h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't have any recollection of it. Is it mentioned in one of the books that Christopher Tolkien compiled from his father's notes after JRR's death? I haven't read all of those yet, but it's always been my understanding that if an elf dies its spirit waits in the Halls of Mandos until the end of the world (where they can enjoy a uniquely elfoid lifestyle, responding to highly elfoid-orientated stimuli, in fact, leading the elf equivalent of the good life).

I looked in The Silmarillion, and it appears to be a half-developed concept.

He says something along the lines of "Their spirits go to the Halls of Mandos, from where they may later return". This isn't very specificabout when they might return. But he also says that Feanor never came back from the Halls of Mandos, as if that was unusual. So the suggestion in The Silmarillion is that they are reincarnated.

In his unpublished writings, Tolkien was more specific. He first said that the Glorfindel that died while killing the Balrog was nothing to do with the Glorfindel who helped Frodo. Later he changed his mind and said that Glorfindel had been reincarnated and was the same guy.

So it is certainly something Tolkien intended, but never developed.

I'll look out for that next time I read the books again.

The Silmarillion also says at one point that the Halls of Mandos were constantly growing, which suggests that the spirits were staying there, and another place one elf says "We won't meet again, unless it is in the Halls of Mandos". This also implies no reincarnation.

Do you know if reincarnation features in any of the old pagan religions that Tolkien drew on for much of his writing? It doesn't seem like something they would encompass. Ss far as I know, which isn't a great deal, death means going off to the afterlife in one sense or another, for good.