Q: Could the Dwarves of Ered Luin Have Reclaimed Belegost?
ANSWER: I received the following question from a blog reader in March 2020.
Spending some time social distancing so am reading and re-reading when this thought popped up out of nowhere. During Bilbo and Frodo’s time in the Third Age it is said that the Dwarves had dwellings in the Blue Mountains. I am wondering if they would or could have re-entered Belegost? A little remodeling if you will? Granted Nogrod lays under the waters of the Gulf of Lune now but not the other. Granted(again) there could have been humble settlements among the arms of the Blue Mountains even before the end of the First Age but would there not be at the least the temptation to enhance the once great city of Dwarves? After all one wouldn’t have to start from scratch s the basic foundations would still be there. Just wondering if there were … papers somewhere that may have hinted at the Ered Luin dwellings of the late Third Age?
Thanks
Well, first let me recap the facts about the the Dwarven realms of the Ered Luin as established in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales.
- Most of the Dwarves of Nogrod were killed in the First Age.
- Most of the surviving Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost migrated to Khazad-dûm in the Second Age.
- Some Dwarves always lived in Ered Luin throughout the Second and Third Ages.
- Arvedui sought refuge in abandoned Dwarf mines in Third Age year 1975.
- Thrain sent messengers to the other 6 Dwarf Lords when seeking to avenge Thror’s death
- About half the Dwarven soldiers who fought at Azanulbizar survived the battle
- Thorin lived in Ered Luin for several years.
- Dwarves continue to travel between Ered Luin & other parts of Middle-earth after Erebor was reclaimed.
One thing people seldom discuss (in my knowledge) is the legal status of the Dwarven claims over the Ered Luin. Gil-galad claimed all of Lindon as his realm in the Second Age, but the Noldor never laid any claim on the Ered Luin, except for Caranthir, who established a fortress on a western peak of the northern Ered Luin. Caranthir’s lordship ended when Morgoth’s forces overran the March of Maedhros. In any event, Caranthir doesn’t seem to have left any heirs despite being married (to an unnamed wife). If he left any children in Valinor, or if they returned to Valinor after the end of the First Age, then any claims to his lands would have ended or passed to Gil-galad.
However, Gil-galad left no heir and his realm ended with him. Cirdan remained the highest-ranking Elven lord beyond the Gulf of Lhûn in the Third Age, and we don’t know if he claimed any rights over the rest of Lindon. His authority may only have extended to the twin havens of Mithlond. Nor could anyone from the House of Fëanor have established a realm in Lindon. We don’t even know if any of them survived the Second Age. Celebrimbor is the last member of that house to appear in the histories, and not only did he lay no claims over Lindon in the Second Age, he migrated to Eregion (where he died).
So I think the legal claims upon Ered Luin were largely in an abandoned status by the end of the Third Age. Technically, anyone could have settled in those mountains and established a realm there. They might have to respect the autonomy of any Dwarvish or Elvish enclaves, but the Elvish population dwindled, especially after the Great Exodus at the end of the Third Age (Tolkien describes it in “The Shadow of the Past”, when many Elves pass through the Shire on their ways to the Havens).
Did the Kings of Durin’s Line Have a Claim In Ered Luin?
Thorin was technically a king without a realm after his father died in Dol Guldur. He staked his claim to his heritage in Erebor, which he succeeded in reclaiming. But what happened to the royal houses of Belegost and Nogrod after the First Age? People occasionally ask me about them and I don’t have any reasonable answers for them.
It’s conceivable that Durin’s Folk somehow claimed authority over the Dwarves of the Ered Luin. In that case, Dain II would have had the authority to cede the ruins of Belegost to any group of Dwarves who might have wanted to rebuild the city.
And given that many of Belegost’s people did settle in Khazad-dûm in the early Second Age, it’s possible their descendants were numerous enough to consider that in the Fourth Age. But there were several major events that could have diminished their numbers. Tolkien only confirms that Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur were descended of non-Longbeard Dwarves. We don’t know if they in any way represented any special lineage from Belegost.
The Battle of Azanulbizar is the last event where Tolkien describes any organized action by the 7 Dwarf Lords/realms. We don’t know what status the leaders of the Broadbeams and Firebeards had by that time, but they were still able to raise their own armies.
