Tolkien: The Lord of The Mines – Or A Comparative Study Between Mining During the Third Age of Middle‐Earth by Dwarves and Mining During Our Age by Men (or Big‐People)

Abstract

J.R.R. Tolkien described an entire Age of history in his main opus, The Lord of the Rings. In doing so, he told miners a lot about their past, much before any written record was kept or handed down. At a time when many people are wondering about the future of the mining industry, the possible depletion of natural resources and the modern concept of “sustainable development”, it is interesting to analyse the evolution of the mining industry, not just within the last half of the century, but over the last two Ages. Maybe there will be some surprises, but maybe also some reassurances that although many changes and new ways of thinking have occurred over the Ages, mining activities have continued and survived even through the changes of the miners race from the race of Dwarves to the race of Men.

Glossary

Big People: name given by the Hobbits and Dwarves to Men

Fourth Age: current age of the world. It started at the very end of the last tale of “The Lord of the Rings”, when Arwen, the Elven Star of her People, vanishes from the world, thus definitely ending the abode of Elves in Middle Earth and the Age of the Elves.

Middle Earth: As the Fourth Age has its “world”, the “Third Age” had its Middle Earth. It is difficult to locate it now, though some regions, such as “the County” for example, seem to have survived in many respects in our actual Scotland.1

Miners: when not preceded by a qualification, this term designates Dwarves in the Third‐Age as well as the Big‐People of the Fourth‐Age of Middle‐Earth.

Moria‐silver or Mithril or True‐Silver: “its worth was ten times that of gold, and now it is beyond price (…). It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass, and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.”2

Third Age: the Age previous to this Age. The acts and glory of the Third‐Age are told in the tales “Bilbo” and in “The Lord of the Rings”.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges Dr Gill Burke's most precious cooperation in the finalizing of this article. Dr Gill Burke is a Consultant Minerals Economist living in Australia. She works mainly for the Raw Materials Group, Stockholm, Sweden.

Notes

Dr Danièle Barberis is a Natural Resources Lawyer specializing in mineral law and policy. She deals with issues related to the assessment of investment climate, analysis of legal frameworks, drafting of mining contracts and joint venture agreements, negotiating with governments, and due diligence related to mine activities or mine closure. She is currently working as a corporate lawyer for one of the world's largest uranium producers, the French Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaires (COGEMA) in countries such as Madagascar, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Gabon, Niger, Canada and the USA. Dr Barberis is also a consultant on mineral sector reform and mineral law and policy formulation.

Her bibliography includes Negotiating Mining Agreements: Past, Present and Future Trends, a book published by Kluwer Law International (1998) and Negotiating Mining Agreements: when is it worth it?, an article published by Minerals & Energy, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2001).

The opinions expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the author and do not reflect the views of COGEMA or any other institutions.

1. This, however, is debatable. Indeed, according to another opinion, the other name of “the County” being “the Shire”, reflects the terrain – well farmed, well watered, long‐cultivated, describe by Tolkien. This description looks more like middle England – Gloucester, Hereford, the Cotswolds, or like the Dordogne area of rural France. Scotland, even the lowlands, is far too bleak for Hobbits. As Fangorn suggested, the Shire would suit Entwives not Ents. Scotland is much more Entish.

2. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Rings, Harper Collins Publisher, p. 309.

3. Ibidem.

4. Carpenter, H (2002) JRR Tolkien: a Biography, Ed. George Allen Unwin.

5. One of the Valar's 15 subordinate beings, Aulë, created dwarves, whom he called Khazâd. It is quite noticeable that Aulë is specially gifted (together with Melkor) in the knowledge of substances and crafts. Therefore, dwarves are naturally attracted to substances, to the depths of the earth and to crafts. (see Tolkien's Cosomogony“ by Professor Ralph C. Wood, in Telling the Truth, www.leaderu.com/humanities/wood‐cosmogony.html, 13 July 2002).

6. Inspired from Nordic mythology.

7. See also Wagner's Tetralogy in which, interestingly enough, the awful Dwarf Mime is a miner.

8. Report of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the Bruntland Report) creates the term “sustainable development”.

