Quenta 2 — Of Aulë and Yavanna
Chapter 2 of the Quenta Silmarillion
Summary
While the Valar rested in Valinor, Aulë, in his longing to have pupils of his craft and his fear of the long emptiness before the coming of the Children, made the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in secret beneath the mountains. Eru Ilúvatar rebuked him, and Aulë, in humility, offered to destroy his work; Eru pardoned him and gave the Dwarves true life of their own, yet laid them to sleep in stone until the Elves should come first into the world. Then Yavanna, uneasy for her trees, was granted a vision of her own care: from her thought were conceived the Ents, “shepherds of the trees”, that should guard the forests against the axes of the coming children. The chapter ends with the covenant that Dwarves and Ents shall be joined to the designs of Eru without being of the two kindreds of Ilúvatar’s Children. It is thus the chapter most often cited for the question of the Dwarves’ creation and their place in Arda.