I took the dwarf women with beards as a joke
I don't see a reason why we would expect female dwarves to have beards - ok, some of the older ones could have some chin hairs....blue.-
Why would you make that assumption? In Appendix A of The Lord of the RIngs, Tolkien explicitly wrote:
It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart.
Admittedly, Tolkien does muddy the issue in a letter written around 1972-3 that is reproduced in The Nature of Middle-earth. In the letter, he notes:
* When I came to think of it, in my own imagination, beards were not found among Hobbits (as stated in text); nor among the Eldar (not stated). All male Dwarves had them. The wizards had them, though Radagast (not stated) had only short, curling, light brown hair on his chin. Men normally had them when full-grown, hence Eomer, Theoden and all others named. But not Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Isildur, or other Númenórean chieftains.
Even that note does not state that Dwarf-women never had beards; it does at least indicate that not all of them were bearded. We might even argue that Dwarf-women could have donned false beards when traveling or appearing among outsiders.
#FidelityToTolkien
#ChallengeExpectations
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Nov 22 2021, 3:16pm)
