Durin I

The making and the sleeping

Durin was not born but made. When Aulë shaped the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in secret beneath the mountains, Durin was the first and eldest of them, and when Ilúvatar accepted Aulë's work and gave the Dwarves independent life, it was on the condition that they should not wake before the Elves. So Durin was laid to sleep alone under Mount Gundabad, at the northern end of the range that the Elves would later call the Misty Mountains, while the other six fathers slept in pairs elsewhere.

The awakening

When the time came, after the Elves had awakened at Cuiviénen, Durin woke and rose alone in the north. The Dwarves say he was the first of their race to wake, and the fact that he had no companion, unlike the other fathers, gave his house its claim to be the eldest of the seven. He went south along the mountains, naming the lands and the peaks as he went, in the Dwarvish belief the first to give them names, and came at last to a valley on the eastern side of the range where three great peaks stood over a long lake.

Mirrormere

The lake was Kheled-zâram, the Mirrormere, in the valley of Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale. Durin looked into its still water and saw the reflection of the peaks and, though it was day, a crown of seven stars set about the shadow of his own head. He took this for a sign that here he was to dwell, and the crown of stars became the emblem of his house and was set upon the Doors of Durin long afterward. A pillar, Durin's Stone, was raised on the spot where he had stood. When Gimli and Frodo looked into the lake in the Third Age they saw the same crown of stars and no reflection of themselves.

The founding of Khazad-dûm

In the caves above the lake Durin began the halls that grew, over thousands of years, into Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, the greatest mansion of all the Dwarves. It ran west under the mountains until in the Second Age it opened on the far side above the Sirannon, and its wealth, especially the mithril that was found nowhere else, made it the heart of Dwarvish civilisation. The Dwarves who came to Durin and their descendants were the Longbeards, Durin's Folk, and the line of kings that descended from him was the eldest and most honoured of all the Dwarves. What Durin himself did in his long life beyond the founding is not recorded: no wars, no wife, no named son. The Dwarves keep the names of their kings but tell little of them to outsiders.

The Deathless

Durin lived far beyond the span of any Dwarf, so long that he was called the Deathless. He did die at last, before the Elder Days were over, and was laid in a tomb in Khazad-dûm, but the Dwarves believed that his spirit did not depart. They held that he would return, being reborn in his own line, and that from time to time a child of his house would appear so like the first Durin in look and spirit that he was given the name again. Five such kings followed: Durin II, of whom nothing is told, Durin III, who received the Ring of Durin's house, Durin IV and V, and Durin VI, who died when the Balrog was released. A seventh and last was foretold. Whether the Dwarves' belief was a doctrine of rebirth or a way of honouring likeness the histories do not judge, but the Dwarves themselves held it in earnest.

Legacy

Durin's name is everywhere in the story of his people. Their kings were his heirs, their emblem was his crown of stars, the Doors of the West-gate bore his name, the Balrog was called Durin's Bane because it slew his descendant in his own halls, and the Dwarves' ancient grievance against the Orcs was sharpened by the occupation of Gundabad, where he awoke. The song that Gimli sang in the dark of Moria remembers Durin as a king in a world still young, when the stones were unworn and the stars were reflected in Mirrormere for the first time. His line lasted from the Years of the Trees to the end of the Third Age and beyond.

Died at a great age in Khazad-dûm and was laid in a tomb there; his people held that he would be reborn in his line, and five later kings bore his name.