Elves and death

[Alfirin]

That brings up a question that's alaways bugged me (am please forgive me if this has already been asked or was covered somehwhere else). When Beren got his second life (after Luthien sang Mandos into granting it) did he return as he was, or did he also get his hand back?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

That brings up a question that's alaways bugged me (am please forgive me if this has already been asked or was covered somehwhere else). When Beren got his second life (after Luthien sang Mandos into granting it) did he return as he was, or did he also get his hand back?

Well, you see the Valar have always been a bit sloppy -- one could say downright lazy -- in their handling of Middle-earth and its Elves and Men. When they ressurected Beren, they indeed realized he was missing an appendage; however, when they reconstituted him they put on the wrong limb.

In fact, a famous saying arose from the Valar's botch job of Beren's body part. When one is awkward, it is said they walk with two left feet.

And that is the rest of the story.

[The Mouth of Sauron]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

That brings up a question that's alaways bugged me (am please forgive me if this has already been asked or was covered somehwhere else). When Beren got his second life (after Luthien sang Mandos into granting it) did he return as he was, or did he also get his hand back?

Maybe not, becuase he (exceptionally) returned as a man as opposed to an Elf. I'm not sure I can recall another mortal who returned that way.

[Findegil]

I am not even sure that Beren and Lúthien got new hora (bodies) at all. Porbably they were simply send back to their old bodies. This Oute from the Silmarillion; Chapter 20 implies that in my interpretation

It is said that Beren and Lúthien returned to the northern lands of Middle-earth, and dwelt together for a time as living man and woman; and they took up again their mortal form in Doriath.

For Beren that would of course have involved a healing of the wound from Carcharoth that killed him. But I would think that in this case it was a marvelous healing not a reincarnation into a fresh made body. In Lúthien caase this would not have been any problem since earlier in the Silmarillion Chapter 19 it is said:

But the spirit of Lúthien fell down into darkness, and at the last it fled, and her body lay like a flower that is suddenly cut off and lies for a while unwithered on the grass.

Which can only mean that Lúthein body was still functionable when she returned.

Respectfully
Findegil