# Why aren't there more resurrected Elves?



## Sartr (Oct 4, 2017)

Throughout the History of Middle Earth series, there's a lot of discussion about Elven hroa and fea, which are essentially body & spirit. When Elves die unnaturally, their fea goes to the Halls of Mandos, a kind of purgatory. Eventually they are reborn into a new body, and over time remember their old lives and become their original self again. Christopher Tolkien suggests that the Glorfindel from Gondolin in the First age and the Glorfindel from LOTR are the same person. 

This being the case, where are all the other elves who died, and why don't we see or hear from any of them? JRR allows for an out by saying especially evil Elves aren't allowed to do this, but that still leaves a lot of them. I suppose they might all choose to stay in Valinor, but you'd think at least a few would show up again.


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## Elthir (Oct 5, 2017)

Welcome Sartr!

I would say it's more than suggested, though, that there was only one Glorfindel. Christopher Tolkien states rather directly (if I recall correctly) that his father ultimately concluded this, and later published the two late Glorfindel texts written by JRRT.

Anyway, Elves being reborn as babies (and ultimately remembering their old lives) was a long held but ultimately rejected concept. Tolkien's Elves were rather given exact copies of their old _hroar_ (all its details held in the memory of the _fea_).

And as you speculated, Tolkien noted that reincarnated Elves usually remained West Over Sea.


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## Ingolmin (Oct 8, 2017)

Only one resurrected elf was in Middle Earth, that doesn't mean there weren't any more,
but if they were they lived in bliss in Valinor.
The fact is if you can't see something doesn't mean it really isn't there!!


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## Elthir (Oct 8, 2017)

Generally speaking it was natural that Elves desire to live in bodies, so surely there were many and muchly and thousands of Elvish reincarnations. About Elves, from _Morgoth's Ring:_

"Their dilemma was this: the thought of existence as _fear_ [rough translated "spirits"] only was revolting to them, and they found it hard to believe that it was natural or designed for them, since they were essentially "dwellers in Arda", and by nature wholly in love with Arda."

Another famous Elf, Finrod is noted as being reincarnated: "...They buried the body of Felagund upon the hill-top of his own isle, and it was clean again; and the green grave of Finrod Finarfin's son, fairest of all the princes of the Elves, remained inviolate, until the land was changed and broken, and foundered under destroying seas. But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar."

Not that anyone would have missed the last part, but I like the colour change anyway


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