On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Scott Schultz wrote: @> 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.) I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure there's an explicit reference in the Letters to physical aging over time for elves. (I am absolutely and entirely certain that there is such a reference when it comes to the Maiar embodied as wizards, and the idea that the elves would be /less/ vulnerable to that than the Istari are is absurd.) @> 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. Glorfindel. And the counterexample of Feanor; he's presented as an exception precisely /because/ he stays in the Halls instead of returning to life, which statement implies that the other elves habitually return to life. The Silmarilion is pretty explicit about this in a number of different places. In fact, it's presented as the major difference between the elves and the humans; the humans pass away and leave the world and never go to the Halls, whereas the elves are stuck with it until it ends.