Follow Up to the Blue Mountains Question - Gundabad

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

If there were dragons capable and/or willing to do that, why wasn't the dwarven settlement in the Iron Hills ever attacked by them?

Now now, surely you must know, Inzil? The Dragons had been plaguing all the Dwarven settlements in the North for ages, and especially those close to Withered Heath. Iron Hills was still relatively south (I know it sounds ridiculous if you look at the M-E map, but yes, in the relative sense - in relation to the Dragons - it still was South, and we can presume that most of the Dwarven settlements plundered by the Dragons were further to the north than that - simply judging from what we are told in The Hobbit: the Lonely Mountain was really very, very, very far south for the Dragons and considered safe and it took the biggest and bravest dragon of that age - i.e. Smaug - to come there), I think we can also conclude that Iron Hills was too strongly populated, defended, you name it - to be worth the trouble. Iron Hills: too far East for the mountain Orcs to threaten it, too far South (and possibly East, too) and seemingly really all too well defended for the Dragons to dare it. That's my conclusion, and I think it is rather evident (also because it is the only logical explanation anyway).

EDIT: x-ed with Elmo. I think that is also true, partially: it is clear the Iron Hills were in no way such a treasure-filled place as Erebor was, but also there still remains the idea about too many Dwarves being present (or maybe just the entrances were too small, who knows what kind of "holes" Iron Hill settlement really was?). So you could say even: yes, the effort/gain ration did not probably seem to be very inviting.