themselves still used openly.
Dwarves were small, stout and bearded, wore heavy boots and great hoods over their leather jerkins and mail hauberks. They fought with axes and laid their dead under stone engraved with elf-runes, long adapted to their own language. They were grasping, industrious, fierce, jealous, brave, loyal – and unflinching in labour or adversity. With metal and stone and with all things of craft, they were wondrously skilled. But like the Elves, their days in Middle-earth are long past, and the proud race of the Khazâd is now little more – and often less – than a folk-memory to Men of later days.
Dwarvish – Khuzdul, the secret language of the Dwarves.
Dwimmerlaik – A name used in Rohan for a ghost or unclean spectre.
Dwimorberg – The ‘Haunted Mountain’ of the Ered Nimrais (the White Mountains). It rose above the ancient Hold of Dunharrow. Under it, a dark road ran from the Hold (in Rohan) to the Vale of Morthond (in Gondor).
Dwimordene ‘Haunted-valley’ – The name used among Northern Men for the (to them) legendary land of Lothlórien.
Eä ‘Let it Be’ (Q.) – According to High-elven tradition, the Word spoken by God (Ilúvatar) when He caused the material universe to come into Being at the Creation; afterwards the name of the Universe itself.
Eagles – The greatest birds of Middle-earth; in origin a direct manifestation of the Thought of Manwë, Lord of the Valar (or so the Eldar believed) in the same way that all things that grow upon the earth were in origin a manifestation of the thought of Yavanna Kementári – and all evils traceable to Melkor.
The Eagles of Manwë were not evil, nor was any other race ever able to dominate them. In the youth of the world, before evil stirred, they dwelt in the treetops; but after the rebellion of the Noldor and the Darkening of Valinor, Manwë desired through his messengers to learn what was passing in Mortal Lands, and commanded the children of his thought to leave their arboreal dwellings, and henceforth live among the crags and peaks of the mountains, the loftiest of all dwellings of Middle-earth. So the Eagles came for the first time to their eyries.
In those far-off days they were far greater in size than their descendants: Thorondor, their first King, who dwelt with his people in the Crissaegrim and the Encircling Mountains, is said to have had a wing span of thirty fathoms, or 180 feet. On many occasions the power, speed and courage of the Eagles led by Thorondor were of help to the Eldar in the turmoils of the First Age; but after the drowning of Beleriand, the Eagles removed further east, to the Misty Mountains, where they afterwards dwelt among the high peaks. Among them was a House of princes, descendants of old Thorondor, who were greater in size than Eagles of other families, having prodigious wingbreadth and powerful talons. These, when not used for hunting, were employed against Orcs: for there was a great feud between the Eagles and the Goblins of the Misty Mountains in the later Third Age, especially after the Orcs attempted to re-establish themselves in the high passes during the years which followed the Battle of Azanulbizar (2799).
By the time of Thorin Oakenshield’s 2941 expedition across the Mountains, the Orcs of the Misty Mountains were firmly in control of the passes and, in alliance with the wolves of Wilderland, were already beginning to trouble the lands of the upper vales of Anduin. Thorin’s party was assailed by a host of these Goblins, and was in great danger when the Eagles, observing the commotion from afar, swept down to rescue the members of the expedition from a fiery fate. In this way an alliance was formed with the great birds, resulting in the Eagles�
�� crucial assistance at the Battle of Five Armies later that same year.
The Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains continued to preserve their friendship with Gandalf the Grey, who had accompanied the Dwarves’ expedition, though it was many years before they were again called upon to lend their strength and speed to the common cause against Sauron. Gwaihir the Windlord, King of the Eagles, himself rescued Gandalf from imprisonment in Saruman’s Tower of Orthanc in the year 3018 and, the following year, from the peak of the mountain Celebdil after the Wizard’s epic struggle with the Balrog. For the final battle with Sauron at the Black Gate, the Eagles sent all their host; and Gwaihir, together with his brother Landroval and kinsman Meneldor, rescued Frodo and Samwise from imminent death at the feet of Orodruin, after the Ring had been destroyed and Sauron cast down.
The Great Eagles were noble birds, fleet and swift, proud and independent – and often cruel and merciless to their foes. Yet they were true allies, and on many occasions their aid staved off certain defeat for the armies of Elves and Men. For these services they were richly rewarded by their friends. They afterwards returned to their high fastness among the peaks of the Misty Mountains.
Eämbar ‘Sea-dwelling’ (Q.) – The name given to the great ship built by Aldarion of Númenor to serve as a floating house and command centre combined. It was generally moored against Tol Uinen, an island in the Bay of Rómenna: the ship also served as the meeting-halls of the GUILD OF VENTURERS.
Eärendil ‘Sea-lover’ (Q.) – The son of Tuor of the Second House of the Edain and Idril, daughter of Turgon, King of High-elven Gondolin in the First Age. Their child was born in Gondolin before its fall and, escaping the sack, was brought to manhood on the shores of Beleriand, which for a while remained free of the Shadow. He later wedded the Elf-maiden Elwing the White, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien Tinúviel, thus uniting the remnants of the peoples of Gondolin and Doriath. He dwelt for a while in Arvernien, on the shores of the Bay of Balar. On the death (or departure) of his father and mother, he became lord of this last Elven-people; it was at this time that he wedded Elwing.
The Complete Tolkien Companion Page 18