Lost Tale of a Lost Dwarven Tribe and Thranduil?

[Kuruharan]

I have to admit that the wording there is rather curious.

Maybe he had had some pacts with those enigmatic dwarves from the Grey Mountains (not Durin's folk, mind you!).

The only dwarves we know about in the Grey Mountains were Durin's Folk. I don't think there is any traction there.

Hmmm...this one requires more pondering.

[Břicho]

I think that Tolkien was probably thinking of Thingol and that story when he wrote it, never realizing that nearly seventy years later, we'd be puzzling about it on a website, never realizing that the Silmarillion and the HObbit would both be published and be part of the same "history."

Inside the world of Middle-earth itself I would explain it in one of two ways: 1. There IS a "lost"(or never-written) story regarding Thranduil and some non-Durin-type Dwarves.

2. The original "writer" of the Hobbit(Bilbo--or as I call him, Ol' Bilb-- himself) was thinking af Thingol and got his stories muddled up(he may have heard the story of Thingol and the Dwarves from Thranduil and just gotten confused) because at the time of writing he wasn't such a scholar of the First Age as he later became.

I suppose I like the first explanation better--that at some point Thranduil did have some conflict with non-Long-beard Dwarves of the Grey Mountains, and this tiny reference is all we hear about it: it could have been one of the many minor things that happened in the Third Age(or even the Second, I suppose) that aren't included in the "translator's" abridged offering of the Tale of Years.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Břicho

I think that Tolkien was probably thinking of Thingol and that story when he wrote it, never realizing that nearly seventy years later

Shhh! Of course I know, but this is not what a hardcore Tolkien fan accepts

Originally Posted by Břicho

Inside the world of Middle-earth itself I would explain it in one of two ways:

NOW this is what I call constructive thinking After all, "what's written is given" - Bilbo has written this book and we have to find out why he wrote what he wrote. All your points on that are quite logical, I think. The thing is, can we find something which might narrow down our list of possibilities? Some evidence from another source, about the Dwarves, about Thranduil, about the job he had them to do, or evidence that Thranduil could have never made contact with any Dwarves in the Grey Mountains?
Do you think Bilbo was really yet "uneducated" when writing the Red Book? He made revisions of it, from time to time, I'm quite sure (take just the title, he changed it about five times). And he was long enough in Rivendell to correct the things he was not able to understand first. An example of something similar in another topic: he, for example, rewrote the original poem of a mariner to the form we hear in Rivendell, where he made clear all the details and that it was about Eärendil.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

The only dwarves we know about in the Grey Mountains were Durin's Folk. I don't think there is any traction there.

Well, there was this mysterious tribe who had troubles with Scatha and Fram sent them the necklace of dragon teeth or what it was. We do not see if they were of Durin's folk, or do we? (calling experts... Kuruharan??? )

[Kuruharan]

Well, there was this mysterious tribe who had troubles with Scatha and Fram sent them the necklace of dragon teeth or what it was. We do not see if they were of Durin's folk, or do we?

Process of elimination tells us they had to be Durin's Folk. The Misty and Grey Mountains were far out of the range of any other type.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Process of elimination tells us they had to be Durin's Folk. The Misty and Grey Mountains were far out of the range of any other type.

Really? Are you sure? I'm sorry, but I'm not so good expert in the Dwarves' history - could you, please, summarize here briefly what was the situation with the Dwarven tribes' placement (in general, not all their moves like from Moria to Erebor, just wherever they were at least at one time)? Or at least if you could provide me with a link to some topic where it was discussed, if such one exists, but quick sum would be as well fine.

[Formendacil]

I'll stand in for Kuru.... I'm using a Kuru-esque avatar, so that'll be permissible, methinks.

Starting in the First Age, each of the seven houses of Dwarves had a sort of "mountain range" they called home. Starting in the west, we have:

The Firebeards and the Broadbeams, or the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost, in the Blue Mountains. These are the Dwarves we see in the Silmarillion. The Dwarves of Nogrod were decimated by the Elves, after their major quarrel with Thingol, and both mansions suffered greatly in the breaking of Beleriand at end of the First Age. The survivors (mostly from Belegost), mainly moved eastwards to Khazad-dûm, and joined the people of Durin. The Dwarves of the Blue Mountains, in later ages, were mostly Dwarves of Durin's race who moved back into the area after troubles in Moria and Erebor.

