Dwarves in J.R.R. Tolkiens The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings -- Tolkien describes the creation of the world as as song. Iluvatar (god) taught his archangels (the Valar) a song, and the Valar sang the world into existence. Its a typical creation myth. Aulë, one of the Valar, knew of Iluvatars creation of two great races to inhabit Arda (his world), Men and Elves. Because neither of these races was intended to learn mining and smithcraft, Aulës main tasks, Aulë created his own race of beings, the Dwarves. Iluvatar confronted Aulë, who confessed to what hed done. Unwilling to destroy an entire race of living creatures, Iluvatar put the Dwarves to sleep. He gave them souls, and buried them deep in the earth in seven locations throughout Arda. He allowed them to waken only once the Elves had wakened and settled Arda. Some Dwarves are shorter than their kin, and dark, and often misshapen. As the Dwarves multiplied in the east (the Elves, by now, mostly residing in the west), these Petty-Dwarves began moving west. The Elves, unthinkingly, believed them to be a sort of horrid animal and began hunting and killing them. Only later did they realize differently, and by then some very bad blood had arisen between Dwarves and Elves. Tolkiens Dwarves have been depicted a lot of different times -- by painters for calendars (heres a Brothers Hildebrandt calendar), by animators (a Ralph Bakshi design), by live-action filmmakers (a Peter Jackson dwarf), and by book illustrators (heres Gandalf, Bildo, and the dwarves discussing their quest in a painting by Alan Lee).
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:23:35 +0000