Dwarven Strongholds of the Second & Third Ages (and Beyond)

the dwarves delved deep at that time seeking beneath barazimbar for mithril the metal beyond price that was becoming yearly ever harder to win thus they roused from sleep a thing of terror that flying from thangorodrim had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the host of the west a balrog of morgoth hey everyone yoyston here and i hope you all are doing well wherever you are in middle earth today we will be speaking about the later dwarf holds of middle earth from the second age through the third age and we will even mention how they went on into the fourth age and beyond at least some of them articles and videos that helped in the creation of today's video may be found in the description and cards my friends thank you all so much for joining me today let's begin our tale we'll start back at kaza doom where our previous video on the dwarven strongholds of the elder days finished at the beginning of the second age kazadoom was the greatest dwarf stronghold in the western lands of middle-earth at least we cannot be sure of the dwarven strongholds in eastern or southern middle earth beyond the borders of the map and the four dwarven clans of those lands but we can be sure they did at least exist and dealt with sauron's evil in their own ways in around 40 of the second age since nograd and bellagost had fallen into ruin at the end of the first stage the dwarves of those cities firebeards and broad beams made their way to kazadoom migrating there and mixing with the longbeards kazudum then entered really into its golden age and was not truly morya yet although some records in the appendices and so forth refer to it thusly as do the doors of duran which were built in the earlier part of the age by the dwarf narvi and elf kelebrimbor during these days of peace the dwarves of kazudum had friendship and trade with the elves in aragian and men in rovanian they mined from mithril and made things of wonder and beauty the dwarves also expanded outward somewhat as some dwarves had already settled in the iron hills and others likely dwelt still at gundabat though i'm not sure how great or small those settlements really were aerobore the lonely mountain was also perhaps under some relative control by the dwarves at this point but was not really carving out yet however after the war of the elves and sauron which saw reign ruined kazudum remained guarded and closed its western gate sealed and the golden age really ended this isolated kaza doom allowing for orcs to eventually take gundabat where during the deathless at first awoken and the dwarves of the iron hills remained cut off from their capital and kazadoom and probably came to face threats of their own however after the war of the last alliance and the defeat of sauron at the end of the age the dwarves could surely re-establish many of these connections between their strongholds but especially without the elves of aragian they would not be as close with elves generally sure there were the elves of lorand later lothlorian but many of these were not noldor the craftsmen with whom the dwarves actually quite liked and the relationship just wasn't the same with the elves of rivendell but regardless the dwarves would continue their doings mining ever deeper and deeper from mithril until in 1980 of the third age they'd mined so deeply in their search that they found at last a balrog who had fled to this cave beneath kazadoom during or after the war of wrath and his awakening changed the fate of the dwarves forever kazudum then more widely known as moria meaning black abyss was forsaken and the dwarves fled eastwards towards erebor and likely others went into the iron hills the dwarves settled in the lonely mountain carving out the new capital of the longbeards and they remained there for a few centuries until the king of the longbeards at that time abandoned erebor for the grey mountains to the north and 2210. joining dwarves who were already in these mountains while others stayed at erebor these others sought to make new mansions for one reason or another perhaps they thought there would be greater riches like mithril in those mountains that were not at arabor or that one mountain would not be vast enough for the dwarves who had once had an entire kingdom in the misty mountains i'm unsure but due to the great dragon presence the war of the dwarves and dragons saw the end of dwarven civilization in those mountains except perhaps for a few dwarves that did remain so the longbeards returned to erebor to once more make it their capital in 2590. of course the dwarves remained in erebor and it was their kingdom under the mountain yet still not as grand as moria had been a common theme of the decline of the vast beauty and wonder of civilization in tolkien's works yet arable was still grand so grand in fact that a dragon smaug attacked it and took it for his own in 2770 of the third age the dwarves who survived the dragon attack were exiles of their home and they came to dwell in small halls in the mountains of dunland for some years they dwelt here until king thwar was slain by azog one of the defiling orcs