[Kuruharan]

Ha! I've managed to hijack another thread!

(Scratches another mark on the side of his CPU, adding to an already impressive collection.)

Just to provide a few textual references before moving back to the real topic at hand.

They are a tough, thrawn race for the most part, secretive, laborious, retentive of the memory of injuries (and benefits), lovers of stone, of gems, of things that take shape under the hands of the craftsmen rather than of things that live by their own life. But they are not evil by nature, and few ever served the Enemy of free will…
Appendix F

[the dwarves] intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services…they would all have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it, as they did in the case of the trolls at the beginning of their adventues before they had any particular reasons for being grateful to him…dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are descent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.
The Hobbit

[Dwarves] are stone-hard, stubborn, fast in friendship and in enmity, and they suffer toil as hunger and hurt of body more hardily than all other speaking peoples…
Of Aulë and Yavanna

…the thoughts of Dwarven hearts are hard to fathom…they used their rings only for the getting of wealth…
Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

There was another passage out of the Appendices that I would have liked to use, but I could not find it. Suffice it to say that the picture of the Dwarves is one of a people who are not particularly interested in gaining dominion over others (unlike certain Elves I could name) and they were known as keepers of their word (unlike certain Elves I could name). Tolkien considered the desire for domination to be at least as bad as greed, and one particularly fiery Elf that I have in mind (who is often lauded as being a wonderfully marvelous Elf) was quite eaten up by both at the same time.

*Ahem* anyway…as promised, back to the topic at hand.

Would you call the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost Elf-friends beacuse they were friends with Eöl?

I think Eöl was a special case. He was not considered to be a “mainstream” Elf. As Elves go, he was really rather strange. I don’t think that friendship with him would qualify anybody for anything.