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Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves!

© Michael Martinez

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.