On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Scott Schultz wrote: #Becoming pretty tangential to Brust, but Tolkein's elves didn't physically Tolk<ie>n. #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.) Interesting. I like this. IIRC, JRRT said, in response to a letter or Q, that they were not immortal but longeval (literally, 'long-lived'), in that they weren't immune to death but did not experience age as debilitating, as we and all other multicellular creatures do. -- Mark A. Mandel