9. The World Commission on Environment and Development (1998), Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 54.

10. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 535.

11. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Rings, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 366.

12. ‘You didn't often see proper dwarf halls these days. Most dwarves were off earning big money in the cities down in the lowlands where it was much easier to be a dwarf – for one thing you didn't have to spend most of your time underground hitting your thumb with a hammer and worrying about fluctuations in the international metal markets.’ Terry Pratchett ‘Witches Abroad’ (London, 1995 edn), p. 51.

13. Pratchett ‘The Fifth Elephant’ (London, 1999), p. 169.

14. Pratchett ‘Witches Abroad op cit. p. 50.

15. Barberis D. (1998) Negotiating Mining Agreement: Past, Present and Future Trends, Kluwer Law, p. 77.

16. As for in situ leaching (ISL) it was unknown. This can be simply due to the fact that this technique is used exclusively in uranium mining, and that, in the Third Age of the world, no uranium mining was taking place.

17. “Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin's bridge and none has measured it.” Tolkien JRR ( 2001 ) The Lord of the Rings, p. 490.

18. See for example, the article “Beyond 4,000”, Johannesburg Mining Conference 1999.

19. A third way of developing a mine is in situ leaching or ISL used essentially for uranium mining. It is quite a modern technique (dating back from the 20th century of the Fourth Age) which is consistent with the modernity of uranium mining activities.

20. Lewis GR. ‘The Stannaries: a study of the Medieval Tin Miners of Cornwall and Devon’. First published 1908. Reprinted by Bradford Barton, Truro, Cornwall 1965. See also John Hatcher ‘English Tin Production and Trade Before 1550’. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973.

21. Barberis D. (1998) Negotiating Mining Agreement: Past, Present and Future Trends, Kluwer Publisber, p. 16.

22. Tolkien, JRR. (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 309.

23. Ibidem, p. 347.

24. Barberis D, (1998) Negotiating Mining Agreement: Past, Present and Future Trends, Kluwer Publisber, Chapter 5.

25. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 300.

26. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 300.

27. A good way of grasping the value of mithril is given by the comparison between the “mail of mithril” (which must have been quite small, as it fitted dwarves and hobbits) with the “entire value of The County” which the mail of mithril is supposed to supersede.

28. For example, the Rings of Power were forged by Sauron using the skill of the elven‐smith.

29. Georgius Agricola ‘De Re Metallica’. Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover, 1913. Facsimile reproduction, Dover Publications (New York), 1950.

30. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 1106.

31. Evelyn Kroker and Werner Kroker (Eds) ‘Frauen und Bergbau: Zeugnisse aus 5 Jahrhunderten’. Deutschen Bergbau‐Museums Bochum (Bochum, 1989). See in particular illustrations on p. 20 and pp. 72–73.

32. Angela V John. ‘By the Sweat of their Brow: Women workers at Victorian Coal Mines’ (Croom Helm, London, 1980) and Gill Burke ‘The Decline of the Independent Bal Maiden: the impact of change in the Cornish Mining Industry’ in Angela V John (Ed.) Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England 1800–1918 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), pp. 179 –207.

33. Gill Burke ‘Pit Women and Others: Women Miners here and there, then and now’ in Kuntala Lahiri Dutt (Ed.) ‘Pit Women and Others: Women Miners in Asia’ forthcoming Ashgate, 2006.

34. ‘Here we are equal to the men’. Article on Women in the South African Mines by Sarah Dugui, The Guardian Weekly, March 6–12, 2003, p. 21. (The article mentions that 34 women work underground but only one is a fully qualified miner. There are 3000 men underground).

35. We think for example, of some South American countries and in the USA where women working in underground mines are much appreciate as being more careful and safety aware than their male counterpart.

36. ‘Oh I'm a miner, stout and bold Long time I've worked down underground To raise both tin and copper too To the honour of our miners. Now brother miners I bid you adieu I go no more to work with you But tramp the country through and through And still be a rambling miner.’ Cornish folksong. Late 18th century

37. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 535.

38. Ibidem p. 956.

39. Tolkien, JRR (2001) The Lord of the Ring, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 855.