# have dwarves ever?



## Roilya (Dec 12, 2003)

well elves have married men, and vise versa. But have dwarves ever married an Elf or Man. thats just been something i have been wondering.


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## arisen pheonix (Dec 12, 2003)

i dont know...i always kinda thought thats where hobbits came from!


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## Inderjit S (Dec 12, 2003)

Dwarves are biologically different from the Eruhíni (Men and Elves) so they cannot reproduce with Men or Elves.


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## Rangerdave (Dec 13, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Inderjit S _
> *Dwarves are biologically different from the Eruhíni (Men and Elves) so they cannot reproduce with Men or Elves. *




Then how do you explain Danny DeVito?
    



RD


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## Roilya (Dec 14, 2003)

lol, what do u mean they are biologically different, do dwarves come from eggs or something?


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## Ithrynluin (Dec 14, 2003)

Their genetic structure is not compatible with that of Men or Elves, meaning Dwarves cannot reproduce with Men or Elves.


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## Lantarion (Dec 14, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Roilya_
> do dwarves come from eggs or something?


  
LOL thanks that really made my day, hahaha!

But they are incompatible with other species probably because they were crafted by Aulë instead of being created by Eru.


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## Roilya (Dec 14, 2003)

o i c, that makes sense now. was Aule stupid or something, or did the valar have the required equipment?


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## Inderjit S (Dec 14, 2003)

Well Aulë only had a vague idea (if any) as to what the Eruhíni would look like and he knew nothing about their biological natures.


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## Roilya (Dec 14, 2003)

good point, i forgot he made the dwarves before the coming of elves and men. but u still didnt answer my question, could the valar reproduce? i know Melian did but was that some special thing or something?


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## jallan (Dec 14, 2003)

In the Prologue to _The Lord of the Rings_ Tolkien writes:


> It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves.


This indicates that in some way Dwarves are closer to human beings than are Elves while Hobbits are closer still. So, if Human beings can produce offspring with the distantly related Elves then they should be able to do so with races more closely related.

Of course when Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings_ he was in “Myths Transformed” mode, that is a lot of the background there given just doesn’ fit the standard _Silmarillion_ legendarium. Durin awakes at a time when:


> The world was young, the mountains green,
> No stain yet on the Moon was seen, ...


The Dwarves do not awake centuries before Moon and Sun exist.

Tolkien later decided that this _Silmarillion_ tradition was legendary within his legendarium, being a mixture of Elvish tradition and Mannish legend, that it was not altogether factual within his world.

In _The Peoples of Middle-earth_ (HoME 12), “Of Dwarves and Men”, Tolkien writes:


> In the Dwarvish traditions of the Third Age the names of the places where each of the Seven Ancestors had ‘awakened’ were remembered; but only two of them were known to Elves and Men of the West: the most westerly, the awakening place of the ancestors of the Firebeards and the Broadbeams; and that of the ancestor of the Longbeards, the eldest in making and awakening.


Tolkien here refers to “Dwarvish traditions” and puts significant quotation marks around the word _awakened_. In note 26 Tolkien writes of the Dwarvish speech:


> According to their legends their begetter, Aulë the Vala, had made this for them, and had taught it to the Seven Fathers before they were laid to sleep until the time of their awakening should come.


Late Tolkien avoids commenting on the truth of such legends and traditions.

Perhaps Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Men (including the Drúedain) might be supposed to have evolved by Darwinian methods (though also perhaps by Eru-induced mutations). Tolkien seemingly doesn’t want to get into such matters, probably wisely. To be explicit would perhaps make his legendarium seem crank pseudo-science rather than mythology. Silence about the invented scientific truths behind the legends of the _Silmarillion_ is aesthetically superior if one cannot, as Tolkien could not, create new tales to satisfactorially replace his older mythology.

In any case, Tolkien’s north-west of Middle-earth can’t geologically be reasonable turned into modern Europe. That’s not what Tolkien’ works are about. One might as well look physically for the ruins of Gondor as to look scientifically at how Elves and Dwarves and Men are related or discuss how Tolkien’s great Eagles or dragons can fly despite their immense size.

All that said, of course Tolkien never presents any facts or legends about intermingling of the races, other an almost hint that the Stoors just might have some Dwarf blood in them. Tolkien tells us that the Stoors had more dealings with Dwarves than the other Hobbits and that only the Stoors had beards.

Hints of such mingling are slightly stronger in some of the earlier drafts.

