Dwarf

Origins

The dwarf begins in the north, as the Old Norse dvergr and the Old English dweorg. In the Icelandic poems of the Poetic Edda, dwarves are not yet short — the sources are vague about their size — but they are already makers. Völuspá, often dated to around 1000 CE, tells how the gods created them and then recites the Dvergatal, a roster of dwarf names: Durin, Dvalin, Thorin, Fili, Kili, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Nori, Thrain, Thror, Oakenshield — and Gandalf. Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (c. 1220) explains that dwarves quickened like maggots in the flesh of the slain Giant Ymir, and tells how the brothers Brokkr and Sindri forged the gods' treasures, Thor's hammer Mjölnir among them. Norse dwarves live in stones and mountains, hoard gold, curse what is stolen from them — the dwarf Andvari's ring dooms the Völsungs — and, in Alvíssmál, turn to stone in daylight.

German legend gave the dwarf Alberich, keeper of the Nibelung treasure, and the Brothers Grimm gave the world the seven dwarfs who mine the mountains in "Snow White" (1812), the version Walt Disney animated in 1937.

Into the dungeon

Three months before that film, J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit, in which thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield hire a hobbit to help reclaim their mountain and gold from the Dragon Smaug. Tolkien lifted twelve of their names and their leader's byname straight from the Dvergatal. In The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion he went further, giving the dwarves a maker (the smith-god Aulë), a secret language, Khuzdul, a lost kingdom, Moria, and a representative in Gimli, whose friendship with the elf Legolas set the template for the bickering mixed The party. He also popularized the plural "dwarves" over the more usual "dwarfs."

From Tolkien the dwarf marched into Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement (1971) and then into Dungeons & Dragons (1974), one of three non-human Player character options. The original rules made dwarves fighters only, capped at 6th level, but gave them a knack for noticing slanting passages and traps underground and a bonus against giants. AD&D fleshed out hill and mountain dwarves; later settings added the gray duergar of the Underdark and Dragonlance's gully dwarves. Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Battle (1983) fielded Dwarfs as a full army, and the setting would come to define them as a nation of grudge-bearers who write every wrong into a great Book of Grudges.

Computer games took the dwarf as standard issue: a race in Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981) and Ultima, a hero in HeroQuest (1989), a starting race of Ironforge in World of Warcraft (2004), a companion or class option from Baldur's Gate to Baldur's Gate 3. The most dwarven game of all is Dwarf Fortress (2006), in which Tarn Adams and his brother Zach simulate a settlement of dwarves who dig too deep, brew mushroom wine, fall into strange moods, and die in comedies of error that players swap as legends.

Variations

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls inverted the idea: its "Dwarves," the Dwemer whose brass machines fill the ruins of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, were really a vanished race of elves. Terry Pratchett's Discworld dwarfs are all bearded, which makes the question of which ones are female a running political issue. C. S. Lewis's dwarfs in The Chronicles of Narnia are cynical and practical. But the Tolkienian core — beard, axe, mine, ale, pride, and a grievance about gold — remains so fixed that most games only need the word "dwarf" to tell players exactly who has joined the party.