Greetings, Dwarven Lords!
Making a game is not only programming, making art, sounds and music, it also involves research into various themes.
Dwarves in the popular culture were first popularized by Tolkien and his stories in “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. Also, you might know that Tolkien was inspired by Old Norse mythology. As fans of both, Tolkien’s world and Old Norse mythology, we delved into research how we should present dwarves and female dwarves in particular.
Tolkien Dwarves
First, lets look into what Tolkien had to say about females. In the appendices of “The Return of the King” we can find this:
It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves ‘grow out of stone’.
Also, in “The War of the Jewels” we can find this passage about dwarves in general (“Naugrim” is the Elvish name for the Dwarves):
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. Indeed this strangeness they have that no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf – unless he were shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would seem more deadly. For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls. It is said, also, that their womenkind are few, and that save their kings and chieftains few Dwarves ever wed; wherefore their race multiplied slowly, and now is dwindling.
So, to sum up, Tolkien’s dwarves were all bearded and females were not very different from males. But Tolkien was inspired by Old Norse mythology, so let’s look into that as well!
In the image: two dwarfs as depicted in a 19th-century edition of the “Poetic Edda” poem Völuspá (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.
Dwarves in the Old Norse religion and texts
If we look into Old Norse religion and texts, there is much more confusion and less clarity. Regarding dwarves characteristics, they are usually described as being short, misshapen, unattractive, and skilled with their hands. Also according to one researcher “there is, to the best of this author’s knowledge, not a single Old Norse text describing the dwarfs as bearded” (Mikučionis, 2020). But where do dwarves come from? There are two somewhat different myths of Dwarves origins that are preserved in Eddas (Eddas are the books with poems and mythological stories, and they are main sources of Norse mythology).
The first myth tells about dwarves having been produced by other dwarves out of the earth:
Then all the Powers went to the thrones of fate,
the sacrosanct gods, and considered this:
who should create the lord of the dwarfs
out of Brimir’s blood and from Blain’s limbs?
There Motsognir became most famous of
all dwarfs, and Durin next;
Many manlike figures the dwarfs made,
out of the earth, as Durin recounted.
- Seeress’s Prophecy 9–10 in the “Poetic Edda”, written around 1270 AD (trans. Larrington, p. 5)
The other myth talks about the first dwarves having emerged as maggots in Ymir’s flesh and then being “improved” by decision of the gods:
The gods <…> discussed where the dwarfs had been generated from in the soil and in the earth like maggots in flesh. The dwarfs had taken shape first and acquired life in the flesh of Ymir and where then maggots, but by decision of the gods they became conscious with intelligence and had shape of men though they live in the earth and in rocks. Modsognir was a dwarf and the second was Durin. <…>
- Snorri Sturluson “Edda”, written in 1222–23 AD (trans. Faulkes, 1995, p. 16)
Because of these stories, a lot of Old Norse mythology researchers claimed that Dwarves “do not
engage in fruitful sexual encounters” (Motz 1993: 623) and “There are not, in fact, any female dwarves in the whole of Old Norse myth, <...>, with the exception of a very late feminine form dyrgja in Þjalar Jóns saga.” (Clunies Ross 1994:168)
But the newer research reveals different opinion: “we do not have any clear references to female dwarves in skaldic poetry or in the Eddas. At the same time, there are relatively many references to family relations (brother–brother, father–son, father–daughters, ancestor–descendant) in these sources. This indicates that the idea of dwarf families was not an alien concept, but rather an important aspect of the life of dwarfs”.
In the image on the left: title page of a manuscript of the Snorri Sturluson “Edda”, showing Odin, Heimdallr, Sleipnir and other figures from Norse mythology. On the right: photo of “Codex Regius (“King's Book”) an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the Poetic Edda are preserved.
Dwarves in the King of the Dwarves
So we think it is clear that there should definitely be females among our dwarves but contrary to Tolkiens world, we don’t think they should be bearded. Also, we think not bearded female dwarves look much better :)
P. S. There is also a problem related to female dwarf names, but that is for another day!
P. P. S. Can you spot one bearded dwarf?
