#khazadweek

[matrose]

khazad week day 6: spirituality & religion

i followed the prompt very loosely for this...what ive tried to depict is a lone dwarf watching the first sun rise (ever!) and the visual overload that must come along with the extreme light everywhere after living countless lives in a dusk/dawn atmosphere. the rising of the first sun likely was an important spiritual event for dwarven culture so ive decided to file it under this prompt 🫣

[mrkida-art]

Petty dwarves A late submission for Khazadweek day 3.

[khazadweek]

[Image ID: A banner showing a drawing of two blond dwarves with light skin, their arms interlinked; one wears a blue hood and has a short beard with three silver beads, the other has a longer, braided beard, his hair is long and in two braids, falling over his shoulder, with two golden rings at the end. Both are smiling. The banner is formatted so that we only see them from their chests up to the tip of their noses. Text is overlaid on the drawing, reading "KHAZAD WEEK 2022" and in smaller letters, below "DECEMBER 5TH-11TH". End ID]

Khazad Week is nine weeks away!

Khazad Week is an event all about celebrating Tolkien’s dwarves through your transformative work! Art, fic, edits, playlists, headcanons, moodboards and anything else you can think of are all welcome. To spark your imagination we’ve put together the following prompts, which you can choose to combine or use how you like. They are not mandatory- it’s all for fun! Since there are so few dwarves mentioned in canon, OCs are very welcome for every day. Still, atleast one prompt each day fits our canon dwarves. Any content is welcome!

5th December: First age // Family // Longbeards

6th December: Second age // Diplomacy // Firebeards

7th December: Petty-dwarves // Courtship // Broadbeams

8th December: Khazad-dûm // Dwarrowdams // Ironfists

9th December: Erebor // Environment // Stiffbeards

10th December: Music // Religion and Spirituality // Blacklocks

11th December: Folklore and Myths // Diversity // Stonefoots

Further explanation of the prompts can be found here

We will be tracking the tag #khazadweek throughout the week and beyond, though tumblr’s tagging system being what it is, you may also want to @ this blog in your post to ensure that we see it!

[arofili]

@khazadweek day seven | folklore & myths | the fates of galadriel’s gift to gimli

          ‘And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?’ said Galadriel, turning to Gimli.           ‘None, Lady,’ answered Gimli. ‘It is enough for me to have seen the Lady of the Galadhrim, and to have heard her gentle words.’            ‘Hear all ye Elves!’ she cried to those about her. ‘Let none say again that Dwarves are grasping and ungracious! Yet surely, Gimli son of Glóin, you desire something that I could give? Name it, I bid you! You shall not be the only guest without a gift.’            ‘There is nothing, Lady Galadriel,’ said Gimli, bowing low and stammering. ‘Nothing, unless it might be - unless it is permitted to ask, nay, to name a single strand of your hair, which surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine. I do not ask for such a gift. But you commanded me to name my desire.’            The Elves stirred and murmured with astonishment, and Celeborn gazed at the Dwarf in wonder, but the Lady smiled. ‘It is said that the skill of the Dwarves is in their hands rather than in their tongues,’ she said; ‘yet that is not true of Gimli. For none have ever made to me a request so bold and yet so courteous. And how shall I refuse, since I commanded him to speak? But tell me, what would you do with such a gift?’            ‘Treasure it, Lady,’ he answered, ‘in memory of your words to me at our first meeting. And if ever I return to the smithies of my home, it shall be set in imperishable crystal to be an heirloom of my house, and a pledge of good will between the Mountain and the Wood until the end of days.’            Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three golden hairs, and laid them in Gimli’s hand. ‘These words shall go with the gift,’ she said. ‘I do not foretell, for all foretelling is now vain: on the one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.’

—The Fellowship of the Ring, “Farewell to Lórien”

[searchingforserendipity25]

Of Good Memory

For @khazadweek. The prompt about Dís took over my mind yesterday. With special thanks to @arofili!

----

Her name is honoured among and above the names of kings.

Ered Luin was too poor to attract a dragon, in the days when Thorin Oakenshield’s Company walked alone out of her gates of carved granite - lonesome, with all the pride and ambition of Dúrin’s Folk.

Dís made it so: all mining tunnels carefully monitored, and the trading quotas demanding. Let the wealth of the last Dwarven Kingdom flow from the mountain, in brooches and rings and safe-boxes! Let it pay for acorn flour, eggs and cured ham and succour. There was bread; there were hunting parties, and companies of travelling smiths, and enough food for five children born to the mountain every ten-year.

