> According to the Letters, everything in Middle Earth > (including Elves and > Wizards) grows old over time and dies. I'd pull up a cite but > I don't usually bring my copy to work. This is a pretty > natural outgrowth of Tolkien's Catholicism (which is, of > course, the underpinning for the entire enterprise). Disease > I'm less sure about. > Becoming pretty tangential to Brust, but Tolkein's elves didn't physically age in the way that the other Free Peoples did. Rather, as the centuries flowed past they tended to grow weary in spirit, eventually to find mortal life (for lack of a better descriptor) a burden rather than a joy. Tolkein's elves and "gods" (Valar, Maya, et al...) were all about the strengh of their spirit. Creation and life were a drain on that spirit. The elves in Middle Earth were subject to this "spiritual aging" rather sooner than the various branches of the High Elves who had lived at one time or another in Valinor where the "spiritual batteries" of the Valar helped keep them "fresh". (Yes, I realize how fast and loose I'm playing with the mythology here.) With no examples of elves ever succuming to disease, it seems safe to assume that they never do. Short of physical destruction, an elf's lifespan is unlimited. However, the spiritual fount IS limited and eventually the elves succumb. Like Aragorn, they lay down to sleep and their spirit passes to the Halls of Mandos. Feanor's mother is an example of this happening early. Having passed more than the usual amount of spirit to Feanor in his birth, her own spirit never truly recovered and she chose to leave rather than to continue to inhabit the mortal realms or even the Undying Lands. As for elvish reincarnation, I can't recall any examples of that. My impression of the trip to the Halls of Mandos is that it's a one way trip. Beren and Luthien were the only exceptions and they were pretty exceptional indeed. The elves are kin to the Valar in spirit and we've seen that the Maya and the Valar can "re-corporate" given time and opportunity. It's not completely out of the question but I'd have to see a reference cited to believe it's ever happened. The dwarves believe that THEY can re-incarnate (or their heroes can, at least) but the dwarves believe a lot of strange things. ;-P I don't know that Tolkein ever said anything definitive on the subject.