#Dwecember - Eight Nights
So I was going to write dwarf-inspired chanukah fic, but then life happened. Still, here's some unapologetically Jewish holiday fic featuring dwarves. Menorah lighting, Stiffbeard customs, fried foods, remembrance and inter-cultural relations.
âI donât understand the time of year, thoughââ gasped Gaelan as he huffed down the Ereborian street after Vadlik. Though Gaelan stood head and shoulders above the tallest dwarves, it was still a tight squeeze. Heâd lived in Dale for ten years now, and never before had he been inside the mountain when the Festival of the Clans was happening. From Vadlikâs excited commentary in the month leading up to the eight nights, he knew that it was a big occasion for not only the Stiffbeards, but for all of the houses of the dwarves.
Vadlik slowed, and proffered a leather drinking vessel to Gaelan. The Man took it warily and sniffed it, almost spluttering at the pungent stench of neat spirit. He swigged it anyway; it was colder than he had anticipated, with a blizzard howling down from the nothern hills. The stone under his feet was chilly enough to sap away any warmth his thick socks provided, and Vadlikâs breath puffed out before him in a cloud of wispy vapour.
âI donât know why,â said Vadlik after considering this for a moment. He shrugged. âSomething to do? It is cold at this time of year, and we need the light of candles and lamps. The light helps us to see, binds us together. Makes us remember.â Vadlik tapped the side of his skull with a thick, leather-covered finger. At least he had the foresight to bring gloves and a hat with ear-flaps. âRemember is very important to all khazad. Darkness better for remember. The fire good, see many thing in fire when darkness is around.â
Even though the Stiffbeardâs Westron was still quite broken, Gaelan knew exactly what point he was making. There was, he supposed, a reason why even in the religious rites of Men, candles were lit in Temples and a sea of light transformed the prayers of petitioners into an otherworldly experience. Telling stories of old legends in the darkness of a winter night was enhanced by crackling red flames, which leapt and twisted together to create the forms of creatures and figures of ancient times. Remembrance was aided by candlelight, the same way that the races of Middle-Earth had been aided by the rising of the first sun. It was linked in ways that Gaelan couldnât fully put to words.
They walked together in silence, Gaelanâs huge frame turning heads. Not only was he a Man, of course, but he was also close to seven foot tall. Some dwarves goggled up at him with their jaws hanging open, but Vadlik simply strode in front of him with a proud, disdainful stare, jutting out his jaw as if daring any of them to comment. Gaelan didnât mind though; he knew his dwarven friend took it more personally (as he suspected he would do if their roles were reversed), but he knew for some more sheltered dwarves it was rare to see someone this tall so far inside Erebor. Still, he greeted everyone with a smile and a âShamukh!â where appropriate, Vadlikâs liquor burning his oesophagus as he tipped more of it down his throat.
Finally, they stopped in the middle of a square in the Eastern district of Erebor. Here was the confluence of the Red Mountain diaspora among the Longbeards, an enclave where East met West. Gaelan had spent time here, and he smiled down as a few of the dwarves around him waved and shouted his name jovially. Vadlik hugged some other Stiffbeards who were huddled around a brazier at one corner of the square, warming their hands with their hair bedecked in multi-coloured ribbons and the dwarrowdams sporting incredible hats. Something sweet-scented was burning, an incense that Gaelan had last smelled when he had travelled through Kikuama. He breathed in the robust, smoky air, feeling the hair in his nose tingle. A tug at his sleeve brought his gaze down. A small dwarf child was reaching up towards him, shaking something clutched in their fist. He bent down and opened his palm: a small, sticky pastry fell into it.
âSâganit!â Exclaimed Vadlik, who had drunk half the bottle of fire-water and was now weaving. âVery good to eat!â
Gaelan popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly oily but coated in a thick layer of sugary syrup that cut through its density. It was delicious. He noticed then that an array of fried foods were being hawked around the edges of the square from various stalls: potato-cakes floated on top of vats of oil; other vendors sold salted, cheese-filled doughs from hand-carts; and a queue of dwarves lined up outside a nearby house, which had the shutters of its kitchen window thrown wide open and a portly Stiffbeard dwarrowdam tipping out rows of sâganit by the tray full into the hands of customers.