And there were songs! - Dwarrow songs, songs to make the hands itch for a hammer to work and a hammer for war, to sting the eyes with memory.

With an ear to the world and a heart of stone did Dis, daughter of Thraín second of his name, rule Ered Luin, as fortress and warehouse and last refuge. A city small and petty, to the eyes of the loremasters, and those few as ancient as the mountain. She had known precisely the cause and the wide-ranging cunning, when Gandalf the Grey cane to the mountain sky-people named Ered Luin, speaking of riddles and presenting her father's inheritance as enticement, a taunt, a bribe.

To the council of Guild-masters said she, the mountain's magistrate herself: Hearken to me, brothers, sisters, kin of flesh and stone! The elves have in the heart of their realm such a foe as cannot be defeated, and their master seeks to urge us to die for it ourselves.

To her eldest she said: Prince Dúrin-born, be bold and wise and do not hesitate your hand upon the blade! The die is cast, and you must cheat it, for Dís was a prince herself, and knew well princedom's foremost mastery, above ruling and smithing and woodcraft: cheating life out of death itself, and glory if life be forfeit.

To her youngest, the keen-eyed archer, she said also in secret, There is a shadow in the Wood, and I wish to know of it all that may be had, and bid him wariness and cunning if they should follow the Road through it.

But to her brother she said nought. Ever the hearts of Thraín's children were bare to one another, and never shrouded, though they might have wished for less truth, and more comfort.

Her name is in the prayers sang before the altars in the households of the Khazâd, over the gritty stonework of Eriador, the marble of Erebor, the dirt of exile. Glory and good memory to Dís daughter of Thraín! But Dís daughter of Thraín never returned to the mountain of her forefathers; she had Ered Luin for husband and wife, brother and son, and no lord among her people begrudged her claim.

So it is that Dís lies buried there, under the grey-black-flickering stone, entombed alone of all her kin: mighty in life, mighty in death, Mahal be her witness.

[swanmaids]

the petty dwarves and the forest elves

written for khazad week day 7, for the prompt “folkore and myths”. a third age dwarven fairytale.

do i think the hunted petty dwarves were eaten? not sure. do i think the dwarves think they were? absolutely.

Long before the Sun and the Moon were young, the first of our forefathers awakened. And after they awakened, they multiplied and formed the seven great clans that stand strong even today. Longbeards, Blacklocks, and Firebeards; Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, and Stonefoots.

 Now, we Dwarves are a proud people, a good people, and we have never as a whole been corrupted by evil. But amongst any group there will always be those who have done evil of their own volition, and so it was amongst the clans of the Dwarves. Each clan found amongst their number criminals; thieves and deviants and even killers of kin. The Dwarves argued for many an hour about what should be done with such criminals. Should they be killed in revenge? But that would surely lead only to more killing. Or ought they to be imprisoned? For how long? Eventually, the debate reached the Seven Kings, and they sat in thought for many days, until they came to a decision. And so it was decreed by the word of the Seven Kings themselves that the dwarves who had done evil would be cast out from the homes of their clans with their families into the wider world, and never again would their descendants walk under the halls of their ancestors. And these outcasts came to be called the Petty Dwarves.

Now, exiled from their homes forever, the Petty Dwarves wandered far and wide to find a place to live, and unsatisfied with everything this side of the Blue Mountains, they came to cross the border into the Drowned World- of course, this was long before it came to be drowned. First those from the Blue Mountains, and then those from further to the East, and so on. And when the Petty Dwarves reached the Drowned World, they looked for a place to live.

First, they came upon a flat, wooded plain. But “This place is too close to the Blue Mountains!”, they said. So they walked some more. Next, they came to a great green plain. But “This place has no good stone!”, they said. So they walked some more. Next, they came to a small cool plain. But “This place is too cold!”, they said. So they walked some more.

Finally, the Petty Dwarves came to a region of many great and dark forests. And they were uneasy, because it is not the nature of Dwarves to live under sky and branches. They wished to continue on. Nevertheless, they had been walking for many days and many leagues, and they were tired. The Petty Dwarves bedded down in the forests to sleep.

