[The Saucepan Man]

That's a very good point, Sophia, and one which had occured to me when I first read that paragraph, but which I had since forgotten. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] I was vaguely annoyed when reading the Silmarillion that we hear very little of the origins of "Yavanna's children".

I was intially attracted by the idea of Beorn's line being Yavanna's protectors of the Kelvar (Beorn is, after all, a vegetarian). However, I think that we can discount them on the basis that they are Men, their skin-changing powers notwithstanding, and theerefore a "sub-set" of the Second Children of Iluvatar.

But there are references in JRRT's works to animals capable of intelligent and independent thought. I am not sure of the exact terminology, but I believe it might be said that they had "fea" (souls?). I am thinking here of the Ravens of Erebor, the Fox that witnesses Frodo, Sam and Pippin pass, and possibly even the Crebain. There may well be others - I cannot recall offhand. Perhaps there was in ME a variety of these "intelligent" creatures (representatives of the various species?), whose presence there was the product of Yavanna's wish that there be guardians to protect the birds and the beasts.