Elvish ''Death,'' Mortality and Necromancy: Part I.

The theme of these posts was inspired by a quotation I read the other day in The Silmarillion, and which I had until that point only half-heeded. Tolkien wrote of Fëanor:

''Then he died; but he had neither burial nor tomb, for so fiery was his spirit that as it sped his body fell to ash, and was borne away like smoke; and his likeness has never again appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of Mandos.'' (The Silmarillion, Chapter XIII, Of the Return of the Noldor, p.121 - emphasis my own).

The quote picks up on an important theological point, namely, what happens to those Elves who, by mischance or grief, die? The question is a very interesting one, and highlights one of the fundamental differences between the two kindreds, Elves and Men. I shall devote this post to the interesting (albeit morbid!) subject of Elvish death and mortality. Since the subject of Mortality is an enormous subject (well just about everything is in Tolkien!) I shall devote these posts to the subject of mortality and immortality in general in Tolkien. I wish I had time enough to go into greater detail with this, as it is an enormous and interesting topic, but these succinct blog posts will have to do I'm afraid - the subject is thesis material though!

In Tolkien's legendarium, Elves and Men represent two ''sides'' of the Humane; they represent the difficulties that a finite mind has with the ''problems'' of Death, Mortality, and the Fall. Elves and Men are fundamentally akin to eachother, they are both equally contingent, they both have inherent natural gifts and abilities (Elves moreso than Men, since they represent Men with enhanced aesthetic and scientific abilities - in a certain sense, unfallen Men), they are both called the Children of Ilúvatar.

But Elves and Men, Eldar and Atani, are also different. Elves are ''immortal.'' Now ''immortality'' I really ought to explain, as there are a great many subtleties inherent in the nature of Elves that this rather ill-defined and ambiguous term seems unable to express. Elves are doomed by God to dwell within the Circles of the World forever. When they are killed or waste in grief, they do not escape from Time, but remain in the world, either discarnate or ''rehoused'' again in Valinor. I shall return to this point of ''rehousing'' later.

When the Noldor departed from Valinor in ancient days and established their kingdoms in Beleriand, Mandos foretold that those who did not die by torment or grief in the subsequent Wars of Beleriand would grow weary with the World as with a great burden. The gradual ''fading'' (as it is called by Tolkien, by which he meant the mode of temporal change under the Sun of the world - all things fade under the Sun - as perceived by the Elves) of the Elves in Middle-earth is a fascinating topic, and finds its most poignant expression in Elvish Art (most famously in the Great Rings - NOT the One Ring, which Sauron made), which is sad, antiquarian, ordered towards ''sameness,'' the staying of History and of Time. The life of the Exiled Elves, who remained in Middle-earth against the counsel of the Valar, was thus marked by sorrow, and the ever-increasing awareness of the great burden of life. They wanted the peace and the perfect memory of the Blessed Realm, but also the dignity and prestige of being the ''highest'' beings on earth, safely above the cumbrous and unlovely wild Men and Dwarves. The making of the Great Rings by the Elven Smiths of Eregion during the Second Age was thus an attempt at staying Time by the Elves, to preserve that which was fair and good (or a semblance of that); and whilst this desire contained no explicit ''sin,'' it was, however, an intrinsically ''unnatural'' thing - an unwillingness to ''get on with life,'' as the saying goes, with all its travails and sorrows, and therefore constitutes a second ''fall'' of the Elves. It could even be construed as a veiled attack on the Blessed Realm (under the tutelage of Sauron in his great subtleties - he did, afterall, pose as a messenger of the Valar, naming himself Annatar, Lord of Gifts, and proposed to ''heal'' the disorders of the World, in order to make it as fair, or fairer even, than the West).

