I think you might be placing Dáin's place in the line of Durin at far more distaff position than it properly occupies. He was son of Náin, who was son of Grór, who was the son of King Dáin I, who ruled in the Grey Mountains--and since Thrór was the elder brother of Grór, Dáin's lineage is the same as Thorin's before that. Indeed, if Dáin's family line had diverged from Thorin's before the fall of Moria, then Balin, Dwalin, Óin, Glóin, and Gimli (at least) would have had prior claims on the Kingdom Under the Mountain.

I'm almost positive that "Dwarves and Men" says that the Longbeards colonised the Iron Hills (and most of the Grey and Misty Mountains between there and Moria) long before the fall of Khazad-dûm, but Dáin's patrilineal ancestors could not have lived there before his grandfather, because it wasn't until Grór that his ancestors weren't Kings of Durin's line.

So... while I agree that Dáin's family (but only Dáin's family insofar as it is distinct from Thorin Oakenshield's) was never associated with Erebor, and while it is true that the Longbeards were associated with the Iron Hills almost since time immemorial, Dáin's family history there doesn't go back QUITE as far as that.

That is quite correct. Thank you for setting me straight on that.

Very interesting theory. I can't find any textual evidence against it although I'm not inclined to agree with it.

I seem to remember that in the Appendices mention is made of dwarves living in the Ered Luin in the Fourth Age. It might well be that their permanent settlements there throughout history had hereditary rulers who were not of Durin's house.

I would guess you're referring to this from Appendix A , "Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur":

The cities of Nogrod and Belegost, certainly, were not of the Longbeards.

However, after the end of the First Age, I don't recall any mention of Dwarves having established settlements there prior to Thorin's colony being established in T.A. 2802 (TOY).

It was said, also in Appendix A, that when the Witch-king overran Arthedain in T.A. 1974, that King Arvedui took shelter "in the old dwarf-mines near the far end of the Mountains". Since his next act was to seek aid from the Snowmen of Forochel, it seems clear those mines were near the northern end of the Mountains, and were not occupied.

The first reference above to mines being in the south of the Mountains, might simply refer to Thorin's settlement. At any rate, I think it unlikely Thorin would have gone to the Ered Luin and founded his own settlement if other Dwarves were already established there.

I haven't read the other replies yet, so someone might have covered this already.

If I remember correctly, Thorin and Co were described as scratching a rather meager living in the Blue Mountains. I would imagine that most of the dwarves lived under the same conditions, and this would be a pretty poor foundation for a new kingdom compared to the wealth that lay at Erebor.

I would also add that there is an undeniable and powerful mystique about returning to one's roots. It is a sociological drive which we have seen many times in history (how many times have people tried to resurrect the Roman Empire?) and which continues today (the Jews of Israel).

Very interesting point you bring up there.

A new opinion
 

This will be a long bit of background so bear with me...

I was ruminating about the fate of the seven rings and where those rings might have been bestowed. Thinking of the fate of the Broadbeams and Firebeards and their potential merger with the Longbeards, If the peoples had merged, I wondered if two of the rings might have been given to great lords of the Longbeards in addition to the king.

While this might be an idea worthy of its own topic, I discarded it because the Longbeards in the books that referenced the rings never gave any indication that more than one ring was ever given to Durin's Folk. My other thought (more based on the nature of the rings and their maker than anything) is that more than one ring would not co-exist with another well in the same realm.

Thrown back upon the original notion of the rings were given to the leaders of the seven dwarf peoples, it was thus inescapable that all seven peoples survived to some extent as independent entities.

How does all this relate to this topic?

My thought now turns to what Pitchwife said in post #3...

Maybe that was exactly it. Maybe since the Kings of the Broadbeams and Firebeards were already in the remains of the Blue Mountains it would be considered very rude indeed for Thorin to make himself a king there since he might have been there in some sense as a guest. This might also explain why the Longbeards there were in a relatively resource poor area, the surviving Broadbeams and Firebeards were living in the surviving better areas.

I'm not proposing that significant populations of Broadbeams and Firebeards existed, but that their royal lineages did and there were enough remaining members to sustain distinct communities. Tolkien nowhere said all dwarves abandonded the Blue Mountains after the First Age, just "most."

Or maybe there were more survivors than we might think since the remains of the Blue Mountains were in the sleepiest part of Middle-earth where nothing ever happened and there was little reason to describe goings on there again.

I'm inclined to think that if there were remnants of the other Dwarven lines in the Ered Luin in the Third Age, they were so small as to be really just settlements, nothing as grand as kingdoms.
Since Thorin's line was of the Longbeards, making him Durin's heir, I doubt Dwarves of other houses would have had much of a problem sharing the mountains with his own relatively small people.

Undoubtedly not, but they were still in the mountain range where they awoke which would perhaps provide something of a confidence boost. Perhaps the leaders of the Broadbeams and Firebeards never left...in fact, I would suspect they did not.

