Trilogies involving Dwarves and Rings of Power...

You know, these days there is still a lot of talk about the epoch Trilogy of the Ring with it's prelude as a fourth story written by J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien (1892-1973).



But before Tolkien's stories, when folks mentioned stories about rigs of power and dwarves they were talking about Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle" or The Ring of the Nibelung.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) was by all account both brilliant and very egotistical.

"The Ring of the Nibelung" is a series of four epic musical dramas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic Paganism, particularly from theIcelanders' sagas and the Nibelungenlied. It is often referred to simply as "The Ring Cycle", "Wagner's Ring" or just "The Ring". Both the libretto and the music were written by Richard Wagner over the course of twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874.

The four operas in the Ring cycle are:

• Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) "Prelude to the Ring"
  
• Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
• Siegfried
• Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Besides both epoch series having to do with a Ring-of-power, dwarves and giants the similarity pretty much ends there except that the original "Ring Cycle" started out as an opera, then was written into books and also became a series of movies, the "Lord of the Rings" started out as a series of books, became a series of movies and now is (would you believe) been made into an opera!