The Silmarillion

Then Mim answered: 'High above the lands lies the house of Mim, upon the great hill; Amon Rudh is that hill called now, since the Elves changed all the names.'

Then Turin was silent, and he looked long upon the dwarf; and at last he said: 'You shall bring us to that place.'

On the next day they set out thither, following Mim to Amon Rudh. Now that hill stood upon the edge of the moorlands that rose between the vales of Sirion and Narog, and high above the stony heath it reared its crown; but its steep grey head was bare, save for the red seregon that mantled the stone. And as the men of Turin's band drew near, the sun westering broke through the clouds, and fell upon the crown; and the seregon was all in flower. Then one among them said: 'There is blood on the hill-top.'

But Mim led them by secret paths up the steep slopes of Amon Rudh; and at the mouth of his cave he bowed to Turin, saying: 'Enter into Bar-en-Danwedh, the House of Ransom; for so it shall be called.'

And now there came another dwarf bearing light to greet him, and they spoke together, and passed swiftly down into the darkness of the cave; but Turin followed after, and came at length to a chamber far within, lit by dim lamps hanging upon chains. There he found Mim kneeling at a stone couch beside the wall, and he tore his beard, and wailed, crying one name unceasingly; and on the couch there lay a third. But Turin entering stood beside Mim, and offered him aid. Then Mim looked up at him, and said: 'You can give no aid. For this is Khim, my son; and he is dead, pierced by an arrow. He died at sunset. Ibun my son has told me.'

Then pity rose in Turin's heart, and he said to Mim: 'Alas! I would recall that shaft, if I could. Now Bar-enDanwedh this house shall be called in truth; and if ever I come to any wealth, I will pay you a ransom of gold for your son, in token of sorrow, though it gladden your heart no more.'

Then Mim rose, and looked long at Turin. 'I hear you,' he said. 'You speak like a dwarf-lord of old; and at that I marvel. Now my heart is cooled, though it is not glad; and hi this house you may dwell, if you will; for I will pay my ransom.'

So began the abiding of Turin in the hidden house of Mim upon Amon Rudh; and he walked on the greensward before the mouth of the cave, and looked out east, and west, and north. Northward he looked, and descried the Forest of Brethil climbing green about Amon Obel in its midst, and thither his eyes were drawn ever and again, he knew not why; for his heart was set rather to the north-west, where league upon league away on the skirts of the sky it seemed to him that he could glimpse the Mountains of Shadow, the walls of his home. But at evening Turin looked west into the sunset, as the sun rode down red into the hazes above the distant coasts, and the Vale of Narog lay deep in the shadows between.

In the time that followed Turin spoke much with Mim, and sitting with him alone he listened to his lore and the tale of his life. For Mim came of Dwarves that were banished in ancient days from the great Dwarf-cities of the east, and long before the return of Morgoth they wandered westward into Beleriand; but they became diminished in stature and in smith-craft, and they took to lives of stealth, walking with bowed shoulders and furtive steps. Before the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost came west over the mountains the Elves of Beleriand knew not what these others were, and they hunted them, and slew them; but afterwards they let them alone, and they were called Noegyth Nibin, the Petty-Dwarves, in the Sindarin tongue. They loved none but themselves, and if they feared and hated the Orcs, they hated the Eldar no less, and the Exiles most of all; for the Noldor, they said, had stolen their lands and their homes.

Long ere King Finrod Felagund came over the Sea, the caves of Nargothrond were discovered by them, and by them its delving was begun; and beneath the crown of Amon Rudh, the Bald Hill, the slow hands of the Petty-Dwarves had bored and deepened the caves through the long years that they dwelt there, untroubled by the Grey-elves of the woods.

But now at last they had dwindled and died out of Middle-earth, all save Mim and his two sons; and Mim was old even in the reckoning of Dwarves, old and forgotten. And in his halls the smithies were idle, and the axes rusted, and their name was remembered only in ancient tales of Doriath and Nargothrond.

But when the year drew on to midwinter, snow came down from the north heavier than they had known it in the river-vales, and Amon Rudh was covered deep; and they said that the winters worsened in Beleriand as the power of Angband grew. Then only the hardiest dared stir abroad; and some fell sick, and all were pinched with hunger. But in the dim dusk of a winter's day there appeared suddenly among them a man, as it seemed, of great bulk and girth, cloaked and hooded in white; and he walked up to the fire without a word. And when men sprang up in fear, he laughed, and threw back his hood, and beneath his wide cloak he bore a great pack; and in the light of the fire Turin looked again on the face of Beleg Cuthalion.

Thus Beleg returned once more to Turin, and their meeting was glad; and with him he brought out of Dimbar the Dragon-helm of Dor-lomin, thinking that it might lift Turin's thought again above his life in the wilderness as the leader of a petty company. But still Turin would not return to Doriath; and Beleg yielding to his love against his wisdom remained with him, and did not depart, and in that time he laboured much for the good of Turin's company. Those that were hurt or sick he tended, and gave to them the lembas of Melian; and they were quickly healed, for though the Greyelves were less in skill and knowledge than the Exiles from Valinor, in the ways of the life of Middle-earth they had a wisdom beyond the reach of Men. And because Beleg was strong and enduring, farsighted in mind as in eye, he came to be held in honour among the outlaws; but the hatred of Mim for the Elf that had come into Bar-en-Danwedh grew ever greater, and he sat with Ibun his son in the deepest shadows of his house, speaking to none. But Turin paid now little heed to the Dwarf; and when winter passed, and spring came, they had sterner work to do.

Who knows now the counsels of Morgoth? Who can measure the reach of his thought, who had been Melkor, mighty among the Ainur of the Great Song, and sat now, a dark lord upon a dark throne in the North, weighing in his malice all the tidings that came to him, and perceiving more of the deeds and purposes of his enemies than even the wisest of them feared, save only Melian the Queen? To her often the thought of Morgoth reached out, and there was foiled.

And now again the might of Angband was moved; and as the long fingers of a groping hand the forerunners of his armies probed the ways into Beleriand. Through Anach they came, and Dimbar was taken, and all the north marches of Doriath. Down the ancient road they came that led through the long defile of Sirion, past the isle where Minas Tirith of Finrod had stood, and so through the land between Malduin and Sirion, and on through the eaves of Brethil to the Crossings of Teiglin. Thence the road went on into the Guarded Plain; but the Orcs did not go far upon it, as yet, for there dwelt now in the wild a terror that was hidden, and upon the red hill were watchful eyes of which they had not been warned. For Turin put on again the Helm of Hador; and far and wide in Beleriand the whisper went, under wood and over stream and through the passes of the hills, saying that the Helm and Bow that had fallen in Dimbar had arisen again beyond hope. Then many who went leaderless, dispossessed but undaunted, took heart again, and came to seek the Two Captains. Dor-Cuarthol, the Land of Bow and Helm, was in that time named all the region between Teiglin and the west march of Doriath; and Turin named himself anew, Gorthol, the Dread Helm, and his heart was high again. In Menegroth, and in the deep halls of Nargothrond, and even in the hidden realm of Gondolin, the fame of the deeds of the Two Captains was heard; and in Angband also they were known. Then Morgoth laughed, for now by the Dragonhelm was Hurin's son revealed to him again; and ere long Amon Rudh was ringed with spies.