Nogrod

Nogrod is not the city's own name but a translation of it. The Dwarves who built and inhabited the city called it Tumunzahar in Khuzdul, their own tongue. The Silmarillion treats Nogrod as the Sindarin rendering of that native name, the form under which the city was known among the Grey-elves of Beleriand. This pattern is common to the Dwarf-realms of the First Age: the neighbouring city of Belegost likewise carries a Sindarin name that renders the Dwarvish Gabilgathol. The editorial apparatus gives no meaning for Tumunzahar itself, and the sense of the Khuzdul elements is best left open rather than reconstructed from the translations.1

The dual naming reflects how the two peoples dealt with each other. The Dwarves guarded their language closely and seldom taught it to others, while their dealings with the Elves of Beleriand were conducted largely in the tongue of the Sindar. Outsiders therefore came to know the Dwarf-cities chiefly through Elvish names, and these are the names that dominate the later tradition. Within the legendarium the Sindar are the natural authors of Nogrod: they were the first of the Elves to meet the Naugrim coming westward over the Blue Mountains, and it was with them that the Dwarves traded and laboured in the early days.2

The Sindarin name can itself be analysed. The appendix on name elements groups its second part with the word for a delving or underground dwelling, the same element found in Menegroth, the Thousand Caves of Doriath. It further suggests that the name probably began as Novrod, a hollow delving, and was reshaped by association with the Sindarin word for a Dwarf. The English equivalent Hollowbold follows the older sense: it pairs the plain adjective with bold, an Old English word for a dwelling or built house, in the same way that Mickleburg serves as the English form for Belegost. The three names thus sit in a chain of translation, from Khuzdul through Sindarin into an archaic English that Tolkien used to render the languages of his world.3

Nogrod was not a city in the open but a delved dwelling cut into the mountain range of Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains, which formed the eastern wall of Beleriand. The Dwarves who made it came out of the east, and their halls were hewn on the eastern flank of the range, facing away from the lands of the Elves rather than overlooking them. Nogrod and Belegost were the two chief mansions of the Dwarves in those mountains, and the Silmarillion treats them together as the nearest Dwarf-realms to Beleriand. What set Nogrod apart was its craft: its smiths were counted among the greatest of their people, and their work passed westward into Elvish hands.1

Because the city lay beyond the mountains, every dealing with Beleriand depended on a crossing. A road led down out of Ered Luin into Ossiriand, the green country between the mountains and the river Gelion, and it forded that river at Sarn Athrad, the Ford of Stones, before running on westward into the interior. This route bound Nogrod to the Elvish realms for trade and labour, and it was also the way by which its Dwarves came against Doriath and by which they sought to return home afterwards. Ossiriand thus served as a threshold rather than a border, and the ford marked the point at which the Dwarf-country gave way to the lands of the Elves.2

The city did not outlast the First Age in its old form. The account of the Longbeards in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings records that the ancient cities of the Blue Mountains were ruined in the upheaval that attended the overthrow of Thangorodrim, when the lands of the west were broken. Many of their Dwarves afterwards went east to Khazad-dûm, adding their strength to the realm of Durin's line. Nogrod therefore survives in the later tradition as a remembered place rather than a living one, set in a range that itself outlasted the drowning of the country to its west.3

The recorded history of Nogrod begins with the arrival of its people in Beleriand. The Silmarillion places the first crossing of the Dwarves over Ered Luin in the ages before the return of the Noldor, while the Sindar under Thingol were still the only Elvish lords of the land and Morgoth was held captive in Valinor. The Dwarves of Nogrod came together with those of Belegost, and the Grey-elves received them with some wonder, since they had not known that any other speaking people shared Middle-earth with them. Relations were cautious at first but grew into a lasting exchange of goods and skills. The published narrative gives no year for the founding of the city itself. When the tale opens, Nogrod is already an established mansion with its own traditions of craft.1

After the Noldor came back to Middle-earth, the city found a second market in the realms of the Exiles. The Silmarillion records that the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost traded with the Noldor, and especially with the sons of Fëanor in the east of Beleriand, and that the Dwarves drew great profit from this commerce. The same account notes that the Noldor gained knowledge as well as goods, although the Dwarves remained reserved and kept their inner affairs to themselves. Nogrod thus stood at the edge of the political order of Beleriand. It was never ruled by any Elf-lord, yet it was bound into the country's economy through the roads that ran west from the mountains. During the long years of the Siege of Angband this trade continued largely undisturbed.2

The city's renown in this period rested on its smiths, and one of them is named in the sources. Telchar of Nogrod made the knife Angrist, which later came to Curufin and was used by Beren to cut a Silmaril from the Iron Crown. The Narn i Hîn Húrin in Unfinished Tales credits Telchar with the Dragon-helm that passed to the house of Hador and in time to Túrin. The Lord of the Rings adds, on Aragorn's word, that Telchar first forged the sword Narsil in the far past. Nogrod also appears in the story of Eöl, the Dark Elf of Nan Elmoth. He was a friend of the Dwarves and visited both Nogrod and Belegost, where he learned much of their metalwork. The most famous work in which Nogrod shared was the Nauglamír, the necklace made for Finrod Felagund by craftsmen of both cities. It came back out of Nargothrond after the fall of that realm, and its return set the city's later history in motion.3

The turning point came in the last years of Thingol's reign. After Húrin brought the Nauglamír to Menegroth, the king wished to have the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien set into it, and he engaged smiths of Nogrod for the work. The finished piece roused in them a desire to possess it, and they disputed Thingol's right to the jewel. In the quarrel that followed they killed the king in his own halls and fled eastward with the necklace. They were overtaken and slain, and only a few returned to Nogrod. Those who did gave an account that concealed their own guilt and cast the blame on the Elves.4