But that is as far as Tolkien goes, other than that strong indication that Gimli is attracted to Galadriel in a way that is at least partially sexual.

It is probably wrong to bring genetics into this. In letter 153, Tolkien writes:


> Elves and Men are evidently in biological terms one race, or they could not breed and produce fertile offspring – even as a rare event: there are 2 cases only in my legends of such unions, and they are merged in the descendants of Eärendil. But since some have held that the rate of longevity is a biological characteristic, within limits of variation, you could not have Elves in a sense ‘immortal’ not eternal, but not dying by ‘old age’ – and Men mortal, more or less as they now seem to be in the Primary World – and yet sufficiently akin. I might answer that this ‘biology’ is only a theory, that modern ‘gerontology’, or whatever they call it, finds ‘ageing’ rather more mysterious, and less clearly inevitable in bodies of human structure. But I should actually answer: I do not care. This is a biological dictum in my imaginary world. It is only (as yet) an incompletely imagined world, a rudimentary ‘secondary’; but if it pleased the Creator to give it (in a corrected form) Reality on any plane, then you would just have to enter it and begin studying its different biology, that is all.


In short, modern genetics might or might not fit with what Tolkien might or might not have imagined at any particular time and Tolkien might well not have cared.

As to the Valar, Tolkien originally imagined them to have had children born of their bodies within Arda. Later he changed his mind, though seemingly his new idea was not that they could not have reproduced, but rather that the did not do so.

However Ungoliant, whatever she was (perhaps a Maia in origin) could reproduced sexually.

In the matter of unfallen Maiar Tolkien‘s writings provide no definite information.

In the _Ósanwë-kenta_ Tolkien writes:


> If a "spirit" (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hröa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.
> 
> "We do not know the _axani_ (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no _axan_ against these things. Nonetheless it appears to be an _axan_, or maybe necessary consequence, that if they are done, then the spirit must dwell in the body that it used, and be under the same necessities as the Incarnate. The only case that is known in the histories of the Eldar is that of Melian who became the spouse of King Elu-thingol. This certainly was not evil or against the will of Eru, and though it led to sorrow, both Elves and Men were enriched.


Tolkien may have forgotten about Ungoliant here, or may not be thinking of fallen Maiar, the Ümaiar (if indeed Ungoliant and the other spider creatures that she mated with were indeed Úmaiar).

One might consider the possibility that Tom Bombadil and Goldberry were spirits who had by their own will become pernanently incarnate. Tom’s figure suggests he was not adverse to indulging in eating and the two of them seem to be sexually involved with each other though no children appear.


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## Lantarion (Dec 15, 2003)

Great post jallan. 
But on the point of Ungoliant reproducing; she only copulated with nnon-Maia species of monsters and creatures, and while in spider-shape. 



> _Originally posted by Roilya_
> but u still didnt answer my question, could the valar reproduce? i know Melian did but was that some special thing or something?


The Valar could not reproduce, I'm pretty sure. What would they have, baby-Valar?! 
In the BoLT or somewhere I recall that Manwë and Varda had a son, but that theory was discarded early on in Tolkien's mythos. (I think Eönwë was their son in the beginning!)

As for Melian, she is a Maia, not a Vala; and I suppose Maiar could reproduce but their child would probably be bound to the physical form it was born in. So I doubt they could be able to in the first place.

Ainur were not humanoid, in any sense, except when they took on humanoid physical form. They did not need nourishment when in Aman and in their regular forms, and I don't think they could have 'children'.


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## jallan (Dec 16, 2003)

Lantarion posted:


> But on the point of Ungoliant reproducing; she only copulated with non-Maia species of monsters and creatures, and while in spider-shape.


We don’t know whether those other spider creatures were or were not Maia in origin.

Of course she only copulated in spider shape. Can spirits copulate?

It seems Tolkien’s earlier thought was that the Ainur did have children even before the descended into Middle-earth, e.g. Oromë was the son of Yavanna. But children born after the descent, born by bodily copulation of the Valar were somewhat lesser beings, classed as the Children of the Valar.

Later all this disappeared, or most of it did. But it isn’t clear exactly what replaced it.

Tolkien does mention Maiar who took on permanent shape as animals and plants. What happens when a Maia-dandelion plant is pollenated and goes to seed?


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## Jesse (Dec 23, 2003)

I don't even want to think about Dwarves mixing with other races....


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