Personification of Inanimate Objects

[The Silver-shod Muse]

When I was reading the Sil, I came across this passage from when Turin Turambar is readying to slay himself with his blade, Gurthang:

"Hail Gurthang!...Wilt thou therefore take Turin Turambar, wilt thou slay me swiftly?"

And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer, "Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly that I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly."

I am curious to know how this sword talks to Turin. I was ready to take it at face value and assume that somehow the sword developed telepathy and transferred this message in a cold voice to Turin, but after considering the circumstances I'm wondering if this just wasn't Turin's guilty conscience. After all, why else would the sword remember the blood of Beleg and Brandir slain unjustly?

I would attribute it to Turin's self-loathing for what he had done and subsequently hallucinating if not for the scene in TTT when Sam gives the Lorien rope a tug and it comes down to him as if it had a mind of its own.

Does Tolkien himself say anything about these mysteries? Perhaps the will of the maker goes into the object and "inhabits" it, as did Eol's ill will manifest itself in Gurthang, but there seems to be very few examples of this outside of the One Ring, which was obviously the most overt. Can beings beside elves accomplish this on the subtler level? There don't seem to be any examples of men's or dwarves' tools behaving strangely, but maybe I've overlooked them. Any ideas?