So I think the answer to your question hinges on two points:
- Whether descendants of Belegost’s Dwarves had sufficient numbers to establish a new realm and rebuild the city.
- Whether anyone would have objected, perhaps through a legal claim, to such an effort.
I don’t believe there would have been any justified competing claims. The strongest claim might have belonged to the Kings of Durin’s Folk, who took in the refugees of Nogrod and Belegost. They might have inherited or absorbed the royal authority of those dynasties.
But I don’t know how to justify any assumptions about the numbers of Belegostian Dwarves. Your guess is as good as mine. If I had to make a definitive guess, I’d say yes, it’s conceivable they could have repopulated Belegost sometime in the Fourth Age, even if only with fewer numbers than had lived there in the First Age.
See Also
What Do We Know about Thorin’s Halls in the Blue Mountains?
From Where Did Thorin Travel When He First Met Gandalf?
Could the House of Fëanor Ever Have Reclaimed the High Kingship?
Were There Ever Three Concurrent Kings in Khazad-dûm?
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This is slightly off topic, but this statement got me wondering: “However, Gil-galad left no heir and his realm ended with him.”
Why do you suppose Gil-galad didn’t leave an heir? Do you think it might have been understood that he would be the last king of the Noldor in Middle-earth?
My hypothesis for some time has been that the Eldar of Middle-earth chose not to have any more kings after Gil-galad’s death.
See Why Didn’t Elrond Become King of the Noldor? for my reasoning.
That sounds fair, but it doesn’t quite address the question. Not taking another king was a decision that the Eldar/Noldor made in the Third Age. Not leaving an heir is a decision that Gil-galad himself made in the Second Age. It suggests that he knew there would no longer be a need for a king after he died.
It’s conceivable (although I hesitate to say “possible”) Tolkien imagined Gil-galad loving someone who didn’t love him back, or who died or passed over Sea before they could wed. In The Peoples of Middle-earth Christopher Tolkien explains the worrisome history of Gil-galad’s development. He started out as the son of Finrod and younger brother of Galadriel (who eventually became Finrod’s sister). Eventually Gil-galad was moved to become the son of Orodreth (Finrod and Galadriel’s brother). However, Christopher says this change didn’t occur until after the publication of The Lord of the Rings.
So it’s possible that contemporary with the First Edition, Gildor Inglorion is the son or nephew of Gil-galad, grandson of Finrod or one of the other brothers, and a descendant of Inglor (who subsequently was renamed Finarfin). And if that’s the case, then Tolkien neglected to explain why Gildor didn’t become High King.
So it’s on the basis of this confusion and incompleteness of Gil-galad’s fictional development that I prefer not to make any guesses.
Maybe, regardless of all that, your guess is correct and Tolkien felt in the back of his mind that Gil-galad knew by Elvish foresight he would be the last of the High Kings. But that wouldn’t negate the possibility that he could have loved someone and had no children with her.
It’s also conceivable that Gil-galad married late in the Second Age but died before he and his wife could have any children. In such a circumstance, Mrs. Gil-galad might have sailed over Sea to await his resurrection in Valinor so they could be together again. And in that case, any children they’d have would remain in the Undying Lands.
Several kings of Gondor never married, although they certainly knew they would need an heir. So I don’t think Tolkien would have made much of it, other than that many people who should have had descendants didn’t.
Also, Elrond never married during the entire Second Age. I gather that it was only after the Fall of Gil-Galad when he became concerned that he, too, might fall.
Thanks for your thoughtful answer! As you probably know, Gil-galad is the son of Fingon in the published version of The Silmarillion. I’ve also heard that C. Tolkien concluded that Orodreth must have been the son of Angrod (making him the nephew of Finrod and Galadriel). Gil-galad’s character development is indeed worrisome!
Right. Orodreth became the nephew of Finrod and Galadriel. I knew that! LOL!
