Arcane Topic Warning: Part the Fifth

[Kuruharan]

I'm still not sure why it would be so unlikely for mithril to travel to Beleriand -- simply because of the distance and the danger? Not likely, tea, spices and silk were coming from China to Europe regularly throughout the 1200s-1400s. That was a distance easily greater than what we're talking about here and through dangers like we can't imagine...and that was by puny humans! It seems to me that if you have a race as hardy (and as eager for money and trade) as the Dwarves, and a race as indefatiguable and long-lived as the Elves, trading across long distances and difficult terrain is hardly a barrier!

A fair point. I will attempt to explain my thinking.

In this case I think there would be too many middle-dwarves. The mithril had to make it through the hands of two (or three) different groups of dwarves. First of all, the Longbeards who mined it. It would probably take a lot to persuade them to sell it, and the only ones in position to do it would have been the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains as the Elves in Beleriand were never in contact with Khazad-dum. Now, I think some mithril must have passed to the Blue Mountains so it could be done. However, how eager to sell the mithril would the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains have been? My guess would be "not very." It had cost them plenty to begin with and if they bought it they probably wanted to use it themselves. If they sold it again to the Elves they probably would have wanted a healthy profit on the deal, getting into the realm of being prohibitively expensive...especially for articles like food...although perhaps some sort of payment plan could have been arranged.

Saaaay...I wonder if the dwarves also invented credit...

Obviously, I think some mithril made it to the Elves, but I think it must have been a very small quantity and not the basis for large scale trading operations.