Them Dwarven folk.

[Thinlómien]

Then we get to see Gloin's kindness towards Frodo during Elrond's supper. As it says Gloin and Frodo talked the whole time. Gloin had deep respect for Bilbo and of course would like Bilbo's heir.

Hmmm... damn my poor memory and my laziness (I'm too lazy to check), but I think that in LotR it is a few times said (not straightly, of course) that hobbits had the best relationships with the dwarves of all races of Middle-Earth. (Except bree-hobbits and bree-humans, of course.)

I have got the impression that dwarf caravans (merchants) pass through Shire and sell things there. That would make them familiar to hobbits at some degree. (In one of the first chapters of LotR it says that dwarves have talked with hobbits; given them news. It leaves the impression that it wasn't the first time hobbits had talks with dwarves.)

edit: And, dwarves had to have some trade with the hobbits, by the way. Otherwise they couldn't have pipeweed.

edit2: Unless they bought it from Bree...

[zxcvbn]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Hmmm... damn my poor memory and my laziness (I'm too lazy to check), but I think that in LotR it is a few times said (not straightly, of course) that hobbits had the best relationships with the dwarves of all races of Middle-Earth. (Except bree-hobbits and bree-humans, of course.)

I have got the impression that dwarf caravans (merchants) pass through Shire and sell things there. That would make them familiar to hobbits at some degree. (In one of the first chapters of LotR it says that dwarves have talked with hobbits; given them news. It leaves the impression that it wasn't the first time hobbits had talks with dwarves.)

edit: And, dwarves had to have some trade with the hobbits, by the way. Otherwise they couldn't have pipeweed.

edit2: Unless they bought it from Bree...

Sadly, you are mistaken, Thinlómien. The Shire-hobbits did not get along well with ANY strangers. Sure, they traded with outsiders, but they considered folk like the Dwarves as queer and outlandish. And the Dwarves did not think very highly of them either.

...And look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night,...From 'The Shadow of the Past'

"we actually passed through the Shire, though Thorin would not stop long enough for that to be useful. Indeed I think it was annoyance with his haughty disregard of the Hobbits that first put into my head the idea of entangling him with them. As far as he was concerned they were just food-growers who happened to work the fields on either side of the Dwarves' ancestral road to the Mountains."
From 'The Quest of Erebor'

The people that had the best relationship with the Dwarves were obviously the Men of Dale.

Nowhere are there any men so friendly to us as the Men of Dale.
From 'Many Meetings'

[William Cloud Hicklin]

However, in the aborted 1960 rewrite of The Hobbit, Tolkien tells us that Dwarves often did transient or contract- work in the Shire, especially in roadbuilding and the like; and that there was an inn on the East Road which specially catered to Dwarves.*

There is also Gandalf's comment in the Quest of Erebor to the effect of "you may think the Shire-folk simple, because they are generous and do not haggle....," which implies that commerce went on between them.

(Query: who made Bilbo's clock?)

EDIT: * Did it serve rat with ketchup?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

William, I had the same thought some time ago and built the Dwarven origins of the Hobbits' clocks into a (canonical Hobbit) fan fiction I began writing. Alas for its completion, it remains on the back burner in hopes of being continued sometime...

[Thinlómien]

Zxcvbn, that's a very old post of mine so I'm not sure, but I think I meant that Hobits have the best relations to Dwarves (= they had better relations to dwarves than humans - except Breelanders - or to Elves - even though that can be argued as they hardly had any dealings with each other). I agree that from the Dwarves' perspective, they had best relations with the Dalemen. This sounds horribly confusing - do I make sense at all?

[Eönwë]

Hobbits are related to the Pukel-men or Druedain, so many thought them very simple and very backwards in technology and knowledge (which they were, because they had less time to imrove than any of the more advanced races. Only since the third age, I think.)

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

Hobbits are related to the Pukel-men or Druedain, so many thought them very simple and very backwards in technology and knowledge (which they were, because they had less time to imrove than any of the more advanced races. Only since the third age, I think.)

Ee-ee! Wrong! No way, Mr. Eönwë, no way!

Originally Posted by Unfinished Tales; Drúedain

My father was at pains to emphasize the radical difference between the Drúedain and the Hobbits. They were of quite different physical shape and appearance. (...) In some ways they resembled rather the Dwarves: in build and stature and endurance; in their skill in carving stone; in the grim side of their character; and in their strange powers. But the "magic" skills with which the Dwarves were credited were quite different; and the Dwarves were far grimmer, and also long-lived, whereas the Drúedain were short-lived compared with other kinds of Men.

You can read all the paragraph, I am not going to quote it in full here.