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Dwarves are fond of understatement. Oh, everyone knows they like overstatement: the obvious joke, the extravagant insult that is also a compliment, bright colors and big beards, big weapons, big laughs. Rock, after all, is pretty obvious, and Dwarves live, work, play, sleep, eat, love, dream and are laid to rest in rock. But obvious isn't simple, not by a long chalk. Neither rock nor Dwarves are simple, not by the longest chalk-line in the Maker’s tool-safe.
Understatement, now. Rock is a simple word for a vastly complex, opposite-of-simple idea. Rock comes in kinds, layers, types and sizes: ore, granite, stone, igneous, pebble and boulder, strata and fault-line. The whole of geology, metallurgy, materials science in one word, if you think of it that way.
Or 'digging' and 'hole.' Now quite a few Men (and some Elves, but really, between the Fortress Beneath the River, the Thousand Caves of the Girdled Realm, and the Elvenking's home enough of them do or have lived underground they really have no grounds for opprobrium, you know?) speak disparagingly of Dwarven Halls as 'holes in the ground' as if Dwarves were worms or voles or some such nuisance — though I wouldn't go speaking ill of any creature of the land where the Green Lady can hear you, and Were-worms are right terrifying, I tell you. Digging is a Making word, meaning everything you can cram with pick or shovel into it, and so is hole. Understatement, like I said.
But there are powerful few Elves left in the world these days. Himself up North shelters a fair number of those. They have their own concerns and their own sorrows, but are too few to be proud about asking for help. And there has never been doubt of Dwarven prowess and skill in battle, even amongst those who see no difference between goblin pits and Dwarven delving, or indeed, between Dwarves and orcs in general otherwise.
When the Goblins come, boiling up out of the pits and vile places where they make of their dwellings, there is a very great difference, believe me. And it's Dwarves you want at your back, not against you.
(Here the speaker’s voice grew thick with outrage, and a long draught of mead went down before continuing with the tale.)
So, anyway. Once upon a time there was a kingdom of Dwarves, living in a very rich — by which I mean interestingly geologically complex — mountain with a peak high enough for year-round snow and roots that went deep into the ground, all the way down to where rivers of fire and molten rock make for a lot of excitement and energy down where the great, slow movement of the continents has its beginnings. Now, being a kingdom, this kingdom had a king, (named[copper-top in their tongue, as happens, hair and beard the color of that metal, polished to a sheen, though that was of course an outer-name, not an inner Making-name), and this Dwarf-king had a dwarfling, a child Made and born in the mountain. This was a cause of rejoicing amongst the population. Dwarves are hardy and long lived, but not immortal, and children are rare. This child’s name meant ‘the enduring one’.
It does not rain inside a mountain, not in a general way, nor snow or sleet or produce blustery wet winds. But the vast spaces of Dwarf halls do have weather — air and water, heat and cold all being present and interacting. And Dwarves are very aware of their environment, so when a thread of very cold air made its way into the comfortably warm throne-hall and with it the deep note of a horn that hummed in lungs and heart as much as ears, every Dwarf in hall and home and even deep in the mines and workshops noticed and was immediately alert. Few had heard that horn call, as the Gift-father, lord in the uttermost North, rarely has need to sound it. But all recognized the note, and what it meant.
The king stood from the throne, all merriment banished from brow and eye, and proclaimed “Brothers! To arms! We are called for aid in this hour, fell foes gather, goblins grim against the Gift-father. We take the Deep Road, marching as soon as all may arm and make ready.”
Then the young Dwarf stood before the king, no longer a child but a sturdy youth, with beard enough to braid, and shoulders broad enough to bear axe as easily as pick or mattock, and understanding as to their uses for both making and marring. “I would march with you, fight beside you, for if the Gift-father’s need is so great that even we are called, far from the North, there will be no safety, nor honor, in staying behind. Let our walls ward themselves. We can delve them again if we must, and as we have done before. This horn-call sounds of doom indeed, do we not answer with every axe and sword, arrow and engine of war we have to hand.”
The gathered throng heard these words, and their hearts were lifted even as they understood the danger all the more. The blue-robed wise one came fully present (startling several Dwarves who had not realized they were there at all) and nodded. The prince was right, little as anyone might like the idea. The king frowned and looked from prince to wizard, floor to lofty ceiling, over the gathering array of Dwarves, back to the prince and sighed a mighty sigh. "Aye, Need calls, and all shall answer. You shall march with us."
And so the host gathered, armed and armored, provisioned and prepared, warded hall and mine and hearth as best they might at speed, and set forth, passing through the stone and iron-wrought doors that opened the way to the Deep Road, the swiftest route, though not without danger of its own. Here the blue wizard proved of use, warding and speeding, helping and occasionally herding (particularly those whose curiosity and eagerness to explore, ordinarily a fine and praiseworthy quality, might lead them off the straight path into peril) and generally made themself useful, to the wonder of those who had heard of the chanciness of dealing with the Wise, though not to those who had spent time with Luinarin.
The Deep Road led through the volatile rivers of fire and rock that were at the roots of the world, the still, heavy darkness lit only by glimmers of light carried by the strangest and oldest of the Green Lady’s works within the Sea Lord’s realm. No light of star, moon, sun or lamp made by hands shone as they stepped without stopping along the crystal Road, carrying air and fire and song with them. Silent they sang as they marched, for those places do not admit of sound, until the path rose, and the shimmer of their passage steadied down to rock and ice and unhardened air. The far North of the world, a place part and yet not, within and without of ordinal time, mundane space, familiar in relative relationship as their own halls. The gates leading from Road to the outside world were silver and crystal like ice, threaded with green and red and gold, gleams of blue flashed as they opened and then closed again behind the Dwarven host.
