Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves, Part II - Page 6

Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves, Part II - Page 6

© Michael Martinez

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.

The copyright of the article Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves, Part II - Page 6 in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish Them Dwarves, Them Dwarves, Part II - Page 6 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.