2440-2589) was King of Durin's Folk until his death at the hands of a cold-drake. Nain II (2338-2585) ruled Durin's Folk from the Grey Mountains and Nain (2665-2799), Son of Gror and father of Dain Ironfoot, fought and died at the Battle of Azanulbizar outside the East Gate of Moria.ĭain - This name too belongs to multiple characters in the legendarium. Nain I (1832-1981) was the last king of Khazad-dum (Moria) and was killed by the Balrog. Nain - This name was given to three different dwarves from the Third Age. He traveled with the crazed king from Dunland to the eastern gates of Moria where Thror was captured and beheaded by Azog. Nar - Not much is known about Nar, but he does have an interesting place in dwarven history as he was the last dwarf to see to see Thror (grandfather of Thorin) alive. Note: Click on each character's name below to pull up their page on .ĭurin - Durin the Deathless, one of the original 7 dwarves created by Aule, is often named as the "Father of the Dwarves" and is a direct ancestor of Thorin Oakenshield.ĭvalin - later changed to Dwalin by Tolkien, is brother of Balin and relative of Thorin. So for all time | shall the tale be known, They sought a home | in the fields of sand.ġ5. The rocks they left, | and through wet lands The race of the dwarfs | in Dvalin's throng The dwarfs in the earth, | as Durin said.ġ4. Below the texts I've also provided a few notes about each of the marked names explaining their final position in Tolkien's mythology.Īn Unexpected Party by the Brothers Hildebrandt In the English version members of Thorin's Company are marked in blue while names used for other dwarf characters in Middle-earth are marked in red. But, in Tolkien's story some of these early dwarves became seeds for very different characters his charming children's story.īelow you'll find the "Catalog of Dwarves" in the original Old Norse with a translation side by side. Within the Völuspá (the first poem of the Elder Edda) is a passage known as the Dvergatal or, the "Catalog of Dwarves." The Völuspá itself is a creation myth and the six stanzas known as the Dvergatal simply catalog the names of the first dwarves. called the Elder Edda (also known as the Poetic Edda). Almost all of the 13 dwarf names (Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur) appear in an Old Norse poem dating back to around 1000 A.D. The names of the members of Thorin's Company in The Hobbit are a perfect example of this. Not only did it save him time and energy by using existing words, but it immediately gave his own stories context and a historical grounding that connected them to our own legendary past. (If he made up the word himself it really often began with a sound.) In many situations Tolkien borrowed names from the ancient European mythologies that he loved and studied. This month's topic features the dwarves.Ĭharacters and stories in Tolkien's mind almost always started first with a name. Earlier this spring we took a look at the postcard that inspired the character of Gandalf and last month I shared what we learned about trolls. Every few weeks here on Musings of a Tolkienist I've been summarizing our discoveries on specific topics and posting what we learned. During the semester-long course on The Hobbit that I taught earlier this year for middle-schoolers we looked at many of the real historical sources that inspired Tolkien's own mythology.
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