[Legolas]

Yes, this has been covered before. Even if elves 'die' (whether slain or of grief), their spirits remain in the world and (most) are given a new body in Valinor. Even when slain, they do not leave the world. 'Immortal' in the elven sense means not subject to death by natural causes such as sickness or old age, and for one's fate to be tied to the fate of the world, destined to remain therein until that fate comes.

This matter popped in a few of the letters that Tolkien wrote in response to questions:

'Elves' are 'immortal', at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death.

The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when 'slain', but returning – and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to 'fade' as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed.

Elves and Men are evidently in biological terms one race, or they could not breed and produce fertile offspring – even as a rare event : there are 2 cases only in my legends of such unions, and they are merged in the descendants of Eärendil.1 But since some have held that the rate of longevity is a biological characteristic, within limits of variation, you could not have Elves in a sense 'immortal' – not eternal, but not dying by 'old age' — and Men mortal, more or less as they now seem to be in the Primary World – and yet sufficiently akin.

I do not see that 'reincarnation' affects the resulting problems at all. But 'immortality' (in my world only within the limited longevity of the Earth) does, of course. As many fairy-stories perceive.

Here he notes that the Elvish immortality is 'limited immortality':

Túor weds Idril the daughter of Turgon King of Gondolin; and 'it is supposed' (not stated) that he as an unique exception receives the Elvish limited 'immortality': an exception either way.

elvish 'immortality' (which is not eternal, but measured by the duration in time of Earth)

One of the better ones:

They also possess a 'subcreational' or artistic faculty of great excellence. They are therefore 'immortal'. Not 'eternally', but to endure with and within the created world, while its story lasts. When 'killed', by the injury or destruction of their incarnate form, they do not escape from time, but remain in the world, either discarnate, or being re-born. This becomes a great burden as the ages lengthen, especially in a world in which there is malice and destruction (I have left out the mythological form which Malice or the Fall of the Angels takes in this fable).

immortality, strictly longevity co-extensive with the life of Arda, [...] Mortality, that is a short life-span having no relation to the life of Arda,

Here, a side note mentions true immortality:

Longevity or counterfeit 'immortality' (true immortality is beyond Ea) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith.

Elves are 'immortal' enough to be called so by men:

The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man 'immortal'. But they were not unageing or unwearying. Their own tradition was that they were confined to the limits of this world (in space and time), even if they died, and would continue in some form to exist in it until 'the end of the world'.

I like his wording here - instead of true immortality, it's limitless (within the confines of the world, and thus time) serial longevity:

Though it is only in reading the work myself (with criticisms in mind) that I become aware of the dominance of the theme of Death. (Not that there is any original 'message' in that: most of human art & thought is similarly preoccupied.) But certainly Death is not an Enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster.

In Letter No. 325, Tolkien is careful to indicate a difference. When referring to the elves, he uses single quotes -"the 'immortals'"; when referring to the Ainur, he removes them - "the angelic immortals."

[ May 31, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]