The Way We War

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by BGreg

Apparently the dwarves here didn't care much for the odds or enemy's superiority in numbers (or even in size for that matter). I always imagined the dwarves fighting the enemy with no more than sheer bravery, endurance and physical strength. So in my opinion it would be no problem for a band of dwarves to beat a band of hillmen or whomever. Maybe Gimli didn't attack them just because there were no more dwarves around. And if there were, I'm sure they would have beaten the Dunlendings. I thought of dwarves as very strong, possibly as strong as the hillmen, and that they do not retreat. Ever. Quite the contrast of Romans, who were physically weaker then the barbarians. And they retreated when outnumbered.

I agree. I think the Dwarves usually won because of their ferocity and toughness (and let's not forget about their good armor - and also the quality of their weapons, which was superior to the simple things made by Men, or even Orcs). Gimli very likely didn't have that much experience with fighting Men - tall Men - even before, he said something of similar sort to Éomer (that he would chop his head off, if only it was a bit lower - it was a sort of saying, but still probably reflected what he thought. Of course, not to mention that against a mounted opponent, it would have to be something completely different).

As for when he didn't attack the Dunlanders, another thing was probably simply that he did not want to interfere when tall men were fighting tall men - he was not coordinated with Éomer and Aragorn, he could be useful, but he could also make a mess. Had he been with a group of Dwarves, they would all use similar tactics in battle and it would have been very different.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Tolkien never claimed all dwarves used axes, or even used them generally in battle, that is an accretion piled on Tolkien lore from elsewhere (like dwarves speaking in a Scot's accent, laddie). Mattocks are a miner's tool, and would be readily available to any dwarf (axes not being of much use in the type of subterranean manses dwarves engineered). Also, there is a tradition of dwarvish sword-making that goes back to Telchar of Nogrod.

Exactly. I believe this is never emphasised strongly enough. Gimli had an axe, and there was also some Durin's Axe etc., but that by no means suggests that Dwarves were using axes overall. We don't know any legends about Durin, but perhaps he just stumbled upon an axe somewhere in his youth and became skilled with this weapon, and using an axe was sort of specialisation thing for the Dwarves, a symbol of honor, something pointing towards their ancestor (and perhaps this concerned only the tribe of Durin?). Maybe it was a kind of special fighter thing, really, just like, I can't recall any good example from the Middle Ages now, but for example among the ancient Israeli warriors there has been a caste of special fighters trained to fight left-handedly, or such, you have all sorts of special groups of warriors trained to fight with some unusual weapon or in some unusual style throughout the cultures and times, so perhaps the Dwarven axemen were something of that sort, too? And Gimli (and Dáin, for example - battle of Azanulbizar) were of that sort too. Certainly they were both quite young, but skilful with that, so perhaps indeed they were trained since their youth?

Certainly the Dwarves used axes above ground, though: around their settlements and cities, they used them to get wood (as Aulë says). Treebeard and people from other cultures seemed to have some experience with Dwarves using axes, so it must not have been that unusual: however, I would like to propose here that it supports my theory about the axes being an item used by a special caste of warriors by that it became something specific for the Dwarves, and thus well known. Meaning: in a battle where you saw some Dwarves, let's say 90% of them would have had some other weapons, but then there would be this special group of axemen (or perhaps individuals), but they would be so skilled in their use of the axes, that in some way it will make the impression (I have no idea how they could use the axes to really be so much feared - I am no weapon specialist, somebody else tell us what could that be, if it could) and people will forever remember "yea, Dwarves, these are those with the axes". The same way as people in the Middle Ages remembered the longbowmen or such, even though of course the whole army was not composed of longbowmen.

Another possibility is that Dwarves using axes (i.e. normal woodcutters) in Beleriand were at some times attacked, and they just had to learn to use axes for their defense. And since they were probably the few Dwarves that other races have ever seen (others were hidden underground all the time), they simply learned to associate Dwarves with axes (since mostly every Dwarf they have seen had an axe).