Trick or Treat? Spooky Middle-Earth - Page 4
© Michael Martinez
For the Elves, physical death meant that their spirits would be summoned to the Halls of Mandos. If they elected to answer the summons, they had the hope of living a physical life again, although they would be expected to remain in Aman. If, however, they refused the summons, they could remain in Middle-earth, where they had dwelt. But they would remain as disembodied spirits. They were essentially wraiths, ghosts. The Elves would haunt their former lands.
Tolkien discussed the states of Elven spirits in "Laws and Customs among the Eldar", published in Morgoth's Ring. He called the dead Elves "houseless", and referred to their disembodied spirits as "houseless fëa(r)". The early Elves, who knew nothing or little of the Valar, frequently refused the Summons to Mandos. During Morgoth's tenure in Angband, he forced any Elvish spirits which refused the Summons into slavery. Such spirits would become truly tormented souls, and it is tempting to speculate on whether the Barrow-wights and other horrors might have been Elvish spirits, corrupted into the service of evil.
Elves were certainly capable of engaging in evil. The Noldor attacked other Elves in the three Kin-slayings, and the Eldar of Beleriand often strove with each other because of greed, jealousy, or even fear. Betrayal was apparently quite common, especially from Elves who had escaped from Angband. But after the fall of Morgoth, the Elves were freed from the peril of being forced into his service. Those Elves who loved Middle-earth need not, when they died, abandon it completely. In "Laws and Customs", Tolkien notes:
...in these after-days more and more of the Elves, be they of the Eldalie in origin or be they of other kinds, who linger in Middle-earth now refuse the summons of Mandos, and wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unable to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that once they knew. Not all of these are kindly or unstained by the Shadow. Indeed, the refusal of the summons is in itself a sign of taint.Dead Elves still roam the world, and perhaps were plentiful in the Second Age. Would the former wraith-thralls of Morgoth have sought healing in Aman after his fall? Perhaps, perhaps not. It may be that the Noldor, in seeking to heal the hurts of the world (which was also one of their goals in making the Rings of Power), hoped to contact their dead brethren and perhaps commune with them or persuade them to seek comfort in the West. Such practices, however, would ultimately be forbidden, at least for men. Tolkien continued in the above essay with:
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