On the Nature of the Sindar’s Hunting the Petty-dwarves by Artano

On the Nature of the Sindar’s Hunting the Petty-dwarves

The Silmarillion is a fascinating book by J. R. R. Tolkien, consisting of his notes, collected and edited into the final form by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Unlike his more popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion is less a story about a few individuals and more the story of a specific people, the Elves. As such, it reads like a history book, containing a collection of interrelated stories placed in chronological order spanning time from the creation of the universe through several ages of history to briefly describing the events in The Lord of the Rings. Hence, it is a fascinating read, giving much background and lore that is only briefly mentioned in Tolkien’s more popular works. Though these stories are mainly focused on the Elves, other peoples invariably appear in the history as well, for the Elves interacted with the cultures of Men, Dwarves, and Orcs throughout their time in Middle-earth.

Among these interactions is an intriguing chapter recounting a band of outlaws who encounter a Petty-dwarf, a member of a small clan of Dwarves who waned in numbers until they eventually died out of Middle-earth altogether. In this chapter, Tolkien allows the reader a small glimpse into their world, one of the few descriptions given, for he did not describe much about them in his published writings. Their history is tragic, filled with pain from the beginnings of their tribe, when they were exiled from the cities of their kindred. By the time the reader meets this Petty-dwarf, they have dwindled in number until he and his two sons are the last remaining members of their tribe. But perhaps the most tragic part of their history is mentioned in a brief comment, barely meriting one sentence in the short paragraph summarizing their history: “Before the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost came west over the mountains the Elves of Beleriand knew not what these others were, and they hunted them, and slew them; but afterwards they let them alone, and they were called Noegyth Nibin, the Petty-Dwarves, in the Sindarin tongue”¹. This is an intriguing detail of their history and was the primary reason the Petty-dwarves died out of Middle-earth, as The History of Middle-earth clarifies: “[When the Elves of Beleriand, also known as the Sindar, stopped hunting the Petty-dwarves] there were then few of them surviving”².

This briefly described encounter raises many questions: Why did the Elves hunt the Petty- dwarves? Did they know that they were hunting another people? If not, what did they think the Petty-dwarves were? Most of these questions Tolkien answers in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth, hereafter referred to as HoMe, but one interesting question remains unanswered: Since people often eat what they hunt, did the Sindar eat the Petty-dwarves when they hunted them?

Other enthusiasts of The Silmarillion have discussed this question, but this paper will be limited to considering exclusively what Tolkien wrote and its probable implications, though there is ample room for multiple interpretations.

Unfortunately, The Silmarillion doesn't give the reader many details regarding whether the Sindar ate the Petty-dwarves, only saying that before the Greater Dwarves (all Dwarves other than the Petty-dwarves) travelled to Beleriand, the Sindar did not know what they were, and so hunted and slew them. It does not mention the Sindar eating the Petty-dwarves, but that is a logical conclusion; if they hunted them, then it makes sense that they would eat them. Because the Greater Dwarves averaged at least four feet in height, with the Petty-dwarves being slightly smaller, they would have been considered large enough to be edible, and the most likely reason the Elves would not eat them in this scenario would be if they thought the Dwarves were sentient people.

This brings the discussion back to HoMe, which specifically states that the Sindar did not recognize the Petty-dwarves as sentient, instead thinking that they were a cunning, two-legged animal. But there are some interesting additional details included in HoMe’s account: the Elves only became aware of the Petty-dwarves' existence when they attacked the Elves, and when the Elves met the Greater Dwarves, they at first thought the Dwarves were a creature of the evil lord Morgoth, akin to the Orcs, wolves, and other creatures that he corrupted and who did his bidding.

From this, it is clear the Elves only began hunting the Petty-dwarves after they first attacked the Sindar when they migrated into Beleriand, where the Petty-dwarves had already settled, which sheds new light on the matter. From the Elves' perspective, it would seem as if a creature like the Orcs was attacking them, and it would be reasonable to hunt them to make Beleriand safe for their people to live in. However, if the Elves thought the Petty-dwarves were a creature of Morgoth, as they did with the Greater Dwarves, and not simply a cunning animal, it is not necessarily true that they would have eaten them. Other than Orcs, Tolkien does not give many details about the creatures Morgoth twisted and corrupted, and it is possible that the Elves would have avoided eating them if the meat was poisonous or would cause harm to the one who ate it. Neither The Silmarillion nor HoMe states exactly how Morgoth twisted the Orcs and other creatures, but if he used magic, it might have made the meat inedible for a variety of reasons, depending on how the magic twisted them. The Elves might also have abstained out of respect for the animal it had once been before Morgoth twisted it. Or perhaps the Elves would have eaten these creatures anyway. Tolkien doesn't tell us, and if the Elves were hungry enough, it is a possibility that they would have. However, it seems more probable that if the Elves mistook the Petty-dwarves as creatures of Morgoth, their hunting of them would have been an extermination rather than hunting them for food, especially considering that the Petty-dwarves attacked the Elves first and endangered them.

Another detail HoMe reveals is when the Greater Dwarves discovered that the Elves of Beleriand had hunted the Petty-dwarves, they resented the Sindar for doing so and held it against them, even though the Elves had believed the Petty-dwarves to be animals and so hunted them unwitting of their true identity. But this grievance was later set aside when the Greater Dwarves learned that the Petty-dwarves had not declared themselves to the Elves or presented any claim to any land or habitations. There is no mention of the Elves eating the Petty-dwarves among the grievances, and if they had in fact done that, it is probable the Greater Dwarves would have been much less forgiving, and such an offense would have been mentioned as one of their primary grievances. That said, The Silmarillion's focus is on Elves, not Dwarves, and some readers believe The Silmarillion to be part of Bilbo's canonical work Translations from the Elvish, in which he translated and recorded the Elves’ oral tradition. If one applies such an Elf-centric perspective to The Silmarillion and the accounts in HoMe, there is question of whether the stories in them might have been sanitized by the Elves to portray themselves in a more positive light. Though this is an important question to consider, this analysis is treating the accounts as truthful.

In any case, both The Silmarillion and HoMe record that the Sindar stop hunting the Petty-dwarves as soon as they realize that they were sentient people.

In the end, there are several possible interpretations of what happened, especially if one disregards the account in HoMe or considers potential bias in the records of what happened. It is possible that the Elves ate the Petty-dwarves, though the details in HoMe make it appear less likely if one takes its account at face value. Because of these details, it does not appear that there is enough evidence to state the Elves ate the Petty-dwarves after they hunted them, and the Greater Dwarves not listing such a complaint among their grievances further supports the position that it did not happen. However, though the text most clearly supports the Elves of Beleriand not eating the Petty- dwarves, the text is ultimately inconclusive.

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1. Tolkien, J. R. R. “Quenta Silmarillion: Of Túrin Turambar” in The Silmarillion, edited by Christopher Tolkien, p. 204. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1977)

2. Tolkien, J. R. R. “Part Four. Quendi and Eldar: Appendix B. Elvish names for the Dwarves” in The War of the Jewels, edited by Christopher Tolkien, pp. 388-389. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1994)