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news:mf-dndvbnqGko3PXnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d@insightbb.com>
"Chris Hoelscher" <chrishoelsc
...@insightbb.com> spoke these staves:
> the silmarillion states (chap 2) that in their beginning the
> Dwarves were made by Aule in the darkness of Middle-Earth (as
> opposed to Aman) - and he made the first seven fathers in a hall
> under the mountains in Middle-Earth ...
> okay ... so ... Where?
To the best of my knowledge there is no hint whatsoever beyond what
you quote here. It seems to me likely that Tolkien never considered
this question -- that there is no correct answer.
> Mt Gundabad?
That would, I think, be one of the more likely places.
> is it held in reverence by the dwarves NOT (only) because it was
> the awakening place of Durin, but because if was the creation
> place of all dwarves?
First of all, if Tolkien had actually intended this, I would expect
that he would have mentioned it in the 'Of Dwarves and Men' essay
published in _The Peoples of Middle-earth_. However, if we accept
that Tolkien never got around to actually intend anything with
respect to this question, then there are several ways in which we can
construct the story to fit your idea. The Dwarves, for instance,
could be even more secretive about this fact than about other things
concerning their race, and so the Elven and Mannish sources that form
the manner of transfer within the narrative conceit would not know
anything about it.
> or somewhere else?
Even if Mount Gundabad is probably the most likely precise location
(IMO and as far as I have had time to think it over), I still think
that 'somewhere else' is more likely ;-)
> the halls that were later called Moria?
My impression with respect to Moria is that it is predominantly mined
(very little is natural caverns), and that it was mined by Durin's
people after their arrival there. Any argument I might make will
probably just be a pseudo-argument: an attempt to justify what is
just a feeling of 'I don't think so', so why don't I just leave it at
that ;-)
> perhaps the Orocarni ?
Another of the more likely spots, precisely for the reason you give
below
> (all children seems to have beginnings in the east)
Yup. And this makes the transfer of two of the Dwarf-fathers to the
Blue Mountains rather special.
> another question, when the 7 (re-)awakened, did they have specific
> memories of their creation, or did their memories begin with their
> (re-)awakening??
I can't remember where it is, but I think that there is something
somewhere about the Dwarves believing that Aulë has instructed them
or told them something about themselves -- I believe that I remember
something about their believing that there are some separate halls
set aside for them at Mandos? Anyway, my point is that any such
instruction of the Dwarves as a race by Aulë would seem to me natural
to have occurred precisely between Aulë and the seven Dwarf-fathers
(and -mothers) before he separated them at put them to sleep until
the arrival of the Elves. The belief that Aulë himself had told them
something would therefore, IMO, imply a (possibly quite vague)
preference for the idea that the Dwarf-fathers did remember what
happened at their creation. This is also, IMO, implied by the stories
in 'Of Dwarves and Men' of communications between the widely spread
settlements of Dwarves already in the early ages -- why would the
Dwarves of the Blue Mountains (the Firebeards and Broadbeams), for
instance, have attempted to communicate with the other Dwarven
peoples unless they knew about them? I think the total spread of the
Dwarven fathers is implied to have been so great that only knowledge
about the others would have got them to open communication lines
already during the First Age.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much
more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant
of ordinary things.
- Discworld scientists at work, /Equal Rites/ (Terry Pratchett)
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