Valar's gifts?

[Paradus]

Greetings everyone.

I have a small question that I am fairly curious about and that is down to were the valar able to bestow gifts or blessings to one which they deemed worthy of such and if so what limits did they have of what gifts they could bestow? Besides extended life span as witnessed by the numenorians.

I.e Say could Yavanna gift one with the power to heal or could one gift the power to foresee events (aka malbeth the seer). Or gifts of animal speak. i.e beorn and the men of dale.

What are your thoughts on this?

cheers.

[Inziladun]

Hm. I would say that the Valar were at liberty to "reward" the Children of Ilúvatar by small acts, as long as they were small, and not anything that would give the recipient any notable power or advantage that could temp one to evil deeds. Keep in mind that the increase of the life-span of the Númenóreans had an ultimately adverse affect on them. Maybe the Valar would have kept that in mind in considering what they wanted to "reward" with.
I suppose Malbeth's gift could be derived from the Valar, and perhaps too the Men of Dale's ability to understand the thrush's speech, though I find it more difficult to believe that a whole race of people would be specially chosen by the Valar for a gift like that. The thrush-language could have merely been remembered and taught by some of the nobles of Esgarorth. Bard was a descendant of the Lord of Dale, after all.
Whatever Beorn's situation was, I don't think his shape-changing was due to any magic he'd received directly from the Valar.

I think a better example of "favour" from the Valar might be the "final gift of strength" given to an exhausted Sam, which allowed him to carry Frodo up the slope of Mt. Doom. That seems right: just a small increase in strength and spirit to compliment Sam's will to see his and his master's task through to the end, regardless of the cost.