The Longbeards, or people of Durin, dwelt in Moria in the Misty Mountains. In their early years they occupied all the Misty Mountains, including Mt. Gundabad, as well as eastwards to the Iron Hills, where they would continue to have a presence until the Fourth Age, at least. After the loss of Khazad-dûm in the mid-3rd Age, the Longbeards removed to Erebor, by way of the Grey Mountains. From their ancestral domination of the mountains around the Wilderland, and from this time of wandering, it is clear that any Dwarves in the Grey Mountains would of necessity have been Longbeards (and the intermingled Dwarves of Belegost descent, by this time).

East of the Iron Hills, we know little of the last four houses of Dwarves. Nearer to the Iron Hills dwelt the Ironfists and the Stiffbeards, and furthest away dwelt the Blacklocks and the Stonefoots. We know nothing of their locations save that they were at distances "as great or great than that between the Blue Mountains and Gundabad". These Dwarves seem the most likely to have provided the few Dwarves that served with Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance, and also provided aid to the Longbeards in the days of Thraín II, at the Battle of Azanulbizar. They also are referenced, most likely, in the "The Shadow of the Past":

There were, however, dwarves on the road in unusual numbers. The ancient East-West Road ran through the Shire to its end at the Grey Havens, and dwarves had always used it on their way to their mines in the Blue Mountains. They were the hobbits' chief source of news from distant parts---if they wanted any: as a rule dwarves said little and hobbits asked no more. But now Frodo often met strange dwarves of far countries, seeking refuge in the West. They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and the Land of Mordor.

--emphasis mine.

Up to the italicised line, when Tolkien talks of dwarves using the East-West Road, he would mostly be talking of the Longbeards, who had resettled those mines in the Blue Mountains, and who would have been travelling back and forth to Erebor (or in earlier times, Moria). However, the line that I have italicised clearly deals with new, different Dwarves "of far countries", who are clearly not the Longbeards familiar to the Hobbits. Coming from east of the Iron Hills, they fit both the profile of "strange Dwarves" and would certainly have been in lands being once again dominated by Sauron.

So, there you have it: my "short" discursus on the different Dwarves and their homes. The above is all taken (with the exception of the Fellowship of the Ring quote) from HoME vol. XII The Peoples of Middle-Earth, from the essay entitled "Of Dwarves and Men". It dates to around the time Tolkien was working on the Appendices, during the publication of the LotR, and is, as I recall, never contradicted in a later statement, and can be taken as pretty much canonical.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Oh, really thank you, Formendacil. I originally thought that there could have been some tribe in the Grey Mountains, you know, like in the Blue mts. the tribes were in pair, there could've been someone with the Durin's folk...

Why I have thought that there were some Dwarves apart from Durin's folk in the Grey Mountains: I think that Longbeards started to settle in there around 1980-2210. According to the Appendices:

1981 Náin I slain. The Dwarves flee from Moria.
2210 Thorin I leaves Erebor and goes north to the Grey Mountains, where most of the remnants of Durin's Folk are now gathering.

But Scatha the Worm was killed by Fram son of Frumgar. We don't know exactly the dates of his birth and death, but we know when his father Frumgar led Éotheod to the north:

1977 Frumgar leads the Éothéod into the North.

It is quite possible that Frumgar was in his best years at that time, and it would seem logical that Fram might have been born after the Éothéod settled down in the new lands. So if Fram was born around, let's say, 1980, I'd guess him killing Scatha between 2200 and 2220 (possibly later than earlier). But this would make 40 years at best from when the first, really probably only few Dwarves, came to Ered Mithrin. Do you think there was enough time for the Dwarves to settle down, acquire a treasure and then be robbed by Scatha of that treasure (which would include probably eating some of the Dwarves)? Of course, they could have brought some treasure with them from Moria... well, after all, 40 years is a long period... but anyway, what I wanted to suggest was that the dwarven treasure Scatha had could have predated the settlement of fugitive Moria-tribe(s), thus, come from some other Dwarves who were in the area before?

And those Ironfists and Stiffbeards you mention, couldn't they have lived close enough to make contact with Thranduil? If you say "as far as Gundabad from Blue mts. or even further", the least possible distance is about 600 miles, which is about the same distance as from Gundabad to the eastern end of the Iron Hills. Ironfists???

Just by the way, where is that information about Dwarven tribes available? It is in HoME? Where?