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In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Belegost was one of two Dwarven cities in the Ered Luin. Belegost translates from Sindarin as "Great Fortress". The dwarves called it by its Khuzdul name, Gabilgathol of unknown meaning, and although Tolkien used Mickleburg as an Anglicization of the Westron form of the name, this would clearly have been retrospective, as Westron, 'the common speech' did not begin to develop until centuries after Belegost's destruction.
It lay to the north of its neighbouring dwarven city Nogrod, and was the home of the Dwarven people known as Broadbeams. Both clans were early trading partners of the Sindar in Beleriand.
Belegost's only named king, Azaghâl, lived in the First Age, and forged a firm alliance with the Noldorin Prince Maedhros after the latter rescued him from an orc ambush. Towards the end of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Azaghâl was killed in combat with Glaurung, the Father of Dragons, but his attack wounded it so badly that Azaghâl's debt to Maedhros was repaid: the remaining Noldor were able to escape from certain destruction when the wounded Glaurung fled the field along with all his brood.
In the years after the battle, the surviving Dwarves of the Mickleburg did not join the Dwarves of Nogrod in the Sack of Menegroth, and actually attempted to dissuade their friends from it. They thus saved themselves from the calamity of destruction inflicted upon the host of Nogrod by the Eldar and the Ents, but even so, relations between the Eldar of Lindon and the Broadbeams must have been very poor, as "The Dwarves of Belegost were filled with dismay at the calamity and fear for its outcome, and this hastened their departure eastwards.."[1]
This departure had become inevitable following the War of Wrath, as Belegost was 'ruined' when the Blue Mountains were shrunk and broken at that time. Many Dwarves of Belegost indeed then departed eastwards forty years after the war, joining with Durin's folk in Khazad-dûm, although some Broadbeams remained in the ruins of Belegost, in much reduced if independent circumstances.
Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, who lived in the Blue Mountains until the events described in The Hobbit in the late Third Age, were not kinsfolk of Thorin Oakenshield, as were the rest of his dwarven companions during the Quest of Erebor: it seems at least possible that they were Broadbeam dwarves.
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