Sharing, they clearly had no problem with that. However, making a new "kingdom" there might have been something they would object to.

Since Thorin's settlement was referred to at least twice in ROTK Appendix A as a state of 'exile', maybe that knowledge that Erebor was the true kingdom for him would have kept Thorin from taking a formal kingship until the Lonely Mountain was regained.

Also, in UT The Quest of Erebor, Gandalf reports that he told Thorin:

That too would suggest that whatever Thorin had in the Ered Luin, he did not consider a kingdom.

The king of Nogrod had been killed by Beren before the First Age ended. In fact, between the Green-Elves and the Ents, the host of Nogrod was "destroyed utterly" which at least suggests that all male Dwarves of fighting age, including the royal family, were wiped out.

I am pretty sure that somewhere Tolkien said that all land north of the river Lune's first tributary from the Blue Mountains was dwarf land and remained dwarf land throughout much of Middle-Earth's history. I can't find teh quote but I know it was from Dwarfs and Men in vol 12 of HoMe

I don't disagree with the statement, but I disagree with the implication. ;)

Fighting age does not equal every age. If the experience of Gimli regarding Thorin's expedition is any guide (and I see no reason why it wouldn't be) the younger male dwarves would not have gone on the expedition to sack Doriath, this would include any younger males of the royal family, which would have been a bit more of a priority to ensure there was at least one survivor. In fact, it should be presumed to have been such a priority that we should assume that an arrangement like this would be made.

That the population of the Firebeards was permanently crippled is not at issue. The point is that this does not equal extinction.

Yes, I see what you're saying.

I think really we have another bit of Tolkien creating a bind for himself that he never cleared up, if he even noticed the problem at all. The Seven Rings appeared, almost ex nihilo, in the Ring-verse. The idea of the "Seven Houses of the Dwarves" came rather later but was, I'm pretty sure, derived from it; it made sense and still does that Sauron gave a ring to each Dwarf-king.

The problem came, as so many did, from trying to ret-con the new material into the existing legendarium, and the incompatibility of having seven dwarf-kingdoms in the Second Age but two major ones from the old legendarium which going by the LR weren't there any more. There isn't any real solution except by artificial rationalization, and unlike Tolkien we don't get to re-write anything.

And then there is something of a how-de-do with the idea that four, count 'em, four of the Dwarf-rings were lost to dragon fire. There are certain geographical problems posed by that.

Yup, but half the fun of being a Tolkien fan is trying to figure out ways to make all the inconsistencies make some kind of rational sense.

Again, half the fun...and I think the ideas presented make sense.

Possibly, but not necessarily. It is true that it is almost essential to assume that the four rings eaten by dragons were the ones of the eastern houses. However, perhaps dragons were more active and widespread in eastern Middle-earth. That, in fact, might be used as a piece of evidence to support such an assertion.

Another question is, how did the news get out? I'm assuming the dwarves would have spread the word eventually as time passed.

Alternative ret-con: one of the Blue Mountain royal houses relocated (perhaps after a stint in Moria) to the Grey Mountains, like Thrain to Erebor. Some time after, reptilian flammenwerfer, dwarvecue and so on.


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Hobbit Ch. 1- Bilbo claimed he was willing to "walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms of the Last Desert"*

*revised text. 1st ed, "Gobi desert"

Some Points
 

Fact: Sauron gave seven Rings of Power to Dwarf-kings.

Fact: There were seven ancestral houses of Dwarves.

Only Speculation: The seven "Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone" who received the seven Rings corresponded one-to-one to the seven different Dwarf-tribes.



Fact: By the time of the Rings' forging, at least one Dwarf-house (Nogrod) and possibly two (Belegost) were greatly weakened.

(Related question: from simple geography, how likely is it that Sauron, in the years after the destruction of Eregion and the theft of the the work of the Mirdain, went anywhere near the Blue Mountains, so close to Lindon?)

Fact: Dwarves in the Second Age could have more than one kingdom--or, at least, more than one outpost. The Longbeards ruled the Misty Mountains from Moria to Gundabad, and across the Grey Mountains, with an outpost colony in the Iron Hills. Who is to say that the four Dwarf-tribes of the East did not have multiple kingdoms? In the earlier Ages of their greatest fecundity, why couldn't the Dwarves had spread to found more than seven ancestral houses?

We know, at the very least, that the Rings of Power given to the "kings of Men" could not have all gone to literal Kings, because three of them went to Númenóreans, none of whom were Kings of Númenor. The possibility for a similar sort of analogy seems to me to be at least potentially in play here.

Slight correction: the Ring-verse says Dwarf-lords, not kings, and everywhere else that I can think of to look it just says "to the Dwarves" without specifying kings.

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Query: if the regal heirs of Nogrod and Belegost survived the War of Wrath, did they go to Moria with the "many" of their people who migrated there? Were they content to be powerless and rather resentful guests of the House of Durin?

I always assumed that two of the seven were given to the successors of the rulers of Belegost and Nogrod who by then lived in Moria, but I suppose they simply could have been afforded to powerful Dwarves in general.

