Arcane Topic Warning: Part the Fifth

[Kuruharan]

It is that time again.

This time it is a bit of a biggie: Dwarven Commerce.

This post is not going to attempt to do more than lay groundwork as this subject is rather varied and wide-ranging.

Tolkien wrote a good summation of early Dwarven commerce, and it was something of a model they subsequently tried to follow as best they could.

Thus there grew up in those regions the economy, later characteristic of the dealings of Dwarves and Men (including Hobbits): Men became the chief providers of food, as herdsmen, shepherds, and landtillers, which the Dwarves exchanged for work as builders, roadmakers, minders, and the makers of things of craft, from useful tools to weapons and arms and many other things of great cost and skill. To the great profit of the Dwarves. Not only to be reckoned in hours of labour, though in early times the Dwarves must have obtained goods that were the product of greater and longer toil than the things or services that they gave in exchange-before Men became wiser and developed skills of their own. The chief advantage to them was their freedom to proceed unhindered with their own work and to refine their arts, especially in metallurgy, to the marvelous skill which these reached before the decline and dwindling of the Khazâd.

This system developed slowly…This process began not in barter and trade, but in war…[Men] were lightly armed, chiefly with bows, for they had little metal and the few smiths among them had no great skill. These things the Dwarves amended in return for the one great service that Men could offer. They were tamers of beasts and had learned the mastery of horses, and many were skilled and fearless riders.
-Of Dwarves and Men

It appears that Necessity, as is often the case, was the mother of Invention in more ways than one. A military need was the beginning that lead to trade as each side realized what the other could offer.

However, prior to this the Dwarves had already established relations with the Elves.

but the Dwarves trafficked into Beleriand, and they made a great road that passed under the shoulders of Mount Dolmed and followed the course of the River Ascar, crossing Gelion at Sarn Athrad, the Ford of Stones, where battle after befell. Ever cool was the friendship between the Naugrim and the Eldar, though much profit they had one of the other

Obviously, there was no semi-patron/client relationship going on here with the Sindar, and later the Noldor, as there was with Men (relations with the Dark Elves are shrouded, but perhaps unlikely to have amounted to much as the Dark Elves would have little the Dwarves would wish to trade).

There does seem to be a slight disconnect here because the relationship with Men was described as developing slowly, while the relationship with Elves seems to have been a business from a very early point.

My theory on this is this resulted from two factors A) the Dwarves initially did not see much benefit to trading with early Men while the Elves had nice shiny things and were there sooner and B) the differences between the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost and the rest of the Dwarves. Nogrod and Belegost were situated at the gate of the (comparatively) cosmopolitan environment of Beleriand. Due to this they had longer experience in dealing with another race in different circumstances than the Longbeards (which I believe the passage quoted above primarily discussed the Longbeards) and thus the Broadbeams and Firebeards more quickly realized the possibilities of trade. The Longbeards, on the other hand, were situated for a very long time in a much more isolated environment and were perhaps initially more insular than their western cousins.

(Note: Please feel free to bring up any aspect of this topic you want, don’t feel like you have to wait for me to bring up an issue before we discuss it. If you want to talk about the business dealings of refugee Dwarves in the later Third Age, knock yourself out.)