They were met by Elves, grim-faced, bloodied and determined, yet glad indeed to see them. Other Dwarves had come, but few,(the Elves called them Gnomes, but they were Dwarves all the same) and all the Gift-father's defenders were hard-pressed, they reported. Bears hold the approach to the Cliff-house: Cave and Polar, led by the Star-bear and the Gift-father's own right hand, the Pillar of the North, Karhu and his nephews. Snowmen defended the cliff-top, with a weary force of Yule-lads come from Iceland at the call. The reindeer guard the stables, Gift-father himself and the household are keeping the house and upper cellars clear, the perimeter is ringed with Elves and Gnomes and the spirits of the Trees, and are holding the line, but all is defense, there is no one to take the battle to the goblins.
"We will harry them from cave and hall and field. Lead us too the foe!" cried the king, and the Dwarves gave a shout that rang and echoed through the old cellars where the Road had ended. At that, there was a scurrying and a scrambling, for there were goblins hiding in the concealment of the broken stone and ice, and the harrying began immediately, with a sharp, successful skirmish. No goblins escaped that place to send word to their fellows.
Up to the plain of ice that was the foundation of the Pillar, that once held the base of a Lamp of wonder, and whose stones remember still their purpose. Broken the Pillar lay, goblin-ichor staining its facets and the sharp spears of stone. Not easily had it fallen, and taken many foes with it. The land itself was determined to resist, there was no holding back, for did this stronghold fall, a light would be lost that could never be relight, and the world seen and unseen would be diminished. Seeing the broken pillar -- the Pole of the North! Visible symbol of the axis of the world, a very Making, brought low by evil and the forces of wanton destruction! -- the Dwarves let out a great cry of anger and determination, such that the air rang, and all the goblins within hearing quailed and quaked with fear. There would be no quarter for the authors of such unMaking, and they knew it.
There were the cracks in the earth out of which the goblins boiled, rock torn asunder, crying out. Nothing more did the Dwarves need than that sight, that sound. King and prince in the vanguard, they fell on the foe; great and grievous the slaughter in that long night of winter, under stars that glared bright and baleful to light the way for the axes of the Dwarves, dazzle the dark-seeing eyes of goblins. Not all the host would live to return to the mountain hall of the copper king, but none would die alone, or without taking a fearful tally of the foe with them. And in the end, the goblins were defeated, hunted and harried through the despoiled stones, till none was left alive in all the upper North.
The battle was won. Then came the work of the aftermath. Gathering the slain -- the defenders for the honorable rites of their kind, to bury or burn, return to earth or air, fire or water as the needs of their people would have it. The Gift-father (himself wounded, his ruby coat and emerald trews bespattered and torn, countenance lined and long beneath a beard grey with grime and soot) made note of all the fallen in his defense, each Dwarf and Elf, Bear and Man and Tree and standing Stone, honoring all. The House had not been breached, though the fighting had battered door and wall and window. Food and fire to be had (and never mind the means by which it was produced. There is a reason the uttermost North is only partly in the World, and the circumstances were more than sufficient to take advantage of that) healing hands and bandages, shoulders to cry on and arms to hold fast 'gainst storms of gladness and grief and the shock of survival.
The Dwarf-prince was one wanting arm-comfort, which was given without stint or shame. Battle is ugly, grim and unhappy, even when honorable, necessary, the outcome victorious. Grieve the fallen, the need, the horror. Tend wounds of heart and mind and spirit as carefully as those of body and land. Those are the lessons too little heard in the din -- or silence -- of the end of battle.
But there is also joy in survival, winning through. Cook the feast and sing the names fallen and standing, set hand to the necessary, healing work of rebuilding, making anew. Forge bonds of friendship with those who stood with you, working against the foe in whatever manner. Live, love, learn to carry on. There is digging to be done, sad and solemn, stern and splendid. The world spins, safe on several axes.
And thus is told the tale of the Battle of the North Pole, and the part of the Dwarves in that victory.
There was a long silence as the speaker's voice fell still, and a tankard of mead downed. The fire in the hearth crackled, snow whispered down the windowpanes and piled into drifts along the leading. Then a log broke and the coals flared up, and striking sparks of red and silver from the speaker's braids, and the listeners roared out a jumble of questions and exclamations and general noise. A round of drink and several savory platters set on tables calmed the crowd remarkably quickly.
How do I know this tale, you ask? Speak as if I know the language, the lore, the reasoning behind the words, as if I were a Dwarf myself. That's what you are thinking, are you not? You, over there with a mug of mead you aren't actually drinking.
For who said they ever left? Only one Dwarf known ever Sailed, and he had good reason. The Elves are the ones who wrote most of what got handed down, variously accurately as to source and changing with every telling. Not the Dwarves. Dwarves keep their own counsel, and let the Elves say what they would, since they certainly would anyway. Elves it was said the Dwarves came from stone and returned to it. And Men more likely than not to take the word of an Elf on just about anything.
But there’s more than one way to Make a Dwarf, you know. Or maybe you don't. More than one way, and only one of those is to be born one. More than one way to be a Dwarf too, come to that.
More to rock than its surface, more to a hole than its depth, more to a Dwarf than any but the Maker knows, ye ken? Even the Dwarf themself.
So, 'I am a Dwarf, and I'm digging a hole.' Sing along with me now. Put some oomph into it!
And the long winter's night rang with cheerful song.