Arcane Topic Warning: Part the Second

[Kuruharan]

According to the same source, some petty dwarves attacked the Eldar by stealth at night.

I can’t find the reference to this particular event. Admittedly, I have lent out a few of my books (a lot of people use my book collection as a public library) and it might be in one of them, but I’m looking at the Sil right now and it says…

For Mîm came of Dwarves that were banished in ancient days from the great Dwarf-cities of the east, and long before the return of Morgoth they wandered westward into Beleriand; but they became dimished in stature and in smith-craft, and they took to lives of stealth, walking with bowed shoulders and furtive steps. Before the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost came west over the mountains the Elves of Beleriand knew not what these others were, and they hunted them, and slew them; but afterwards they let them alone, and they were called Noegyth Nibin, the Petty-Dwarves, in the Sindarin tongue. They loved none but themselves, and if they feared and hated the Orcs, they hated the Eldar no less (editor’s note: perfectly understandable reaction), and the Exiles most of all; for the Noldor, they said, had stolen their lands and their homes. Long ere King Finrod Felagund came over the Sea, the caves of Nargothrond were discovered by them, and by them its delving was begun; and beneath the crown of Amon Rûdh, the Bald Hill, the slow hands of the Petty-Dwarves had bored and deepened the caves through the long years that they dwelt there, untroubled by the Grey-elves of the woods. But now at last they had dwindled and died out of Middle-earth, all save Mîm and his two sons; and Mîm was old even in the reckoning of Dwarves, old and forgotten. And in his halls the smithies were idle, and the axes rusted, and their name was remembered only in ancient tales of Doriath and Nargothrond.

Admittedly, I don’t have all my books to check. And at the moment I frustratingly can’t seem to find the reference that the Dwarves took great offence at the hunting of the Petty-Dwarves. I might be looking in the wrong place or I might not have the right book.

My point about Orcs was that, contrary to your statement, Elves DO wantonly slaughter entire races without regard to "Is this orc different from the others?" and other such moral qualms.

But they wouldn’t have understood the need for that sort of action at that point. Since they didn’t know that the Dwarves were rational, they would have just thought them animals, and part of the natural world. The Elves always respected and revered the natural world. Going around and embarking on wholesale slaughters of what they thought were just animals were not their way. Nor am I under the impression that they would have just killed for sport. They probably thought hunting was fun, but they probably did it for more than just that.

And, if one decides that Orks came from Elves (and so were probably distorted by Morgoth prior to his Ages of imprisonment), then there may indeed have been Orks abroad (albeit in small numbers) for the Sindar to know and kill.

And, the Petty-Dwarves being two-legged, upright, and unlovely by Elven standards... who's to say that they wouldn't have been taken for Orks?

Well, it is sort of a point you have here. However, they certainly don’t appear to have recognized them as such.

There is another point I just realized. How is it that the Elves didn’t notice that the Petty-Dwarves were wearing things? I mean the Petty-Dwarves might have just been wearing skins or something but that is more than most animals will do. Mîm is never referred to as being abnormally dressed or anything and the Petty-Dwarves were self-reliant for practically everything so I doubt that Mîm and his family wearing clothes was a new development.

How is it the Elves didn’t notice this?

They were evidently dimmer than even I originally thought.