'Then great was the wrath and lamentation of the Dwarves of Nogrod for the death of their kin and their great craftsmen, and they tore their beards, and wailed; and long they sat taking thought for vengeance. It is told that they asked aid from Belegost, but it was denied them, and the Dwarves of Belegost sought to dissuade them from their purpose; but their counsel was unavailing, and ere long a great host came forth from Nogrod, and crossing over Gelion marched westward through Beleriand.'¹

   So spake Selcheneb, clan-keeper of lore, and one of three wise elf-women who sat on the six-member Council of Elders. It was ever her delight to share tales and songs of Elven lore with the youngsters of the clan, although in these latter days there were but two elf-children for her to teach. One was of her own Laegrim blood, the other of Iathrim forebears who had mingled with the elf-clan long ago; yet among the elven tribe such lines were meaningless, for all were accounted kin.
   'I deem that is enough for today, my elflings,' she told her young charges. 'On the morrow you will hear the doom of Menegroth and, indeed, of all Doriath... and at last our kinsmen of Ossiriand come into the tale!'
   She laughed as the elf-boys groaned in disappointment, for the tale of the Ruin of Doriath had long enraptured their eager minds, as Selcheneb -- in daily instalments -- told the tale of the man, Húrin Thalion: from the Curse of Morgoth to his bringing of the Nauglamír to Elu Thingol. Today they had heard that by the command of the King of Doriath, the Necklace of the Dwarves had been remade by the Dwarves of Nogrod, and in it was set the shining Silmaril of Lúthien and Beren; and they had just now learned of the treachery of the dwarven-smiths and the slaying of the King, and the ill-fated escape of the dwarves that fled thence to their fastness delved into the eastern lee of Ered Lindon. Now a host of fierce Dwarves marched down the Dwarf Road that led, they had learned from the lore-keeper, from the mountain pass in Ered Lindon; along the river Ascar on the northern march of Ossiriand it then ran, until it reached the very girdle of Doriath! The pair wondered how she could break off the tale at such a stirring point?
   'Go forth and be children!' she cried, waving them away, and they scampered off through the trees.

   Feveren and Faethurin ran hand-in-hand beneath the golden boughs, and through their leaves autumn sunlight glimmered gold upon the elf-boys' heads. Before the moon grew to full they would both celebrate the passing of the ninth year since their begetting,² and would thus soon share their eighth Feast of the Middle-days with their clan in Eryn Milbar.³ They flopped down beside a hurrying stream that foamed along its stony bed, glistening and gurgling gaily. Beneath their backs the grassy bank was soft and fragrant.
   Feveren began to softly snigger, and Faethurin felt his friend's mirth tugging gently at his thought. 'What is it?' he asked.
   '... and they tore their beards, and wailed,' the Green-elf boy recited. 'But the only beards I know are of lichen and moss, which grow upon rock and tree...'
   'And trolls!' cried Faethurin, and they both laughed merrily at the memory of their encounter with a stone-troll not long before, and their fair young voices mingled with the singing of the bubbling brook.
   'And trolls,' Feveren agreed, sitting up, still wheezing with silent mirth. 'But,' he continued, 'if Dwarves are people,⁴ whence come their beards? What is it that grows upon their faces? Are they truly fashioned from stone?'⁵
   'Nay,' said Faethurin shaking his head, 'Dimaethor, my father, in Menegroth beheld the Dwarves of Nogrod who toiled in the deep smithies of Thingol, and he shared with me a mind-picture of them. He told me that a beard is hair that grows like grass right out from their cheeks and chin!'
   'Hair?' Feveren combed his small hand through his long shaggy locks, trying to imagine it growing upon his face. His friend watched him with a knowing smile.
   'But it is not soft and fine like elven-hair,' he said, running his fingers through his own short tousled hair, 'but rough and wiry.'
   'O! like a boar's bristles, you mean? laughed Feveren, and he pulled Faethurin to his knees. 'Show me.'
   The pair knelt face-to-face and pressed their small brows together. They had but lately discovered, unlooked-for, the Elven art of thought-sharing,⁶ and they found that touch greatly aided their childish efforts. Thus Feveren for the first time beheld a dwarf, beard and all!
   He was posed beside a tall pale Elf of Doriath, and thus they could see that the dwarf stood about four feet from the ground. His long black beard was forked and plaited and thrust into his belt, and indeed it seemed more akin to the hair upon his bare head than to boar-bristles. His strong hand clasped a small hammer, like the ones Feveren's clan-folk sometimes used to fashion trinkets or mend metalwork. The dwarf's broad breast was garbed in a corslet of mail made from linked rings of a gleaming metal unknown the Wood-elf boy, and his stout legs were clad in heavy boots.⁷

