I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure before I looked it up.
One could argue that this is an example of something told from the viewpoint of an animal, translating its sensory responses into human language. If a fox is able to distinguish the smells of different animals, it might be thinking something vaguely similar when it smells three hobbits sleeping outdoors to this. I’m trying to think of other novels in which a story is told from the viewpoint of an animal in which the thoughts are what that kind of animal has, just translated into human language, not treating the animal as if had a life equivalent to a human life. The closest example I can think of is War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.
It’s not a perfect job, but the rabbits in Watership Down think very inhumanly (though probably still more humanly than real rabbits do).
‘Lor bless you, Mr. Gandalf, sir!’ said Sam. ‘Nothing! Leastways I was just trimming the grass-border under the window, if you follow me.’ He picked up his shears and exhibited them as evidence.
Oh goodness! Samwise was a displaced evangelical!
No, he was clearly just referring to the collected body of knowledge about the history of Middle-Earth. Wishing to Gandalf that the lore might bless him is clearly appropriate.
This is actually a delightful play by Tolkien, as Sam’s reference to ‘Lor’ is in fact a shortened corrupted version of Olorin the Maiar, renowned for his wisdom. The hobbits of course had long forgotten who Olorin was, if they had ever known and were utterly oblivious to the fact that this character was present among them as the wizard they called Gandalf. Certainly they had also forgotten the Valar whom the Maiar served. But the shortened name of Olorin persisted in hobbit lore through the ages, with the amusing upshot of Sam wishing Gandalf’s blessing upon Gandalf.
If this is true it’s splendid, and if it isn’t it ought to be true, and either way I believe it.
JRRT implied it, I believe it, that settles it! 
For that matter, Bilbo mentions chili (as in chili con carne) in the movie version of FOTR, so capsicums are presumably existent in Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth.
I, for one, happen to think the movies are a useful reference for the movies.
As usual, I failed to carefully proofread my post, since I meant to write:
I am bothered by people who think that because the movies are famous that they are some kind of useful reference for the novel.
Hmm. In Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium, Morgoth is some kind of fallen angel, so would be expected to have some sort of devils or demons attending him. These would include, but not be limited to, Balrogs and corrupted Maiar such as Sauron.
The whole question of demonology in fiction is a fascinating one, especially since Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic; why did he create a whole new pantheon when there is already one pre-existing in his own faith? I think this because he was driven to create new, complex, self-consistent worlds, something which has become a popular pastime nowadays but was rarer back then.
William Blake also created a pantheon of his own, which is pretty bizarre if you look into it. Tolkien’s pantheon does show some resemblance to Christian theology, although he always denied it was allegorical.
He thought of the pantheon in Middle-earth as being how people before Christianity thought of the Christian pantheon (with God, angels, a rebelling angel, and other angels who joined the rebellion) before they learned of “the truth of Christianity”:
The man was a bit of a paradox, wasn’t he? A devout Christian, who spent most of his life immersed in pagan cultures and languages.
He was trying to write stories that captured the flavor and feel of the old pagan myths, without violating his Christian faith. So he has the arch-angelic Valar play the role of the Aesir and the Olympians, and the angelic Maiar play the role of lesser supernatural entities.
But above all of the Ainur, is still the One, Illuvatar, as far above them as the Heavens are above the Earth.
Yeah, but He is a subtle, ineffable deity, who Works in Mysterious Ways. He leaves it to the Ainur to do the visible fire-and-brimstone stuff.
This whole thread made me look at my bookcase, and I realized that I don’t own a copy of the Fellowship anymore. Well, an easy fix for that issue.
The creature that comes to mind is the Balrog. Our heroes were being surrounded and attacked in the underworld by a large group of orcs when, suddenly, the orcs all fled in terror when the Balrog made its appearance.