[JollyRoger]

I have some seemingly random questions.

Question #1

Because of Beorn, bears - or the concept of them - had to have existed, however are bears good or bad? Creatures seemed to do a lot of talking in Tolkien's world, so would it be assumed that they have a conscience similar to humans? Creatures associated with evil were generally carnivorous (i.e. wolves, carrion birds and so forth). Or, can it be assumed that there were good bears and bad bears - something like the eagles where they had a conscience about them. However IF it is to be assumed that they had the ability of human contemplation, the concept no longer works like I want it to. So what would be a suitable big scary forest-dwelling animal appropriate to kill? (Not spiders - I've already thought of that.)

Question #2

Religion among men didn't seem to be one of Tolkien's priorities, even though most of his work with Elvish history seems to be centred around the Valar and Eru. Obviously the Dunedian would be of some similar knowledge, but what about the more unlearned men? I'm not interested in Rohirrim belief as such, but it would be closer to what I need than say the Numenorian belief system. What knowledge would they have of the higher powers that actually existed and what would simply be legends and myths?

Question #3

What do you do if you have absolutely no basis for a language, but need to extract words from it? Would it be possible to take from languages that would have influenced it and make up your own words, or would it be better to leave Tolkien to that and suffer with the good Ol' English language?

I think I'm finished now.

[Silvae]

About Question 2 :
Tolkien just says, if I remember correctly, that the Men who weren't Dunedain just referred to the Valar and co as the Gods, and that their knowledge was prety patchy. Knowing that Tolkien based the Rohirrim on the Early Middle-Age Anglo Saxons (and hence their original Scandinavian culture) , and that some of the Valar are comparable to Scandinavian gods, I'd kind of extrapolate from that.
Mind you, as I haven't even read Unfinished tales and only own one tome of HoME, I wouldn't take my word to seriously. I may have missed summat valuable...
So you'd better hang around and wait for the erudites to arrive.
Cheers,
Silvae

[NeumeIndil]

Granted I'm no cannonista by any means, but two thoughts on bears:

1) They're big, they smell, they eat meat and they do a lot of things in the woods. Even if they aren't trying to eat you, they're still dangerous.

2) Even if they weren't worshipped per se (though the Scandinavian cultures did, in fact, hold the bear as a really good guy to talk to before you were going to kill someone) they were probably pretty respected because of their intelligence, strength, nobility etc.

Conclusion: Rohan may not have had a "bear cult" or whatever, but they'd still probably hold it in high respect and feel at least a touch of fear. Maybe they were like a kinder, gentler Warg?