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Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves! - Page 4

© Michael Martinez

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.

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