Plenty of fantasy fans may wonder why the elves and dwarves inThe Lord of the Ringsdon’t quite get along. The reason has a lot to do with how the dwarves came into being, which sets them apart from every other race on Middle-earth, especially elves.
DespiteThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy,The Hobbitmovies, and nowThe Rings of Powerseries bringing hitherto untouched stories from Tolkien’s legendarium to life, there’s much about the origin of the different races on Middle-earth that is not yet widely known. One such tale involves the origin of the dwarves. Unlike Elves and Men, the one true God, Ilúvatar, didn’t create the dwarves. Rather, they’re more like his adopted children.
How Were the Dwarves of Middle-Earth Created?
In the beginning, there is only Eru Ilúvatar (the One God). He thinks into existence the Ainur: the Valar, and the lesser Ainur, called the Maiar. Together they create the Music of Ilúvatar and fashionArda, the planet on which Middle-earth exists. As per Eru’s designs, the elves were going to be the first race to awaken on Arda as the Firstborn Children of Ilúvatar. However, before they could awaken, one of the Valar, Aüle, created the dwarves from stone, deep under the mountains.
If the name Aüle sounds familiar, it’s because the dwarves inThe Rings of Powerinvoke him a lot. Disa, the wife of Prince Durin, is often heard exclaiming “Aüle’s beard!”, indicating that he is the God and creator of the dwarves. But why did Aüle create the dwarves in the first place?
Aüle was the Lord of all matter and craft, and too eager to share his knowledge with the Children who were awaited. But he grew restless and made seven dwarves from stone, the way he imagined Eru would have created the Children. SinceMelkor, the first Dark Lord (later Morgoth), was still terrorizing Arda at this time, Aüle made his creations strong, able to endure harder toil, hunger, and pain than men. The dwarves were also quick to anger and to laugh, to hate and to love. They were iron-willed and unyielding to the will of another. The latter became a defining trait of dwarves; Sauron couldn’t subdue them despite the seven rings of power.
Why Are Dwarves Different From Elves and Men?
The power of creation in the universe rests only with Ilúvatar. So, at the time of their creation, the dwarves were merely hollow puppets of stone. They worked only with Aüle’s direction; they didn’t have a soul, orfëa. Even though Aüle worked in secret, Ilúvatar appeared the moment the dwarves were completed to call out Aüle’s defiance and arrogance to try and become a master of the race. Aüle repented and was willing to strike his beloved creations down with his hammer. However, swayed by his son’s humility, Eru showed compassion and decided to ensoul the dwarves and adopt them.
It sounds like a happy ending to the story, but it gets bittersweet. There would be repercussions to Aüle’s defiance of the plan, which would cause ages of strife between the races of elves and dwarves.InThe Silmarillion, Tolkien wrotehow Eru foretold that, though adopted by him, the dwarves would forevermore be known as the ‘Adopted Children of Ilúvatar,’ and thus would often be at odds with the actual Children of Ilúvatar.
“When the time comes, I will awaken them, and they shall be to thee as children; and often strife shall arise between thine and mine, the children of my adoption and the children of my choice.”
In addition, Eru gave the dwarves souls, but didn’t amend the original handiwork of Aüle. This is probably why the dwarves remained short in stature, had unruly hair and beards, and didn’t resemble the elves. As if this wasn’t enough to sunder the two races, Eru then put the dwarves into a slumber, deep under the mountains, to make way for the elves to be awakened first.
There were several other differences between the dwarves of Aüle and the elves and men. They had a love for all the things that they built with their hands. The seven dwarves that were first created went on to become the forefathers of the seven dwarf clans, the senior among them named Durin. They had longer lifespans than men. And even their beliefs implied that their journey in the afterlife was different from elves. Dwarves believed that their greatest forefathers were reincarnated every few generations, which is why there were so many dwarves named Durin over the years.
However,the harshest ‘punishment’ for Aüle’s follywas the fact that his children had little love for the creations of Aüle’s wife, Yavanna. She was the Vala for all the flora and fauna on Arda. But dwarves are more interested in mining the earth or creating with wood and stone than preserving natural beauty. They reshaped the earth to suit their needs, digging deep, building furnaces fueled by cutting down trees, and so on. It became another way in which dwarves differed in ideology and traits from the elves, who were great preservers and artificers and wanted to recreate Valinor on Middle-earth.
The story of the enmity between elves and dwarves, then, is a tale as old as time, of racism and classism and conflicts arising from these very differences. It is why the friendship between Legolas and Gimli inThe Lord of the Rings, despite all odds, feels like it’s healing several ages' worth of wounds.