that had come to dwell in moria near the balrog and this began the war of the dwarves and orcs during this conflict the dwarves retook gundabad and would yet retain mastery over it for a time afterwards until some works came there again later in the age yet although king thrain hoped to retake moria entirely dane ironfoot knew the balrog still prevented that from happening and so the seven dwarven clans that got revenge on the orcs departed for their distant homes once again including the longbeards of the iron hills and thrain and thorin led their people back to dunland eventually going further north and west to make other halls in the eastern blue mountains as well the dwarves remained here remembering their old homes and evils done to them which eventually led thrain to his capture and thorn oakenshield to his adventure to reclaim the lonely mountain from smaug in 2941 after much hardship and sacrifice erabor was reclaimed the orcs of the misty mountains defeated once more and king dane ironfoot of the iron hills began his rule there after the dwarves reclaimed erebor some like balian and others wished to also try to retake moria but failed in the attempt the return of erebor to the dwarves greatly strengthened the northern strongholds of elves dwarves and men and trade and partnership returned but then came the war of the ring which saw easterlands and evils from dolgodor attack the north and the easterlings came to the very gates of erebor and perhaps the iron hills also saw battle with them during this same war gandalf the grey and the fellowship of the ring traversed moria and the wizards slew the balrog allowing a future chance for reclamation as pretended by dane during the war of the dwarves and orcs that they might one day retake it after the world had changed and a power came through the mines the dane ironfoot would not live to see it as he was slain in the battle of dale but once the one ring was destroyed in the south and sauron was finally truly defeated great relief came to the dwarves and their home of erebor the dwarves would finally enter into a new golden age as with the men of middle-earth even as the elves departed aerobor would be made safe they iron hills and blue mountains still had dwarves living there and their minds still operated most likely and gimli elf friend would establish a new dwarf colony in the white mountains in the glittering caves of aglarond near the hornberg what's more a descendant of dane ironfoot as soon as his grandson but perhaps a more distant descendant would be the seventh and final durian and it was his fate to reclaim moria kazadoom from the orcs and perhaps gundabad also except for the abandoned dwarven strongholds likely those of the grey mountains and dunland the homes of the dwarves throughout the second and third ages would have dwarves in them once more even into the fourth age and beyond in their homes they labored and mined eventually disappearing from the middle earth above and going beneath it over the ages and their mighty and wonderful strongholds perhaps they would once more fallen to sleep or dig ever deeper as the tale of the dwarves became a distant song the clang of hammer on anvil in the halls far beneath the earth and so we come to the end of our tale on the strongholds of the dwarves in the second and third ages from this story we see that home is the land where our people dwell and if we are resilient enough our homes shall never truly be destroyed or taken from us thank you all so much for watching i hope you all enjoyed this video on the dwarven strongholds if you did please be sure to hit that like button and share this with a friend what are your thoughts on these dwarven poems let me know in the comments below it is interesting that even in comparison to the dwarven strongholds of the elder days dwarves moved around a lot building many halls and many mountains yet their great ancient homes airborne and kazadoom especially could never be replaced not even in their minds but once again as long as their people survived they always had a home you can see this throughout how the dwarves migrated and that despite their new homes in other places they still preferred their mansions of old thanks to our valor to patrons kyle wetzel peter shepard jonathan putin and mark blair scout and merton john hume samick b matt sabach elizabeth calvert maz gibbs rhys jenkins adam petrolik brandon glidden molly sullivan daniel burns anthony harmon dorwyn gray arthur merlin and dj vaught thank you all so much and thanks to all of our patrons and youtube members please subscribe and hit that bell button to join the men of the west and all of the free peoples today i'll see you all again next week with the video on the tale of fram and scatha the dragon you all are the best my friends thank you all so much for joining me on this adventure until the next one

Channel: Men of the West

Views: 62,708

Keywords: Men of the West, Yoystan, Dwarves, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Moria, Khazad-dum, Erebor, Lonely Mountain, Dragons, Balrog, Second Age, Rings of Power

Id: 6EqplRCT8Fk

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022