Nogrod answered with war. The Silmarillion states that the Dwarves of Belegost refused to join the venture and tried to dissuade their kin, but a large host marched out of Nogrod regardless. Melian had by then departed and her protective girdle was gone, so Doriath had no defence against them. The host overran the realm, sacked Menegroth and carried off its treasure, and Mablung was among those who fell. On the way home the host was ambushed by Beren and the Green-elves together with the Ents. The lord of Nogrod died at Beren's hand, the Nauglamír was taken back, and those who escaped the ford perished in the woods under the mountains. According to the same chapter, the hatred between Elves and Dwarves that runs through later ages goes back to these events.5

Nogrod is not mentioned again as an active power in the remainder of the First Age. The Silmarillion does not say what the loss of its army meant for the city, and the narrative gives no dated record of it between the sack of Menegroth and the end of the age. Its fate was decided by the catastrophe that closed that age, which has already been described in terms of the land. Nogrod's history as the sources tell it therefore amounts to a single long arc. It begins with trade and craftsmanship shared with the Elves and ends, after the killing of Thingol, in a war that destroyed the city's army.6

The inhabitants of Nogrod were Dwarves, the people whom the Sindar named Naugrim and also Gonnhirrim, the masters of stone, in recognition of their skill in delving and building. The Silmarillion traces the whole race to Aulë, who made its fathers in secret and whose work was afterwards accepted by Ilúvatar. From this origin it derives their character: they were tough and enduring, slow to forget either a kindness or an injury, and far longer-lived than Men though not deathless. The account of the Sindar adds that they kept to themselves and revealed little of their customs to outsiders. The published narrative does not distinguish the folk of Nogrod from their kin in Belegost by any trait of kindred or appearance, and it does not assign them to a particular house among the Dwarves.1

Of the government of Nogrod the sources say very little. The Silmarillion names no king, records no line of succession, and describes no council or custom by which the city was ruled. A lord of Nogrod enters the story only at its end, as the leader of the host that marched on Doriath, and even then he remains without a name. Nothing is said of how he came to his authority or who, if anyone, held it after him. The same episode shows that Nogrod decided on war by itself, independently of Belegost, so that the two cities, however closely linked by kinship and craft, did not form a single realm under one ruler.2

Nogrod was not a city in the open but a delved dwelling cut into the mountain range of Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains, which formed the eastern wall of Beleriand.

Nogrod's nearest neighbours to the west were the Green-elves of Ossiriand, through whose country the Dwarf-road ran, while to the north lay Thargelion, the land of Caranthir. The Silmarillion describes his people as among the first of the Noldor to deal with the Dwarves, in a relationship built on mutual profit rather than affection. Before the Fifth Battle the city was drawn into the politics of the Exiles: when Maedhros gathered his Union against Angband, the forges of Nogrod and Belegost laboured to arm his forces and the Naugrim lent him their strength. Throughout these dealings the sources present a respect for craftsmanship on both sides but little warmth. The conflict over the Nauglamír later turned this uneasy partnership into open enmity.3

In the narrative Nogrod is a place that is talked about rather than visited. The Silmarillion never takes the reader inside its halls, and no scene is set beneath its roofs. The city exists in the story through what leaves it: its craftsmen, its traders and finally its army. Because the account is told from the side of the Elves, the Dwarves of Nogrod appear as outsiders arriving at Elvish doors, and their own motives are seen only from outside. This distance shapes how the city is used. It stands for skill that others value and depend on, but whose makers remain strangers to the people they serve.1

Its larger function is to carry the fate of the Silmarils one step further. The tale of Doriath's ruin shows the jewel's power to bend the desire of whoever handles it: Thingol's attachment to the stone grows, and the craftsmen who set it are taken by the same longing. Nogrod thus serves as the point where an Elvish curse passes into another people and becomes their quarrel too. The consequences outlast the city's part in the tale. The recovered necklace goes to Lúthien and then to Dior, and the Silmaril within it draws the sons of Fëanor down upon Doriath in turn, until Elwing carries it away to the mouths of Sirion.2

The story also sets Nogrod against its sister city. Belegost refuses the war on Doriath, and in the Fifth Battle it is the Dwarves of Belegost under their lord Azaghâl who stand against the dragon and earn the tale's praise. Nogrod receives no such moment of honour. Its defining act in the narrative is the sack of Menegroth, so that of the two Dwarf-cities of the Blue Mountains it becomes the one remembered for grievance rather than valour.3

In the earliest form of the legend, the tale of the Nauglafring in The Book of Lost Tales, Nogrod already appears as a Dwarf-city, but the Dwarves themselves are drawn in a far harsher light than in later versions. They are called the Nauglath, and their ruler is given a name, Naugladur, lord of Nogrod, who is absent from the published account. In this version the necklace is not an older work brought out of Nargothrond. It is made at the king's command from the gold that came to him after the dragon's death, and the quarrel turns on Tinwelint, the earlier name of Thingol, and his grudging treatment of the craftsmen over their reward. Naugladur himself leads the assault that ends the king's life, and it is Naugladur whom Beren later overcomes. The broad shape of the later story is therefore present from the start: a commission, a dispute over treasure, a killing and a pursuit. What changes over time is how much of the blame rests with the Elvish king rather than with the city of Nogrod.1

Tolkien never wrote a final version of this part of the history. In his commentary in The War of the Jewels, Christopher Tolkien explains that the chapter on the ruin of Doriath in the published Silmarillion was largely composed by himself from earlier outlines, with no finished text by his father to draw on. He adds that he later regarded the result as a departure from his father's intentions in some respects. The account of Nogrod's deeds in the Silmarillion is therefore an editorial construction rather than a settled text, and this should be kept in mind when its details are compared with the drafts.2