Michael, I’m a big fan of your blog. I know I’m in the minority of so-called “purists,” but I have always preferred the published lineage, that Gil-galad was Fingon’s son, for many reasons, but especially because Maedhros committed the high kingship to the line of Fingolfin, not the line of Finarfin. I have also had a theory (totally speculation) that the line of High Kings ended because there were no other descendants of Fingolfin remaining in Middle-earth who had been born in the Light of the Trees. In The Nature of Middle-earth, I was excited to see a birth date for Ereinion/Gil-galad that placed his birth in Valinor, not in Middle-earth as traditionally held. Of course, I recognize that there is just too much conflicting information in Tolkien’s writing to be sure what he was thinking on this subject. But under my theory, it doesn’t matter if Gil-galad had a child or not, if Elrond were interested in inheriting the mantle or not, if Galadriel should have been considered or not (though she should have been!) because there were no other heirs of Fingolfin born in the Light of the Trees who could claim the High Kingship. I know it’s a stretch, but I’m sticking to it!
I’m of the same opinion, having problems with the high kingship in Middle-earth jumping from the house of Fingolfin to the house of Finarfin, and having Gilgalad be Fingon’s son seems the simplest solution with the least amount of problems for the narrative.
To be honest, Tolkien’s meddling with this, and with the position of Orodreth in the lineage, seems to be little more than meddling for meddling’s sake. Moving Orodreth down a generation also seems to me to weaken the Nargothrond story.
This is to my mind all on a par with Tolkien’s other meddlings around the issues of round vs flat world, and the age of the sun and the moon.
In the end JRRT did give CJRT freedom to amend as he saw fit, and I like to think that this change, together with CJRT’s handling of the Ruin of Doriath, is something JRRT would have accepted as the right thing.
The issue is that Gil-galad, being the son of the older brother, would seem to have primacy over Turgon, yet Turgon became High King first.
Some of the material in the newly-released nature of Middle-earth book may shed some light into your interest in Gil-Galad. Apparently, the Eldar did not marry or have children in times of trouble or war.
Please forgive my second comment here, I did not mean to send the first so quickly. Another thing about the Eldar is that they would not have children until they have been alive for thousands of years. This is also featured in The Nature of Middle Earth. Think of Elrond. Born at the end of the first age, has no children until the beginning of the third age. Apparently, this was the norm.
It may be we’re looking at the question of “why didn’t Gil-galad leave an heir” differently. A king can have an heir regardless of whether it’s his own child, another relative, or someone to whom he cedes his royalty. The Roman Empire somtimes acquired territory by inheriting small realms whose kings bequeathed their royal heritage to Rome (or its leaders).
I don’t have a firm hypothesis of why Gil-galad didn’t have children. I can only propose possible explanations.
But his realm ended when he died, or soon afterward. There was no successor realm.
“Tolkien only confirms that Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur were descended of non-Longbeard Dwarves. We don’t know if they in any way represented any special lineage from Belegost.”
Is it really stated that they are not of the Longbeards? I mean it would be intersting, but it was always simply said that:
“…Ori, Nori, and Dori were also of the House of Durin, and more remote kinsmen of Thorin: Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur were descended from Dwarves of Moria but were not of Durin’s line.” RotK; Appendix A
It’s simply stated they are not of royal line but descending from Dwarves of Moria.
Besides IF there would be still other clans of the Dwarves who originally build Nogrod and Belegost (and in other texts were named Broadbeams and Firebeards) then one can assume that their kings are out there as well, and they might have the claim to that territory, in any case Belegost was probably too damaged to sustain being habitable or maybe it’s remnants could be salvaged, still one can imagine that the original inhabitants would have a claim to it in the same way Gundabad was significant to the Longbeards.
It has always been my understanding that Durin’s folk/line = Longbeards. At the time Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, there were only 2 Dwarven kindreds. I forget when he expanded them to 7.
That depends how we interpret the terms. ‘Durin’s Folk’ seems to imply the entire people in general the subjects of Durin in other words, while the ‘Durin’s line’ seems to directly imply direct genealogical line of descent. In any case you probably know more about the stages of development and how things were worked up by Tolkien over the years. The first mention of ‘the Longbeards’ was in The Hobbit (“He was the father of the fathers of the eldest race of Dwarves, the Longbeards, and my first ancestor: I am his heir.”), later with the Lotr sequel things were probably more and more developing into the later form we know, already appendices to Lotr mention ‘Durin’s Folk gathered all their host, and they were joined by great forces sent from the Houses of other Fathers….” in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs.
In general also one may interpret the term House, as a family or entire folk associaed with that family, later we go into the whole myths of the Dwarven origin, the Seven Fathers etc. various versions of the dwarf genesis and their awakening.