[Lalaith]

Thanks for the link, fascinating stuff. My comment was however referring to the Valar/Maiar pantheon specifically.
Rune, I'd disagree that the Norse gods didn't have morals. They were certainly not as "good" as the deities of monotheistic religions. But they were definitely more benevolent and concerned with helping mankind in general than their Greek equivalents, who were only interested in specific favourites and to hell with the rest. They did their best to protect Midgard from the giants....
And of course the Valar may have been good and wise but once they'd rescued their precious little elfy-welfies from Morgoth, they were pretty apathetic about the fate of the rest of Middle-Earth's inhabitants until Earendil swanned in to shame them....

Oh and while I'm here, another bit of Norsery that occured to me - Beorn.
As Rune and Gothmog know, his name means "bear". The idea of a man turning into a bear is reminscent of the Norse superwarriors, berserkers (the name means bear-skin...)