The Dwarven King in no Palace lives,
Has no soft bed for sleep.
The Dwarven King in no Fortress lives,
No stony cliff’s-edge Keep.
The Dwarven King lives in a hole,
Of naught but simple stone
Sometimes with a thousand attendants,
Sometimes all alone.
Forging, forging, forging, forging,
From the fruits of their excavation
Building the Castle best of all:
The joy of smelting Creation.
__
Dragon, Dragon, Treasure-keeper,
Whence thy treasure gleaming?
“Taken from the Dwarves, from burning Dwarves,
From Dwarves whose homes are steaming.
“They took it all from Mother Earth,
And were of that sin too proud.
Now the treasure’s blessed in fire and blood,
And a cleansing ember shroud.”
“Dwarven King, Dwarven King
Born to hammer’s sound
Ten generations spent
Strictly underground.”
“Yet here you pour out of your mines;
What strange times are these?”
“Ten generations matter naught;
We have long memories.”
“For all we’ve pulled from deepening Earth,
Naught has cured the stain
Our best treasure’s on the other side
Of soon-wrought Dragon’sbane.”
There from the Dragon’s aerie,
Vast opening in stone
There’s not a puff of smoke at all.
The Dragon’s dead, blood and bone.
__
There once was a Dwarf whose sharp axes
Were in keeping with old Dwarven praxis
Each iteration
Meant Orc decapitation
(That’s what the purpose of Dwarven attacks is.)
__
The Dwarf-King and the Elven King
A game of poker played
And millennia of resentment
Had little chance to fade.
For the Dwarf-King cheated just a bit
Only to sadly find
The Elf-King cheated twice
By reading his whole mind.
So over cards they came to blows,
Long before the coming of Men
The Elves won’t soon forgive the Dwarves
For winning Lothlórien.
__
“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― There and Never, Ever Back Again
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