Follow Up to the Blue Mountains Question - Gundabad

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Elmo

The dragons weren't just in the Withered Heath, that's just 'whence came the Great Worms'. Seems to be their original home in those mountains. The dwarves must have had settlements all around the Grey Mountains that were destroyed by the great beasts. Gundabad is only a stone's throw (or a dragons breath) away from the western edge of the Grey Mountains.

That's true. Scatha, after all, was the Dragon who threatened Éothéod - and that was by the northern end of Anduin.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

And if the Iron Hills was not considered a wealthy enough target, why would dragons have bothered a newly resettled Gundabad, which would presumably have taken very many years to repopulate and enrich?

But we are talking about the reason why Dwarves had not resettled Gundabad. The idea of Dragons coming to Gundabad is purely hypothetical (or at least that's how I perceive this discussion). But if I am a Dwarf, and I am judging whether to resettle Gundabad or not, I am not going to say: "Let's go there, because Dragons won't come there after we resettle it at least for a couple of years before we gather some hoard there, and look at Iron Hills for comparison..." but I am rather going to say "Hey, people, you sure you want to resettle Gundabad? Even if we manage to get rid of the Orcs in there, which will certainly weaken us, what if a Dragon comes there once it hears we are back there again, and weakened?" I think the Dwarves are very practical in this, unless there is really great zeal about it, but we don't know about Gundabad holding any Arkenstone so that it would make the Dwarves' hearts blazing with fire just in order to see it.

[Galadriel55]

In addition to what was already said, I think there was no treasure left to reclaim in Gundabad, unlike Erebor. And although it's a sacred place, I don't think it was ever a big Dwarven kingdom.

Moria didn't have any treasure either by the time of LOTR, but such a massive kingdom/structure is a treasure by itself, even without decorative riches.

[Puddleglum]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Moria didn't have any treasure either by the time of LOTR

Maybe no loose treasure just lying around, but the wealth of Moria was in the lodes of Mithril (even if it no longer amounted to loads of Mithril ). Since the Balrog drove them out while they were still mining and seeking - it stands to reason that the lodes still had (at least) some Mithril remaining to be mined and extracted.

The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down to darkness.

[Elmo]

Doesn't big G the Grey mention something about the treasure being drowned in water or in a shadow of fear? Without the Balrog, the fear will be removed so some treasure, at least, could be retrieved by the dwarves.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

But we are talking about the reason why Dwarves had not resettled Gundabad. The idea of Dragons coming to Gundabad is purely hypothetical (or at least that's how I perceive this discussion). But if I am a Dwarf, and I am judging whether to resettle Gundabad or not, I am not going to say: "Let's go there, because Dragons won't come there after we resettle it at least for a couple of years before we gather some hoard there, and look at Iron Hills for comparison..." but I am rather going to say "Hey, people, you sure you want to resettle Gundabad? Even if we manage to get rid of the Orcs in there, which will certainly weaken us, what if a Dragon comes there once it hears we are back there again, and weakened?" I think the Dwarves are very practical in this, unless there is really great zeal about it, but we don't know about Gundabad holding any Arkenstone so that it would make the Dwarves' hearts blazing with fire just in order to see it.

Since the Iron Hills were settled after the trouble the Dwarves had had with dragons when they initially tried to establish themselves in the Grey Mountains, and on the map they really do look approximately equidistant from the Withered heath as Gundabad, I just don't see fear of dragons as being a major factor in the failure of the Dwarves to reclaim the latter. If dragons had not come to the Iron Hills in all that time, why be troubled about Gundabad? I think there were other reasons.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Since the Iron Hills were settled after the trouble the Dwarves had had with dragons when they initially tried to establish themselves in the Grey Mountains, and on the map they really do look approximately equidistant from the Withered heath as Gundabad, I just don't see fear of dragons as being a major factor in the failure of the Dwarves to reclaim the latter. If dragons had not come to the Iron Hills in all that time, why be troubled about Gundabad? I think there were other reasons.

Yes, of course they had other reasons: to settle Gundabad, you first had to wipe out the hosts of goblins there. Then there was the slight chance of a Dragon coming. Iron Hills didn't have the problem with the first prerequisite.

Also, if Iron Hills was something newly settled, then there is another good reason for the Dwarves to go there, of course: the chance to find something new in there. Gundabad was long explored and likely with nothing special in there.

[Kuruharan]

Since the Iron Hills were settled after the trouble the Dwarves had had with dragons

Actually, the Iron Hills had been inhabited by the Longbeards since the First Age according to Of Dwarves and Men

you first had to wipe out the hosts of goblins there

The dwarves already had. They wiped out the orcs living there during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. That's why the whole thing is puzzling to me.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Actually, the Iron Hills had been inhabited by the Longbeards since the First Age according to Of Dwarves and Men

I was going off information from Appendix A.

That begs the question though, that if the Dwarves had been established in the Iron Hills for so long, why was it only in the Third Age that they settled Erebor?

[Kuruharan]

I was going off information from Appendix A.

I think the contradiction is more apparent than real.

Gror, Dain's third son, went away with many followers to the Iron Hills
-Appendix A

That says that Gror went there, it doesn't say he founded the settlement there.

That begs the question though, that if the Dwarves had been established in the Iron Hills for so long, why was it only in the Third Age that they settled Erebor?

That is another very good question. My speculation on it is that Erebor was out of the dwarves usual route before the fall of Khazad-dum and fell under the same category as the Grey Mountains which were "little explored."

Of course, this brings us to a real contradiction where in Dwarves and Men it is said that the Grey Mountains were part of the Longbeard's empire during their height in the Second Age...and then after the fall of Khazad-dum they were suddenly "little explored."

Part of what I think may be going on here is another aspect of Tolkien's struggle to reconcile the events in The Hobbit with the rest of the broader world and this is a bit that didn't get ironed out very well.

[Galadriel55]

That begs the question though, that if the Dwarves had been established in the Iron Hills for so long, why was it only in the Third Age that they settled Erebor?

It's possible that the answer lies in its name. It's the Lonely Mountain. There's precious little room to expand a kingdom.