In the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Dwarves are a race inhabiting Middle-earth, the central continent of Arda in an imagined mythological past. They are based on the dwarfs of Germanic myths who w
Detail of Dwarves marching from a 1936 pencil and black ink drawing by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien found dwarves in Norse mythology. Here the god Thor talks to the dwarf Alviss to prevent him from marrying his daughter Þrúðr; at dawn Alviss turns to stone. Drawing by W. G. Collingwood, 1908
The petty-dwarf Mîm may derive from the shrunken figure of Mime, here shown cowering behind the celebrating Siegfried in Wagner's opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1911
Gimli in Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings (1978) voiced by David Buck
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revising it several times later,
Front cover of hardback edition
The illustrator Alan Lee signing copies of The Children of Húrin