Of all the cultures Professor Tolkien created in his masterwork of Middle-earth, fewer are more captivating than the Elves. Firstborn, walking under the stars and moon before the coming of the Sun, teaching speech to Men and Ents, immortal unless killed and entitled to sail from the Grey Havens westward over the Sea to Valinor.
They’re also among the less interesting. Eternal, noble, possessed of deep knowledge and incredible power, they’re relatively changeless and given time, can do pretty much anything to which they set their minds.
More intriguing, to this little brain anyway, are the Dwarves. They’ve a reputation for being dour, humourless and grim, but as a culture, they’ve had reason. Driven from their ancestral halls, they are a people fallen from the heights of their civilisations in Moria and Erebor. Immensely talented in the creation of works of beauty and art, they are at once savage and unrelenting in war.
Perhaps the clearest portrait of their cultural essence is rendered by the song sung by Thorin and Company at Bag End before setting off on the quest for the Lonely Mountain. Imagine it chanted by thirteen deep voices in a fire-lit, smoky, low-ceilinged hall. . . .
Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away ere break of day To seek the pale enchanted gold. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. For ancient king and elvish lord There many a gleaming golden hoard They shaped and wrought, and light they caught To hide in gems on hilt of sword. On silver necklaces they strung The flowering stars, on crowns they hung The dragon-fire, in twisted wire They meshed the light of moon and sun. Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To claim our long-forgotten gold. Goblets they carved there for themselves And harps of gold; where no man delves There lay they long, and many a song Was sung unheard by men or elves. The pines were roaring on the height, The winds were moaning in the night. The fire was red, it flaming spread; The trees like torches blazed with light. The bells were ringing in the dale And men looked up with faces pale; The dragon's ire more fierce than fire Laid low their towers and houses frail. The mountain smoked beneath the moon; The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom. They fled their hall to dying fall Beneath his feet, beneath the moon. Far over the misty mountains grim To dungeons deep and caverns dim We must away, ere break of day To win our harps and gold from him!
Wow. The thing fairly throbs with power and grim determination. Where’s my axe? My backpack? Off we go! Hm. Or not. Let’s calm down and take the song stanza by stanza.
Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away ere break of day To seek the pale enchanted gold.
Dwarves live in unforgiving environments. Driven by a desire to work and craft stone, gems and precious minerals, they make their homes in steep, rocky, damp and chilly places. It’s no wonder that they moved underground. Still, they’ve made comfortable places for themselves; the “dungeons” must refer to the use of the word as the keep of a castle, wherein the inhabitants resided. Above-ground, this was often a stone tower. Dwarven dungeons were probably underground dwellings, carved out of the rock. That they didn’t merely move into natural caves is borne out by the song’s distinction between “dungeons” and “caverns.” The last line of the verse introduces us to a Dwarven passion. Gold glitters and flashes shallowly in torchlight and the Dwarves’ love of the metal is akin to a magical compulsion to seek it out.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells.
The Dwarves are an ancient people of many achievements and great works. They are often portrayed as being anti-magical or at the very least, shunning the use of magic in their craft. The “mighty spells” may give the lie to that characterisation, in that the Dwarves may be able to imbue their creations with magical attributes. Conversely, it may be a metaphor for the consummate skill which the Dwarves bring to their crafts, such that their works, while untouched by the supernatural, are of unparalleled quality, seemingly magical. The rest of this stanza is a truly ominous bit of foreshadowing, as the “Dwarvish racket” resonates in the ears of things unknown to the bearded folk, yet close by whom they have delved.
For ancient king and elvish lord There many a gleaming golden hoard They shaped and wrought, and light they caught To hide in gems on hilt of sword. On silver necklaces they strung The flowering stars, on crowns they hung The dragon-fire, in twisted wire They meshed the light of moon and sun.
We can take these two stanzas together, as they highlight the level of skill achieved by the Dwarves of old. Sought after by powerful Men and Elves, Dwarvish art in metalworking and gemsmithing must have far exceeded the capabilities of the other races. In their hands, cold metal and hard gems awoke to reflect back the light and wonders of the natural world.
Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To claim our long-forgotten gold. Goblets they carved there for themselves And harps of gold; where no man delves There lay they long, and many a song Was sung unheard by men or elves.
