LotR --- Appendix A: III -- Durin's Folk

[Bêthberry]

It would be remiss, I believe, not to refer in the Chapter by Chapter discussion of this part of the Appendix to a comment which has fueled so much discussion among Tolkien fans, amounting almost to Gulliverian proportions of the BigEndians and the LittleEndians.

Originally Posted by Tolkien

The Dwarves delved deep at that time, seeking beneath Barazinbar for mithril, the metal beyond price that was becoming yearly ever harder to find. Thus they aroused from sleep a thing of terror that, flying from Thangorodrim, had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the Host of the West: a Balrog of Morgoth.