Now that I became aware of this thread I simply must reply to black lieutannants and others thoughts of difference between gods and spirits and cultural heroes.
Tolkien used also Finnish legends as source materiale and in them the definition between theese is totally fluid. Tapio was the forest to the degree that moss in the treebark is his eyebrows, he is ”haltija”, an elf. And I assure you, as important source of sustenance, men were very polite to forest. As Tapio was an elf, so are the little people living in the trees of the forest. Different forms of politenes were given to them though alone single one of them is no more powerful then the village wiseman, usually less so. Ukko (old man) lived in the clouds and thunder and lightning were his crossbowbolts, he was ”haltija”, an elf. The little bearded fellows who live in the ovens of houses and help the people who are friendly to them and pester those who are not, are ”haltija's”, eleves as well. So was the lazy man Pekko who lived in the moles holes in the fields and made the beer good. Also those little people who lived in saunas, treestumps, barns, hills, swamp ponds, rocks etc. etc are eleves of various kinds. One can become the greatest musician in the world if one manages to spot a rapids elf and convinces him to teach oneself. This is dangerous though as rapids eleves are private kind of eleves and may drown trespassers. In the finnish myth the line between a spirit and godbeing has not been blurred. On the contrary. There never was line to begin with. It is not animism. Not everything has an elf living in it. A farmhouse would be very very lucky to get an elf to live in every building. The only thing you can bet on is that an elf will take residence in the most prominent tree of the house yard. There was a creator goddess, but she was rather impersonal, primeal, bare and/or element-like. She was not worshipped. She had I believe passed on and left her children in charge way before the times of the ancient finns, after all you cannot expect wind to stick around for a long time. Like some men are mighty and some are not, so was it with the eleven beings. Some eleves were more powerfull and could well be called gods and could basically be pleaded for good harvest or weather etc. Some are less powerfull and still it is wise to be friends with them as well. They well can help or hinder you.
The god-faerie thinking comes from different variations of infusing of two basic early faiths. Indo-Europeans to my knowledge brought storm-god (Ukko-Zeus-Jupiter-Belenos-Thor/Odin-Wotan) based panthenon from asian steppes to ”Proto-European” people in Europe who had previously worshipped landgoddess and various spirits. This was at the point of some thousands of years before christ. At least the Finns also have influences from Uralian shamanism. Perhaps theese influences are reason why the line between god and spirit and man has REMAINED blurred in Finnish myth. I think the line between god and spirit may ORIGINALLY have been more or less fluid in other cultures as well. In the case of Tolkien it is in many instances difficult to tell where the Valar ends and maiar begins. Moreso the distinction of who is more powerful of individuals from valar/maiar/kelvar-olvar-mortal, seems impossible to draw strictly by ”status”. The line becomes even harder to draw since at least maiar and mortal can interbreed. Finnish myth is likewise crawling with ”demigods”. So to say. Or people with eleven blood. Whichever. Väinämöinen of cource had both the blood of the creator goddes and men. The likes of us mortals have only various slight degrees of the blood of lesser eleves in our veins.
There is no contemporary literary of theese things since the ancient Finnish culture was illiterary one, but some things persist and are studied in oral tradition. For example our santa claus is still called yule-goat though he looks a bit like st. Nicholas. He brings presents (personally) but is scary figure to a degree. He is bribed with a drink to moisten his
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