This
is the story of the stone
giants that live in the Misty Mountains. This
is a continuation of the stone giants’ story from The
Hobbit. All of the stories in my
project will be
derived from existing stories and characters in The Hobbit. The stone giants will be followed through
their lives during the War of the Ring.
This is the story of the good stone giants, but my stories will
be about
the good and evil characters. I chose
to include this story because I think it is very important to learn
more about
the stone giants of Middle-Earth. Not
much is known, and most people have developed their own ideas about
these
characters. In this story I will be
drawing my own conclusions about the origin and development of the
stone
giants. I am writing this story, as it
would be told in tales in the future.
Seeing as how I created large portions of this story based on
existing
information, I tried to keep it as accurate as possible.
If any mistakes are found feel free to tell
me, and I will gratefully fix them.
Very little is known about the
stone giants in
Middle-Earth. We know that they lived
in the Misty Mountains, and were happy there.
Many speculate that they were perhaps only a metaphor to
describe
mountain storms, and many think that they were real.
For the purpose of this story we shall assume that they are
real. They are obviously a race among
the giants, which only includes them and the Ents.
The Ents are giant trees that protect the forests of
Middle-earth, and the stone giants protect the mountains.
The origin
of the stone giants, along with the ents, relates back to the beginning
of time
when the first children of Iluvatar, the elves, awoke in Middle-Earth. Iluvatar was the supreme god in Middle-Earth
and he ruled the Valar. Aule and
Yavanna, who were numbered among the gods of Middle-Earth called the
Valar,
created these giant creatures. It is
told that Aule created and worked everything that was made of the
earth,
including the mountains. Before the
coming of the elves he desired a race that he could teach his art of
stone
working. This race he called the
dwarves. Now Iluvatar did not like that
Aule had created a race that came before his elves, yet he took pity on
Aule’s
creation and decreed that they should sleep under the mountains until
the
coming of the elves. Now Yavanna,
Aule’s wife, created everything that grew and bloomed in Middle-Earth. She feared that the peoples of Middle-Earth,
especially the dwarves, would not respect her creation, and would use
it
without care and respect. Fearing this,
she went to Iluvatar and asked that she be allowed to create a race to
protect
the
things that grew. Iluvatar took this
into consideration and decided that she would be allowed to create the
Ents,
who are the Shepards of the Trees. The
ents would awaken with the coming of the elves.
Aule
desired to create creatures to protect the mountains, and he devised
the stone
giants in relation to the ents. Tales are
not told as to whether Aule had the permission of Iluvatar to create
the
stone giants, but even so they exist, so we must assume that he had
Iluvatar’s
consent. The stone giants are large men
who are made out of stone and enjoy the arts of stone throwing, a game
they devised. They also delight in the
thwarting of
goblins and orcs living in the mountains.
Often they will wander the peaks looking for the entrances and
exits to the shabby dwellings of the goblins and orks, and proceed to
stop them up with rocks and
boulders. They also, as Aule wished,
protected the dwarves to the extent of their ability.
The
lives of the stone giants were fairly peaceful through out the ages,
until the
coming of the War of the Ring. As they
worked even harder trying to stop up the goblin and orc holes, the vile
creatures started to fight back. The
stone giants helped Beorn in his efforts to keep the evil creatures
from
heeding the call of their master, the Dark Lord Sauron.
In doing this they were instructed to block
up certain holes, thus forcing the goblins and orcs to pass through the
territory guarded by Beorn. As the evil
creatures started to feel truly threatened, they devised ways to
destroy the
stone giants. They used ropes and traps
to trip the stone giants and smote them upon the mountainside, breaking
them
apart. Many stone giants were lost in
their efforts during the War of the Ring, and the men of Middle-Earth
have
slowly forgotten their lore and history.
The remaining stone giants have taken to hiding in the deep
places of
the earth, only coming out when there are storms so that they can not
be seen playing their stone throwing
game. Thus, they
have not been seen by any other living creature since the fall of
Sauron and
the end of the Third Age.
JRR Tolkien
The
Hobbit (1937) The information about the stone giants and the Misty
Mountains.
The
Silmarillion (1977) The information about Yavanna and her creation
of the
Ents, and her husband Aule who created the dwarves. The Encyclopedia of Arda http://www.glyphweb.com/arda
Basic information about
the characters and places were obtained from this source. Images: Rolozo Tolkien
Aule All images link back to their original location,
which
contains information about the image and the artist.
The
Stone Giants
By: Johanna K. Best
Introduction
The Stone Giants
References
Web pages:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/nikitin/Aule.jpg
By Natalia Nikitin