Definition of "dwarves"

Then said Þriði: They took also his skull and made thereof heaven and set it up over the earth with four sides, and under each corner they set dwarves: they hight thus Austri, Vestri, Norþri, Suþri.

1842, George Webbe Dasent, transl., The Prose Or Younger Edda Commonly Ascribed to Snorri Sturluson, page 8

The belief in Dwarves as inhabitants of the interior of the earth and especially of large isolated rocks, was likewise a direct offshoot of the Asa-Mythology.

1854, Rudolph Keyser, translated by Barclay Pennock, The Religion of the Northmen, page 299

When the human magi arrived, Dunner was the dwarf responsible for arbitrating between them and the dwarves as to location and the hundreds of other minor quibbles that seemed likely to turn into major battles, owing to simple misunderstandings of each other's ways.

2001, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Well of Darkness, HarperCollins, page 139