Beorn

[skytree]

Originally Posted by Hobbitt_Fan

I think this is what speaks to his being a question mark by Tolkien and probably with intent. Although in a letter containing a brief response to a question where he refers to Beorn as man, he never comments in any essay or writing the true nature of Beorn's supernatural power whether it be his immense size or strength, his skin changing, his ability to speak to animals and commune with Bears, or the fact he must be far older than he appears if was alive when the Goblins expanded into the Misty Mountains and was driven out.

I think Beorn, even though Tolkien commented he was a man was meant to be one of those unexplained mysteries that exist in the world.

Alone, he turned the tide of battle where 3/4 of the Orcs of the Northern Misty mountains were wiped out. His arrival almost had a Biblical feeling, a sense that divine intervention(Beorn) arrived and turned the tide of defeat into an impossible victory. No single individual that was just a man, say Aragorn or even a Hurin has that ability. The only characters in the Tolkienverse that had this kind of power were the "mighty", Noldo Lords like Galdriel, or Maiar.

So whether he was a man as Tolkien indicated, Tolkien must have meant Beorn super human in the fashion of Samson even though he was mortal. He was a Samson like figure, him at the Battle of Five Armies was akin to Samson slaying a 1000 Philistene soldiers with the jawbone of an ***. Both epic events by individuals of prodigious, supernatural strength but in the end, both mortals.