As it turned out, the Petty Dwarves were not alone in the forest. As they slept, a group of Forest Elves came upon them, and many looked upon the Petty Dwarves, whom they had never before seen, with wickedness in their hearts. They looked upon the Petty Dwarves, not as a speaking people, but as animals to be butchered for their meat. And they made up their minds to eat them. However, the leader of the Forest Elves wanted to know first what they were, before he ate them. So the Forest Elves decided to convince their leader that the Petty Dwarves were truly animals.

Eventually the leader of the Forest Elves decided to wake the Petty Dwarves.

“What are you?” he asked.

 “We are Petty Dwarves,” the Petty Dwarves replied. However, the Forest Elves could not understand their speech.

“What is this hair that covers your bodies?” asked the leader.

“It is our beards,” said the Petty Dwarves, though the Forest Elves still could not understand.

“Only the beasts are so covered in hair,” said the wicked Forest Elves instead.

 “Why is your stature so small?” asked the leader.

“All Dwarves are made with short stature,” replied the Petty Dwarves.

“They are closer to the ground because they are beasts,” said the Forest Elves.

“Why are your ears so large and round?” asked the leader.

 “So that we may hear the words of the stone,” replied the Petty Dwarves.

 “It is so they may listen for predators,” said the Forest Elves.

And the leader of the Forest Elves hearkened to his kin, and decided that the Petty Dwarves were indeed beasts to be eaten.

The Petty Dwarves were bound and put into sacks and carried off to the dwelling of the Forest Elves. And when they reached that dwelling- the horrors that were in store! For indeed, the Petty Dwarves were put onto spits and roasted alive, and the Forest Elves gnawed the flesh off their bones like dogs. Then they ground down their bones to make their bread. And this they did to all of the Petty Dwarves, except one little girl, who was so tiny that she hid behind a tree trunk and was not caught.

Now this girl, a  darkhaired Broadbeam she was before her family was exiled, and her hair was dark as night. And she cut off all of her hair- even her beard!- and she made a cloak to wrap herself within so that no Elf could see her under the cover of night. Then she ran for seven days and nights, from the forest, through the cool plain, through the green plain, through the wooded plain, and back over the Blue Mountains.

When the girl reached the great hall of Belegost, she told the King of the terrible things she had seen. And he listened, and told his people never to trust the Elves of the Forests, and soon the word spread amongst all the seven Clans, and perhaps many were saved thanks to the bravery of the little girl.

And what happened to her? Well, she was still kin to the exiled Dwarves, and so after she had told her tale she was once again turned out of the halls of her ancestors. And what happened to her after that, nobody knows. 

[ironfoot-mothafocka]

#KhazadWeek Day 7

Day 7: Stonefoots, Diversity and Folklore & Myths

I haven't been able to do the other prompts this week because of time constraints, but ended up doing all the prompts for the last day in one go!

--

It wasn’t typical for Ajin to stay out of the limelight when a party was in full swing, but here he was, trying his best to blend into the corner. He felt his heart beat faster inside his ribcage and he tried to hold his breath, letting it out slowly after a few moments to quell his rising anxiety.

So many people were here, and he’d seen so many new things on his journey from Harabza, the Stonefoot halls, to Minas Tirith. Gondor was a place as foreign to him as the other side of the world, but at least dwarven travellers to Ered Luin or even those that took the shorter roadway north-west to Erebor had their own kind to mingle with and a sense of familiarity once they reached the Longbeards. Here in the kingdom of Men, there was no such solace. He remembered when he had arrived a few days ago with the dwarven wagon train, and the curious eyes that gazed from every street corner and building. Some were friendly, old men remembering, perhaps, the times when as boys they had welcomed dwarves into the city, or children laughing and screaming as they ran alongside the wagons, waving up at him raucously. Others less so.

Go back to your own kind, Southron, someone had hissed at him, though he had been conversing with another dwarf and had only half-heard the muttered curse. As soon as he had turned his head, the person who had spoken had melted away into a crowd of Men, where they all looked the same. Tall, dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. Southron, Easterling. To the Men of Gondor, those from the East were all the same, and he had both terms thrown at him by drunken warriors who lounged, broken from battle, outside taverns, or younger veterans who had lost blood-brothers in the war. To them, with his braided and shaved black hair that fell to his elbows, dark brown skin etched with striking red-ink tattoos, and the glimmering array of gold rings set in his lips and nose, an Eastern dwarf was no better than those who had served Sauron. Ajin spoke little Westron, but he understood enough to know he wasn’t welcome. At least those of the zulmâ-khazâd were treated with the respect that artisans, craftsdwarves, engineers and masons deserved.