âIs this another custom?â Gaelan asked, as he chased Vadlik to the cheese-pastry seller.
âYes,â Vadlik said, waving a handful of coin towards the dwarf, âwe have custom to light many oil lanterns, and therefore we eat everything fried in oil!â
It was a loose connection to Gaelan, but he didnât mind. Oil-fried foods was one of his favourite food groups.
After Vadlik had bought Gaelan and himself a dozen pastries and fried potato hashes, which he doused with a dollop of soured cream, they crouched down on the porch of a closed shop-front to eat.
âSo â what will happen tonight, then?â Gaelan asked, his eyes straying to the huge, unlit candelabra that had been erected in the centre of the square. It was eight-pronged, like a trident, built elaborately from brass. One of the candle-holders was positioned higher than the others at the left-most side, while the others were still lower. It stood around twice his height.
âOne of the elders of Stiffbeards will light this tonight,â Vadlik said, gesturing towards the candelabra. âThey will make blessing for all of us, for our Clan, for our homeland.â
âAnd each of the eight nights,â Gaelan went on, âis to commemorate a different house of the dwarves?â
âThe eighth night â final night â is for all of us. The seven coming together as one,â Vadlik corrected. âTonight, night five, is a special night for Stiffbeards. Stiffbeard night tonight. Many songs, many dances. You see costume dances â dwarves will dress as animals and dance: many will dress as one mammoth!â
âA mammoth! You mean, one for the head, and one for the arse?â Gaelan laughed, imagining him and Vadlik taking on the role of mammoth-dancing. Heâd much prefer to be a head than a backside, though.
âNo â many dwarf! Sometimes six will be one mammoth on⊠ahââ Vadlik mimed something being attached to the bottom of his legs.
âStilts? They dance as a mammoth⊠on stilts?â
âYes,â said Vadlik, raising his eyebrow at him, âno short mammoth. Tall mammoth.â
He supposed he was right about that. As more and more dwarves crowded into the square, Vadlik recounted tales of his youth as a drummer for a band of mammoth-dancers, and how competitive difference dancers got; not just those dressed as mammoths, but those who performed as a whole host of beasts and creatures for the fifth-night carnival. Snow leopards, birds, dragons, and even nuruk, ancestral spirits, all came alive in intricate costumes â stitched with a mosaic of spiralling, glittering beadwork, and even outfitted with moving eyes and mouths.
Before that, however, the lights had to be kindled. A hush fell over the square as an elderly Stiffbeard mounted a set of steps next to the candelabra, assisted by a carven cane. Their face was so deeply lined and brown that they looked as though they had been hewn from an ancient oak tree. Their plaited hair stuck out on either side of a huge, tiered fur hat, and their shoulders bowed under the weight of yak-pelt furs. Someone passed them a torch from below the steps, and they raised it high above their head. A few, commanding words of khuzdul were uttered, though their dialect and accent was so thick that Gaelan could barely understand with his limited knowledge of the dwarven tongue. Vadlik, however, intoned the set responses next to him solemnly along with the rumble of the crowd. The Stiffbeard elder bent forwards slightly, and touched the tip of the torch to the first oil well, the largest of the eight. It went up in a spurt of yellow flame. Then, slowly, they lit five more. Even at a distance, Gaelan felt the heat on his forehead, and shouted in a cheer as the whole square erupted in screaming and clapping. He grinned caught sight of Vadlikâs face, dark eyes reflecting the light in their depths. The beginning of a memory, perhaps.
âKhag sameakh!â Vadlik said, gripping Gaelanâs forearm.
âKhag sameakh, Vadlik,â Gaelan replied. Tonight he would remember the time they met, the words of khuzdul he had been taught that he still held dear, the many times he had sat at a cramped, food-laden dwarven table in a Stiffbeardâs house and been shown boundless hospitality. Tonight, his heart got just a little more dwarven.
