Them Dwarven folk.

[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.

[Groin Redbeard]

I was thinking about making a thread about this, but I thought it better to keep this thread revived.

What do we know about Dwarves wielding bows?

I know Thorin wielded a bow in the Hobbit, when the Dales people came to get their fair share of the treasure. Does anybody know any other references regarding darf bows?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

I know Thorin wielded a bow in the Hobbit, when the Dales people came to get their fair share of the treasure. Does anybody know any other references regarding darf bows?

Of course also when the Dwarves were hunting in the Mirkwood with the bows Beorn gave them. The bows are not mentioned in the battle of Azanulbizar and I would think that in battles with the goblins underground or with heavy-armoured ones even in open field the Dwarves would not use the bows that often, as it surely won't be much effective. There is no mention of shooting from the Dwarves' side in the Book of Mazarbul, and as far as I know, there are not arrows mentioned even in the description of the room of Mazarbul (so no funny arrows sticking out of a skeleton like in the movie): all the weapons mentioned are axes and swords (both dwarven and orcish).

However, I think something may be in the Silmarillion. Definitely the Petty-Dwarves had their own history with bows, but aside from that, maybe the other Dwarves used them somewhere in the battles? I'd have to look.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

What do we know about Dwarves wielding bows?

I'm probably taking this quite away from the original question, but: what did the Dwarves eat? Where did they get their food? It would make sense to me that they got most of their food from trade with humans (like the Dwarves of Erebor probably traded with the Dalemen for wheat and other agriculture products). But seeing that there are animals in the mountains, too, I could imagine Dwarves of the Blue Mountains hunting deer or other deer-like animals living in the mountains. That would make sense. And if they hunted deer, they most probably did it with bows. So I would say that at least some dwarves were skilled in archery, regardless of whether it was a part of their warrior training or not.

[zxcvbn]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I'm probably taking this quite away from the original question, but: what did the Dwarves eat? Where did they get their food? It would make sense to me that they got most of their food from trade with humans (like the Dwarves of Erebor probably traded with the Dalemen for wheat and other agriculture products). But seeing that there are animals in the mountains, too, I could imagine Dwarves of the Blue Mountains hunting deer or other deer-like animals living in the mountains. That would make sense. And if they hunted deer, they most probably did it with bows. So I would say that at least some dwarves were skilled in archery, regardless of whether it was a part of their warrior training or not.

Well, it appears that the Dwarves of Thorin's company had relatively poor eyesight, even the youngsters Fili and Kili. Bilbo could see better than any of them. So I imagine they weren't that skilled with archery(compared with other races). As for Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, I believe they purchased food from the Elves of Lindon or from the Shire(Thorin only regarded Hobbits as 'food growers').