But I digress. This post is not, afterall, about the Rings of Power! I have said something about the fading of the Elves, but I expect that you're wondering how this is consonant with the ''immortality'' of the Elves. It is a very complex question, and ties in heavily with what Tolkien says, particularly in The History of Middle-earth and his Letters, about ''Arda Marred'' - that is, the World with a Satanic ''ingredient,'' a fallen world where there is destruction and malice. Note that it is a fallen world, and not inherently evil. Morgoth and Sauron, the two ''dark lords,'' were both similar and dissimilar characters. Morgoth, as the primeval and supreme spirit of Pride and Hatred, began the process of the destruction of Arda in the beginning of Arda as a vast demiurgic lustful spirit, lustful of domination and thralls to call him god and adore him, lustful of all light which he would possess solely for himself (he did, afterall, not at first conceive or manifest himself in darkness or shadow, but in light) and he eventually, when he finally realised his own finiteness and the darkness with which he now cloaked himself, reached a stage of nihilistic madness - desiring nothing at all save the destruction or mutilation of anything that proceeded from the mind of another being. He was never capable of the complete annihilation of things, nor could he make the things of other minds to be as though they had never been so, and so he became obsessed more and more matter, which was obviously easier to deal with, and he himself eventually became permanently incarnate (as Morgoth, the tyrant of Angband). This declension in his own inherent power entailed a gradual dispersement of his spirit into the stuff of the earth, his creatures, the inspiring in them of destruction, the exerting over them of his vast and inexorable will. Arda then, in a sense, became Morgoth's Ring - in a sense that this was emulated by Sauron thousands of years later, in the creation of the One Ring, obviously on a much smaller scale. Sauron was by spiritual stature much smaller than Morgoth, of whom he was a mere servant or emissary, and he inherited Arda Marred, to do with it what he would.

And so the situation with ''Arda Marred'' is this. The Elves, who ate and drank after the manner of Men of course, with that, and with the natural tainting of the stuff of earth (not much with Water, but that is an aside) ate and drank this ''tainting'' concurrently. That is not to say that they would become physically sick after eating or drinking, but rather that because they were destined to come into the world under the shadow and influence of Morgoth, they would inevitably become influenced by the Marrer without knowing. Thus, the deliverance of the Elves in the beginning of their days from the shadow of Arda Marred was for the purposes of saving their souls, and their minds, from sickness rather than their bodies from the obvious dangers of living in a world without Sun and with a Satanic tyrant as sole lord. But it also sheds an interesting light on the later ''fall'' of the Elves in Valinor, in the dimension of Arda Marred. For the Elves, while not evil in nature, were ''outsiders'' in Valinor (the only corner of the World without a Morgoth ingredient) and so when they came to Valinor, they brought with them, in a certain sense, the Morgoth ingredient. The Elvish Fall occurred with the ''death'' (hitherto unknown among the Eldar, at least in the way that this death occurred) of Míriel Serindë, the mother of Fëanor. She ''tried'' (contrary to Elvish nature) to die, her spirit desired more than anything to escape Arda. Compare this with the story of the Númenoreans, the highest and noblest of Men, who tried to extend their already long span of years by unnatural methods and an interesting pattern arises. For Men Death is the norm, it is a biologically necessary component of their natures; it is certainly not seen as penal by Tolkien (although it is by Men themselves: for an interesting and lengthy discussion on this topic, read the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Volume X of The History of Middle-earth). An attempt at escaping Death by Men, as the attempt at escaping Life by Míriel Serindë, constitutes a most grievous sin.

I shall devote the next part in this short series to discussing the ''fading'' of the Elves in more detail, and Necromancy. I hope that readers have found this post interesting; it is far from complete, and any mistakes are purely my own. Reading this post through, I have just realised that I haven't said anything at all about the spirit of Fëanor! I shall perhaps treat his case alongside the judgements of Mandos in the next, or perhaps even a third, post.

The above painting is by Ted Nasmith and is called ''The End of the Age.'' It depicts the riding of the Elves (along with Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo) to the Grey Havens at the end of the Third Age where they all depart. They are all going because Middle-earth contains nothing for them anymore except weariness. The passing of the Elves into the West over Sea does not represent ''death'' (I had this argument with my mother on several occasions!). In letter no. 181 of The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, Tolkien writes: ''The passage over Sea is not Death.''