The West Gate that the Watcher in the Water crashes closed behind the Fellowship recalled to commentators the Wandering Rocks of Greek mythology, and Odysseus's passage between the devouring Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. The name Moria, Tolkien wrote, echoed the name of a castle in a Norwegian folktale, while Gandalf's death and reappearance reminded critics of the resurrection and transfiguration of Jesus. Scholars have identified likely sources for Tolkien's Moria: he had studied a Latin inscription about a lost ring at the temple of Nodens in Gloucestershire, at a place called Dwarf's Hill full of old mine-workings. It was dark, in dangerous disrepair, and in its labyrinths lurked Orcs and the Balrog. By the end of the Third Age, Moria had long been abandoned by the Dwarves, and was a place of evil repute. The Dwarves dug too deep, greedy for mithril, and disturbed a demon of great power: a Balrog, which destroyed their kingdom. The city's wealth was founded on its mines, which produced mithril, a fictional metal of great beauty and strength, suitable for armour.
In much of Middle-earth's fictional history, Moria was the greatest city of the Dwarves. Moria is introduced in Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, and is a major scene of action in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, Moria, also named Khazad-dûm, is an ancient subterranean complex in Middle-earth, comprising a vast labyrinthine network of tunnels, chambers, mines and halls under the Misty Mountains, with doors on both the western and the eastern sides of the mountain range. Years of the Trees – T.A. 1981 Fourth Age Kings of Durin's Folk (to T.A. 1981) Durin's Bane, Azog Balin Durin VII
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