[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by jallanite

I am aware of many folktales where beasts at some point serve or aid the protagonist of the tales. What I am not aware of is a folktale in which a host has animal servants who also serve the guest(s). The example of Circe I provided was that closest that I find. I would welcome any such tale that anyone could provide.

I am not at all certain why one should require a direct motif with such specificity. The incidences of anthropomorphic animals serving mortals is there, can we not allow Tolkien some of his own creativity? In a certain story regarding Baba Yaga, a maid who treats the witch's animal servants kindly, is served well by them in return:

The witch rushed into the hut and saw that the girl was gone. She gave the cat a good beating and scolded her for not scratching out the girl's eyes. But the cat answered her, "I've served you for years, yet you've never even given me a bone, but she gave me some ham." Baba Yaga then turned on the dogs, the gates, the birch-tree and the serving-maid, and set to thrashing and scolding them all. But the dogs said to her, "We've served you for years, yet you've never even thrown us a burnt crust, but she gave us fresh rolls." And the gates said, "We've served you for years, yet you've never even poured water on our hinges, but she oiled them for us." And the birch-tree said, "I've served you for years, yet you've never even tied me up with thread, but she tied me with a ribbon." And the serving-maid said, "I've served you for years, yet you've never even given me a rag, but she gave me a kerchief."

If you need specifics, simply page through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There for anthropomorphic creatures and objects who both serve and are served. Tolkien references both of these works by "Dodgson" (ie., Lewis Carroll) in a post-script to Letter 15 (To Allen & Unwin), dated 31 August 1937. Tolkien also makes it a point in the same letter not to read too much into The Hobbit's usage of Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic nomenclature:

...neither used with antiquarian accuracy, and both regretfully substituted to avoid abstruseness for the genuine alphabets and names of the mythology into which Mr. Baggins intrudes...

Tolkien gleaned many ideas from other sources, but the instances where they are ultra-specific are few (Turin's similarities with Kullervo, for instance).

One might also look to George MacDonald, who influenced both Lewis Carroll and Tolkien, and his anthropomorphic creatures and their relationship with people (usually children). Much like Tolkien found the seminal idea for warg-riding in MacDonald's "Uglies", the servants of the Goblins, so too could Tolkien draw the images of shapeshifting people (sometimes ravens or leopards, for instance) from MacDonald's books at a much younger age than when he began studying Icelandic sagas. The germ of an idea was already there.

In any case, Tolkien composed personal myths from fragments of old folktales, ancient myths and literature he read as a boy. The marvel is his synthesis and regeneration of the shards into a whole.