For the most part, he ignored the comments directed towards him and the few Eastern dwarves who had journeyed at Gimli’s behest to help restore Minas Tirith to its former glory. Gimli he knew — his mother was a family friend, her sister marrying one of his uncles over a hundred years ago, and Gimli had visited Harabza where he had been instructed on some of the finer techniques of preparing vorn, the granite-hard, obsidian substance only native to some of the mountains and hills in the far south of the kingdom. It was for this reason that Gimli had chosen Ajin. Guarded by a garrison of Stonefoot mercenaries and weighing several tonnes, a king’s ransom of the precious eastern metal had been procured by King Elessar to build into the gates of the city and construct several major fortifications. Ajin’s eyes watered when he thought about the price.

At least his hosts had been gracious enough. The King had shown customary dwarven respect and could get by in khuzdul, and the house-keepers for the lodgings they had been provided hadn’t commented on Ajin’s appearance, even if they kept their thoughts to themselves. “Ignore them, Aji. Our way of life and theirs — we cannot compare them. Dwarves and Men are as different as rats and salamanders,” remarked Kurin one evening, a slow-voiced, tall Ironfist dwarf, who, with his rich ebony colouring and wild beard, had got his own share of frightened looks. He was the youngest foregemaster in Nazbukhrin, and had been part of the elite team to craft His Majesty the King of Nazbukhrin’s new axe. To Men, just another Easterner.

Ajin reminded himself this as he watched the Men in the guest-hall dancing, laughing and talking together. A few of them he’d made polite conversation with, but Kurin’s words kept coming back to him. As different as rats and salamanders. Don’t expect them to comprehend you. That was easily done though, as Ajin could only nod politely, and stutter a few words of Westron here and there. Mostly though, he kept himself to the other dwarves and to his drink.

“A fine evening, master dwarf.” Ajin looked around at the speaker, sighing through his nose and steeling himself for another conversation. “Yes. A good evening—” His voice trailed off as he looked upwards. And upwards. Something tall and thin was leaning against a marble column in front of him, a glass of wine in one hand, and smiling down at him. He blinked, trying to remove the apparition from his vision, and his fingers made the sign of the hammer inside of his pocket. He knew what the creature was, but not how it had appeared in Minas Tirith. After a few moments, the being frowned and pushed itself off from the wall. Ajin backed away. “Come no closer, inuk,” Ajin said, holding up the amulet he had worn around his neck since he left Harabza. It had the three-fingered hand on it, reaching outwards to ward against spirits. The inuk — for in Stonefoot legend, that is what this apparition could only be — looked confused and sipped at its drink. Do the inuk drink? At festivals he left red-coloured beverages at the Temple and at the windows of his house in offerings to appease them, but he’d never seen one in person. They preferred to inhabit the dream-land, the world between life and death. “I am no inuk, master dwarf, though I do not know of what it is that you speak,” the creature bowed low from the waist, and then placed its drink to one side on a ledge. “I am called Galdir, of the Woodland Realm, now Eryn Lasgalen in our tongue.” Ajin looked blankly up at Galdir. As far as he could remember, the inuk were not named. “An elf,” Galdir continued, raising its eyebrows slightly. “I am not sure if you have been acquainted to my kind before?” “Alves?” asked Ajin, once his head had gotten around the fact that Galdir was not, in fact, a spirit from the other side. “Elves,” corrected Galdir. “We are those that were created first by Illuvatar, who walked the world first before Men and Dwarves awoke.” “Oh!” exclaimed Ajin, recognising the story at once. “But… elves do not look… like you.” He was having a hard time explaining himself and felt his cheeks flush. In Stonefoot tales, the firstborn children of the One God were forest-dwelling giants, with dark blue and green-hued skin. Their hair was mossy, their teeth like chunks of stone, and limbs as strong and as knotted as great oak-trunks. Galdir was sprightly and slight, and his skin no more green than Ajin’s. Common sense and politeness, however, made Ajin think that to mention this wasn’t the best use of his limited words. “And what do we look like, to the dwarves far to the East?” Galdir asked, smiling brightly. “It does not matter. Seems our tales are… mixed up,” Ajin confessed. He bowed in return and stepped forwards. “Ajin, son of Ibural. At your service.” For good measure, however, his fingers still rested lightly upon the amulet around his neck. He wasn’t taking any chances.

[matrose]

khazad week day 5: enviroment