Editing Dwarves in Middle-earth (section)

== In-fiction origins ==

{{further|The Silmarillion}}
{{anchor|Mount Gundabad}}

The Dwarves are portrayed in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' as an ancient people who awake during the [[Years of the Trees]], after the [[Elf (Middle-earth)|Elves]] at the start of the [[First Age]], but before [[Men (Middle-earth)|Men]] when the Sun and Moon are created. The [[Vala (Middle-earth)|Vala]] [[Aulë]], impatient for the arising of the [[Children of Ilúvatar]], creates the seven {{Visible anchor|Fathers of the Dwarves}} in secret, intending them to be his children to whom he could teach his crafts. He teaches them [[Khuzdul]], a language he had devised for them. [[Ilúvatar]], creator of [[Arda (Middle-earth)|Arda]], is aware of the Dwarves' creation and sanctifies them. Because they had been made by a Vala, Dwarves lacked souls until granted them by Ilúvatar.<ref name=":Reinders">{{Cite book |last=Reinders |first=Eric |title=Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy, and Translation |date=2024 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]] Academic |isbn=9781350374645 |series=Perspectives on Fantasy series |location=London, UK |pages=98}}</ref> Aulë sealed the seven Fathers of the Dwarves in stone chambers in far-flung regions of Middle-earth to await their awakening.<ref name="Evans 2013 (Drout)"/><ref name="Silmarillion Creation Myth" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 2 "Of Aulë and Yavanna"}}</ref>

[[File:Arthur Rackham Siegfried and Mime (detail).jpg|thumb|upright|The petty-dwarf Mîm may derive from the shrunken figure of [[Regin|Mime]],<ref name="Moseley 1997"/> here shown cowering behind the celebrating [[Sigurd|Siegfried]] in [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]]'s opera {{Lang|de|[[Der Ring des Nibelungen]]}}. Illustration by [[Arthur Rackham]], 1911]]

{{anchor|Durin}}
Each of the Seven Fathers founds one of the seven Dwarf clans. Durin I is the eldest, and the first of his kind to awake in Middle-earth. He awakens in [[Mount Gundabad]], in the northern [[Misty Mountains]], and founds the clan of Longbeards (Durin's Folk); they found the city of [[Khazad-dûm]] below the Misty Mountains, and later realms in the [[Ered Mithrin|Grey Mountains]] and [[Erebor]] (the Lonely Mountain). Two others lie in sleep in the north of the ''[[Ered Luin]]'' (Blue Mountains), and they found the lines of the Broadbeams and the Firebeards. The remaining four clans, the Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks, and Stonefoots come from the East.<ref name="Of Dwarves and Men" group=T/> After the end of the First Age, the Dwarves spoken of are almost exclusively of Durin's line.<ref name="R. Tolkien 1954 pp. 52/53" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 1, ch. 2 "[[The Shadow of the Past]]"}}</ref>

A further division, the even shorter {{visible anchor|Petty-dwarves}}, appears in ''The Silmarillion''<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 21 "Of Túrin Turambar"}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|loc=Volume One ''Mr. Baggins'', p. 78}}</ref> and ''[[The Children of Húrin]]''.<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|2007|loc=ch. 8 "The Land of Bow and helm"}}</ref> Moseley likens {{Visible anchor|Mîm}}, the last known Petty-dwarf, to the similarly named [[Alberich|Mime]] from the ''[[Nibelungenlied]]''.<ref name="Moseley 1997">{{cite book |last=Moseley |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Moseley (writer) |title=J. R. R. Tolkien |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford, England |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-746-30763-2 |page=32}}</ref>