Author Archives: The Dwarrow Scholar

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About The Dwarrow Scholar

My fascination with Tolkien began early, with a battered copy of The Hobbit given to me by my uncle. I read it obsessively, then reread it, and when I was old enough to own a Walkman, I even recorded my own cassette version so I could listen to it while cycling to school. Long before the internet made information easy to find, I spent countless hours in libraries, hunting down anything I could about Tolkien and, in particular, his Dwarves. That early fascination never really went away. Over the years it developed into a sustained and structured engagement with Tolkien’s legendarium, especially the Dwarvish languages and cultures. Under the name The Dwarrow Scholar, I focus primarily on Neo-Khuzdul, Tolkien’s notes on Dwarves, and the careful expansion and teaching of those ideas in a way that respects both the source material and linguistic plausibility. Through www.dwarrowscholar.com , I publish articles, reference material, and language resources, and I also give structured lessons in Neo-Khuzdul to students. What began as fandom gradually grew into long-term research, teaching, and writing. When I am not working on Neo-Khuzdul or answering questions from fellow Tolkien enthusiasts, I enjoy time with my wife and son, revisiting well-worn Tolkien paperbacks, learning languages, watching a good film, or unwinding with games like The Lord of the Rings Online and other Dwarf-adjacent distractions.

Neo-Khuzdul Dictionaries for Lotro Dwarves

“Forgive me mymiddleearth.com, for it has been over a month since my last post”, I whispered through the lattice.  😉 Though on the bright side I’ve been using the past month or so for quite some items you’ll be finding … Continue reading

Posted in Language | 131 Comments

Gimli, Lord of the Glittering Caves

Gimli, most of us know and love him from the movies, as played by John Rhys-Davies. Unfortunately Gimli’s character in the LoTR movies was used almost entirely as raw comic relief, which in my mind was logical perhaps, but a … Continue reading

Posted in Characters | 3 Comments

Crispy Fried Batwing Anyone ?

One question often asked when talking about dwarves is… “what did they eat under their mountain?” Well we know dwarves – especially in times of great riches – traded large quantities of food with men.  To quote Thorin Oakenshield: “we … Continue reading

Posted in Food | 7 Comments

Aglâb Khuzdul ?

    So you are a lotro Dwarf that likes a bit of RP, but don’t speak any khuzdul, apart from the battle-cry “Baruk Khazâd, Khazâd ai-mênu”.  Though there is a decent amount of neo-khuzdul available (on this blog for … Continue reading

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Baruk khazâd !… so, now what do we do ? (Dwarven Battle Tactics)

Tolkiens’ works give us only a few clues about dwarven battle tactics, as he has written mainly about battles where dwarves joined forces with other races – in which case they might not use their traditional military deployments during battle. … Continue reading

Posted in Battles | 6 Comments

Shameless Insult or Kind Gesture ? (Iglishmêk)

If ever – on your travels in the eriador – you would run into a group of dwarves that seem to be shamelessly insulting each other with awfully rude hand gestures… think again… you might be looking at a dwarven … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 2 Comments

All about the Petty Dwarves

Those not familiar with Petty dwarves.. these were dwarves very much differed from normal Dwarves in various ways: they were smaller, far more unsociable, and they freely gave away their names; other Dwarves kept their Khuzdûl names and language a … Continue reading

Posted in History | 4 Comments

Cirth

Firstly, the initial C in Cirth is pronounced as a K, never as an S. With that out of the way, let’s move on… There are 3 common types of Cirth, one that was used by elves long ago, “Certhas … Continue reading

Posted in Writings | 6 Comments

Death

A good topic, left untouched for the most part by Tolkien. We can however, when we dig deeper into some Tolkien lines and appendices get a bit of a clearer picture. What is known about Dwarven beliefs of death and … Continue reading

Posted in Life & Death | 1 Comment

Dwarven Festivals

Expansion on the post “Dwarrow Calendar”   Details on the more well known festivals: Muhudtuzakhmerag (“Blessed Green Fest” or “Spring Fest”), a dwarrow spring-festival traditionally held from the 1st till the 20th on the 6th Month of the Dwarrow calendar … Continue reading

Posted in Calendar & Festivals | 2 Comments