Given the Dwarves' limited numbers, however, and the fact that the royal line of the Longbeards was afforded a Ring, one wonders if any other Rings were concealed in the West at all, or if all the other six were in the East where the Dwarves appear to have been more numerous, at least at one time.

I read an idea somewhere (it may have been Michael Martinez's site) that the Dwarf rings were distributed by Sauron or one of his agents at one of the dwarven conclaves at Gundabad. This idea has much to recommend it, I think.

A valid point.

I will say that the idea multiplies things into the point of imagination. Also, the Longbeards only ever spoke of being given one ring even though they were widely dispersed at the time. A similar thing may have been at play in the other houses.

That is a very good point.

Another idea that maybe needs its own topic...

Tolkien was not systematic at all in his use of the term "lord." He used it indiscriminately to refer to any and all authority figures from high to low. Théoden was referred to as "Lord of Rohan" even though we know he was king. Durin the whichever was referred to as "Lord of Moria" (translating the word "Aran" from the West Gate) and we know that the Durins were kings. In fact, it is my belief that "aran" usually translates as "king."

Tolkien was so erratic in his use of the word that I don't think it can be used to build much of a case for anything.

My belief is they would have stayed in the Blue Mountains. I will cite Thorin as support for my argument. He always wanted to get back to Erebor. In fact, the Longbeards in general wanted to get back to Moria. Nogrod and Belegost may themselves have been destroyed but I think some of their survivors would have wanted to stay close to them and I think the leaders in particular would have been most likely to do so.

That is another possible idea.

I have not looked at Peoples of Middle Earth in some time. I recall that volume mentioning that Durin (the first) woke in Gundabad but do not recall any mention that Gundabad was a place where the Longbeards actually lived as a race. Nor do I recall any mention of enclaves there. This, of course, does not mean that there is some mention of these matters. I just do not recall.

Given the timeframe, the Rings were distributed in the Second Age, if there was an enclave of Dwarves or their "lords", isn't it more likely that it took place in Khazad Dum, the greatest of the mansions of that race, rather than Gundabad.

I think textual information supports this idea.

The Tale of Years indicates that in S.A c. 40 "Many Dwarves leaving their old cities in Ered Luin go to Moria and swell its numbers".

Since the Rings of Power were not completed until after the first millennium of the Age, one would think Moria's population would be even greater by then, and, as the seat of power for the Longbeards, it would have been the Mecca of the Dwarves as a whole.

The Dwarves of the Blue Mountains going to Moria would also lead me to think that there were nothing like the old kingdoms of Nogrod and Belegost remaining, with the remnant Dwarven population having a mind to go someplace more prosperous.

I found the reference.

"Early ages" is an ambiguous phrase, but I think the Second Age would still qualify as an early age.

I think Gundabad probably was more the "Mecca" of the dwarves in literally a more religious sense. I don't think it was necessarily a major settlement in terms of population but I think we have to assume some dwarves did indeed live there until its fall.

No more erratic than Shakespeare, who freely used "lord" for kings; more fairly stated, though, is simply that in the Early Modern English usage Tolkien employed, "lord" as a category included "king." Even on Sunday, the Eternal King of Kings is called Lord!

I'm not however trying to split so fine a hair; I'm just saying that nothing in what Tolkien wrote says necessarily that the recipients of the Seven all had to be kings, some could, at least grammatically, have been lesser Dwarven nobles. (Balin claimed the title Lord of Moria, too; unfortunately Tolkien never defined the title uzbad for us!)

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Yes, aran = "king." It is the title Elessar uses in the Sindarin translation of the King's Letter to Sam (Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornion Edhelharn, aran Gondor); cf. Fornost Erain "Norbury of the kings" and Ereinion "scion of kings." Gandalf was a loose translator! (The usual Sindarin for "lord" was hîr , as in Rohirrim "horse-lords" and our stubby Durinian friends Gonhirrim "stone-lords." Elessar's titles go on "... aran Gondor ar Arnor ar Hîr iMbair Annui", Lord of the Westlands.)

Use of 'lord' and Thorin calling himself king
 

I agree with William that Tolkien used 'lord' both as a formal title for and a mode of address to rulers and their immediate family. It was also used as a general term for 'ruler' regardless of the ruler's title. For example, Theoden spoke about the distance to Minas Tirith where 'Denethor is lord'. When he died in battle and Denethor committed suicide on the same day, there was a mention of Gondor and Rohan being without their 'lords'. No distinction was made there between Denethor as a steward and Theoden as a king.

Looking at The Hobbit, it doesn't appear that Thorin called himself king until after being told that Smaug was dead, therefore being assured that the Mountain and the treasure was his; and he was addressing the army of Lake-men and Wood-elves who came north to the Mountain. Earlier, for example, when he first met the Lake-men, he only (and carefully) referred to himself as the grandson, through Thrain, of Thror, the last acknowledged King under the Mountain.