   The elf-boys broke apart. Feveren's eyes were wide. 'Why did you not show me before?' he demanded.
   'Dimaethor only showed me yestereve, when I told him how Selcheneb's tale was moving,' replied the Grey-elf boy with a shrug. 'A strange light shone in his eyes, and he said I needed to know of the Dwarven-kindred but he would not spoil the tale.'
   'What more did he say?' asked Feveren eagerly.
   'Naught, alas,' answered his friend. 'Only that I'd learn more from her soon enough. And so we did today!'
   'To think that he was there in Menegroth,' sighed Feveren, 'ere Elu Thingol was slain. My parents are so young!'
   'Rarely did he come to the Thousand Caves, he says, and only once did he see the dwarves,' said Faethurin. 'For he dwelt apart in the Forest of Region, where he liked to hunt.'
   'Aye,' said Feveren, 'I remember he told us of the forest of holly-trees. And in it lay the elf-city Menegroth, therefore the king-slayers surely must have fled that way.'
   'But tidings went swiftly through the forest,' remembered Faethurin from Selcheneb's tale, 'and few of that company came over Aros, for they were pursued to the death as they sought the eastward road, and the Nauglamír was retaken. But my father dwelt in the south of the hollin-wood.'
   'O! of course,' said Feveren. 'I had forgotten. But your memory for the lore of your kin is better than mine.'

   They fell back to musing on the mind-picture of the Dwarf. The stream babbled merrily, and somewhere above their heads a robin whistled its silvery song among the whispering leaves. Suddenly Feveren reached out and grabbed a handful of Faetherin's ruffled hair; he pulled.
   'Ae!' Faethurin complained.
   'Indeed!' crowed the Green-elf boy triumphantly. 'Surely tearing the hair upon one's face must hurt alike to hair of the head?' he reasoned, and with his fingers he rubbed his crown, then stroked the soft smooth skin of his cheek. 'Perhaps even more so, I deem! Folly it seems to my mind!'
   'What I wish to know,' said Faethurin, scowling as he rubbed his own scalp, 'is whether they tore their beards in wrath or anguish? The tale says only that they tore their beards and wailed, but did they tear their beards in wrath ere wailing in grief, or is it some strange mortal mourning-rite?'
   'Or perhaps it is but the tall tale of a skillful storyteller!' exclaimed Feveren with a grin. 'Yet, O Fethurin,⁸ what a merry sight an angry dwarf would be!'
   Faethurin looked at his friend and grinned in return. 'He did look fiery, did he not?' he said, arching his brows.
   His grey eyes met the hazel eyes of his friend and brother, mirth kindled within them, and in an instant their thought was joined. Their hands reached out and clasped, and in their minds they pictured again the black-bearded dwarf, but red-faced in fierce wrath, grasping his forked and plaited beard with a long tine in each large hand. His heavy boots were stamping furiously upon the floor in a strangely crab-like dance, and he was silently shouting at the sky.
   Still hand-in-hand, they fell flat on their backs amidst the green grass, kicking their small bare feet in the air as they howled with childish elven laughter!

*      *      *

1. The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, "Of the Ruin of Doriath"

2. "As for the begetting and bearing of children: a year passes between the begetting and the birth of an elf-child, so that the days of both are the same or nearly so, and it is the day of begetting that is remembered year by year. For the most part these days come in the Spring."
   - Morgoth's Ring, 'The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar'

3. "Forest Home" or "Beloved Forest Dwelling"
         eryn - S. forest, wood of trees.
         milbar - S. dear home, beloved dwelling [place] (PE17)

4. Incarnates

5.  "Aforetime it was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet that is not their own belief."
   - The Silmarillion, "Valaquenta: Of Aulë and Yavanna"

6. Ósanwe ‘communication or interchange of thought’.

7. The Naugrim were ever, as they still remain, short and squat in stature; they were deep-breasted, strong in the arm, and stout in the leg, and their beards were long."
   - The War of the Jewels, "The Later Quenta Silmarillion: Concerning the Dwarves"

8. Ever had they named each other in the fashion of their line's elvish tongue. (Doriathrin and Danian)
 

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