A circle back to the ancient homelands and a sign, with the “long-forgotten gold,” that the Dwarves have fallen away from the glories of their past, begin this stanza. The second of these verses harks back to the Dwarven skill of hand and makes the important point that no matter what “gleaming golden hoards” they delivered up to Men and Elves, the best of their creations they kept for themselves. More than artisans, tradesmen and merchants, the Dwarves developed and nurtured their own culture, keeping it fiercely secret from outsiders.
The pines were roaring on the height, The winds were moaning in the night. The fire was red, it flaming spread; The trees like torches blazed with light. The bells were ringing in the dale And men looked up with faces pale; The dragon's ire more fierce than fire Laid low their towers and houses frail. The mountain smoked beneath the moon; The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom. They fled their hall to dying fall Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
The coming of the dragon; heralded in flame. The Dwarves’ creations caught and reflected back the beauty of the world. The dragon is a destroyer, a bringer of death to the world, covetous of that which, when its source of beauty is gone, is reduced to a hard pile of lifeless rock and metal. The Dwarves are driven out from the safety of their “dungeons deep,” out into the harsh mountainsides where the dragon, where death, awaits.
Far over the misty mountains grim To dungeons deep and caverns dim We must away, ere break of day To win our harps and gold from him!
Now for the last. The Dwarves have suffered much. They have fallen from their high places of old; their mountains are not just “cold,” but “grim” and their caverns, once ablaze with light, are danksome and dark. The dragon rules a dead kingdom, but the Dwarves are determined not only to take back their treasure and works of their hands, but also their lost culture, to win back the respect of the outside world and the essence of their own place in it.
I too have a special place in my heart for Durin’s folk. They also have a strange origin, and are sometimes called the adopted children of Iluvatar. They are the beloved children of Aule the Smith, and they played key roles in the story of the First Age and of the Silmarils.
One of my favourite scenes is in the Tomb of Balin son of Fundin, especially since he was one of the wiser and more appealing characters from The Hobbit.
Here is Durin’s Song
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted well;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.
The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In elder days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin’s Day.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light and sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.
There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.
Unwearied then were Durin’s folk;
Beneath the mountains woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.
The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge’s fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
I forgot to mention that Khazad-dum was probably the oldest mansion of the Dwarves, and was ruled by Durin, eldest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves. There were two other Dwarf cities mentioned in the Silmarillion, both of them being in Ered Luin, and possibly destroyed at the end of the First Age. They were Nogrod and Belegost; since part of Ered Luin still survives, perhaps there are ruins of these older, but not oldest, of the habitations of the Dwarves.
I always hear Tolkien’s songs to tunes while reading them – some familiar, some made up or cobbled together from existing tune bits in my head. Some time ago I wrote down the one for the Dwarves’ Quest, melody and harp descant. Here is the melody in ABC format; instructions for listening are below, unless you can deal with ABC directly.
X:1
T: The Dwarves’ Quest
C: tune: Heather Patey, hpatey@nfld.com
C: words, of course, from The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:Bb
W:Far o-ver the mist-y moun-tains cold
W:To dun-geons deep and cav-erns old
W:We must a-way ere break of day,
W:To seek the pale en-chant-ed gold.
z3G,,3|(C,3C,2)D,1_E,3C,3|D,3_B,,3C,3-C,1
C,2|D,3D,3C,3C,3|_B,,3_B,,3A,,3-A,,1
G,,2|C,3C,3D,3D,3|_E,3C,3_C,3-_C,1
_C,2|C,3C,3_B,,3_B,,3|_A,,3_B,,3C,8
To hear it: copy text from X:1 line to end. (Intact, please, random surfers, ask before using elsewhere, yak yak.)
Paste it into the Tune-O-Tron:
http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
Press Submit.
You see the sheet music. Click on [MIDI music file] and let it play in Winamp or whatever music player you have set up. Imagine “little fiddles … flutes … a drum … clarinets … viols as big as themselves, and … a beautiful golden harp… deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes.” Hope you like it.
There’s also a version in the old cartoon version of The Hobbit.
Regarding music, I also have a CD of Tolkien telling stories. For one, he sings Sam’s song about the trolls, and it’s a real hoot to hear his accent (he sounds like one of the farmers from All Creatures Great and Small). For another, he sings the bath song in Crickholoow in Buckland, in the little cottage.