Why are dwarves Scottish?

[The Colonel]

I always understood Tolkien's Dwarves to have a strong Jewish theme to them... no idea where the Scottishness came from.

[Mark Skarr]

It's because a Scot's accent is fun.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

My copy of Three Hearts and Three Lions is back in the old country, but I think you could be right. Is there anything in the Disney Snow White or the few fantasy films before 2000? I don't remember the BBC Prince Caspian presenting Doctor Cornelius, Nikabrik and Trumpkin as Scottish, but I think "Dwarves as Scots" was an existing trope when Peter Jackson encountered it.

It's absolutely an existing trope - I remember it being around in 1980 or so when I started roleplaying, and something taken as a sign that a novel was based on somebody's game - IIRC Feist's Riftwar was the one people had that debate about.

There are some British stereotypes about different regions and accents in the British Isles which can be hard for us foreigners to see.

I suspect there may be some reinforcement from the much older stereotype of the Scottish engineer - which seems to have been because Scottish universities happily trained them at a time when it wasn't something Oxford or Cambridge lowered themselves to.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I blame Poul Anderson. Hugi the Dwarf in Three Hearts Three Lions has a Scottish accent, and that book is a heavy influence on original D&D and hence the entire roleplaying (and later videogame and fantasy film) community.

I personally think this is exactly right. Three Hearts appeared in 1953 as a novella and 1961 as a book. It's thought/known to have influenced the D&D alignment system, birthed the paladin class, and gave us regenerating trolls, at least. And apparently scots dwarves.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I personally think this is exactly right. Three Hearts appeared in 1953 as a novella and 1961 as a book. It's thought/known to have influenced the D&D alignment system, birthed the paladin class, and gave us regenerating trolls, at least. And apparently scots dwarves.

Maybe everything but alignment. D&D's original alignment system was only Law-Neetrality-Chaos and that was very pure Moorcock (Elric to be precise). It's why Greyhawk has so many important Neutral NPCs.

Adding a separate axis for Good v. Evil is an AD&D thing (1e).


























































7D

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I suspect there may be some reinforcement from the much older stereotype of the Scottish engineer - which seems to have been because Scottish universities happily trained them at a time when it wasn't something Oxford or Cambridge lowered themselves to.

I think the trope of the Scottish engineer is older than university training of engineers. James Watt was on the staff of the University of Edinburgh not as a teacher but as an instrument-maker. (And the reason that the University of Edinburgh had a staff instrument-maker was that Adam Smith wanted to break the monopoly of the guild.)

I'm not sure, but I think the Scots engineer goes back to the Clydeside shipbuilding industry and the fact that Scotland for religious reasons systematically taught poor kids to read and write.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Maybe everything but alignment. D&D's original alignment system was only Law-Neetrality-Chaos and that was very pure Moorcock (Elric to be precise). It's why Greyhawk has so many important Neutral NPCs.

Three Hearts and Three Lions has the distinction between Law and Chaos as two contrasting forces. And didn't it come out before Moorcock started writing?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Three Hearts and Three Lions has the distinction between Law and Chaos as two contrasting forces. And didn't it come out before Moorcock started writing?

A struggle between History and Chance (neither of which being forces which most wise people want to align with) is also in Gordon Dickinson's The Dragon and the George novels (first published 1976, so probably drawing on Anderson and Moorcock). I think that, and the version in Basic D&D, have more storytelling potential than the good vs. evil split with its "the Aztecs and the Conquistadors both thought they were good and pious" and "defining good and evil in a book marketed to argumentative teenagers will summon more hassle than money" and "its hard to see most people as aligned with pure ideological forces" problems.

[Stormcrow]

Anderson's Law and Chaos are the order of battle between human civilization, its allies, and the taming of the world on one side and the faery world and the old magic on the other. Simply by your lifestyle (e.g., being a farmer and practicing Christianity) you belong to one camp or the other.

Moorcock's Law, Neutrality, and Chaos are cosmic forces that shape the multiverse. Entire beings and planes of existence are dominated by these forces. Human beings aren't really concerned with cosmic forces.

D&D's alignment started from Chainmail's order of battle. You've got a wargame with a whole bunch of fantasy creatures and characters, so you want to divide them up to know who will fight whom. So Chainmail borrowed from Anderson's idea of an order of battle, putting those who fight for Law (the "good guys") on one side, those who fight for Chaos (the "bad guys") on the other, and calling Neutral any who could fight for either side, or who won't fight for any side.

As D&D developed, it adopted Chainmail's order of battle into alignments, and reinforced them with ideas from Moorcock: not only was there the same worldwide battle between Law and Chaos, but magic, magical beings, and planes of existence were governed by them. Entire social structures were established around them (alignment language).

So it's not that D&D alignment comes from one or the other; it borrowed from both Anderson and Moorcock.

As for dwarves being Scottish: the idea certainly existed long before Jackson. I remember seeing the first glimpses of Gimli in the first movie and rolling my eyes at the stereotypically "Scottish" dwarf. Although Three Hearts and Three Lions did feature a dwarf with a Scottish accent, I'm not convinced that the players of D&D who developed this trope were remembering that; I think Tolkien's own association of dwarves with runes and axes, and artists' common depiction of dwarves with horned helmets, along with a common mixing-up of Scottish and Norse characteristics, all boiled down to players thinking of dwarves as Scottish.

[William]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I think Tolkien's own association of dwarves with runes and axes, and artists' common depiction of dwarves with horned helmets, along with a common mixing-up of Scottish and Norse characteristics, all boiled down to players thinking of dwarves as Scottish.

This last bit is really what has me giving this whole thread the side-eye.

I know John Rhys-Davies is Welsh; I remembered his voice well from other productions. He didn't strike me as Scottish. I've always pictured Dwarves as closer to Norse, drawing mainly on the Tolkien interpretation of the Scandinavian sources. Dwarves are known as mythological entities in several cultures, especially where actual human dwarves are ascribed various magical powers, but the "little folk" of the British Isles mostly seem to fall under the category of various fey in my mind.

(Except for the game in which I pictured Dwarves as Russian -- the language fits pretty well -- but that came about because Planescape's Ring-Givers struck me as pretty Communist and I decided to run with it. :^D )