For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Because of the strong link between water and death in Middle Earth?

No. I don't necesarily see a link between water per se and death in Middle earth.

As for the fine tunings of rebirth, reincarnation, resurrection it strikes me that Flieger is right when she suggests that Tolkien modified the theologically difficult question of reincarnation to the less problematic concept of memory time travel or that term he used in the Letters, hoarding memory (if I am recalling it correctly).

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

No. I don't necesarily see a link between water per se and death in Middle earth.

Oh I do. There seem to be a disproportionate number of drownings, shipwrecks, being lost in snow and ice, let alone Boromir's funeral, dear bought fish and Legolas's message from Galadriel being interpreted as speaking openly of his death. Any body of water larger than a bathtub seems inherently perilous.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Oh I do. There seem to be a disproportionate number of drownings, shipwrecks, being lost in snow and ice, let alone Boromir's funeral, dear bought fish and Legolas's message from Galadriel being interpreted as speaking openly of his death. Any body of water larger than a bathtub seems inherently perilous.

Ah now, your qualification of larger than a bathtub is as qualifying as my per se. I can't refer to the Bath Song!

You would see water more generally and I would see its applications. Drowning of course is an important theme. But snow and ice! Come now, it is not their aqueous properties that are a danger but their temperature (or lack thereof).

What fishers of Rings there are. Yes, Isildur and the Anduin had a fateful meeting, but it was the Ring's choice to leave his finger which ruined his plan (aside from his own intransigence), and it was poisoned orc arrows that killed him, not the River. And the tributary Gladden River was merely the scene of the conflict between Smeagol and Deagol; it was again the Ring that was perilous.

And Boromir's funeral, there the water is not itself dangerous but symbolic of the journey out, birth beyond the limits of Arda.

With The Forbidden Pool, Gollum risks death, but more importantly it provides an opportunity for Frodo to display what he has learnt of mercy.

In The House of Bombadil (sorry, I know some would like to eliminate Tom and Goldberry from the book as well as the movie but I won't), water is a powerful agent of the healing which the hobbits receive. In Rivendell, Frodo's response to the elven song is to "dream of music that turned into running water." There is a white stream which flows through Edoras, the water of which is used to wash clean the stones of defilement from Wormtongue. The Ents and Huorns use water undammed to achieve victory over Saruman.

And of course there is the famous Ent-draught itself with its amazing restorative powers. I suppose the cups out of which Merry and Pippin drank were smaller than a bath-tub, but the ent water itself is of a wider quantity.

So I wouldn't say that water is always associate with death in Middle-earth, especially since it is the domain of Ulmo. Symbolically it can be purification, rebirth, or baptism, as well as doom. Water is liminal in LotR but not necessarily always perilous.

But this takes us away from the topic. I first mentioned the details of Merry's experience under the influence of the Black Riders because it relates drowning with the dark side. It is Merry, after all, who dreams of drowning even under the safety and security of Tom and Goldberry. His is given Tolkien's personal nightmare and he is the one who helps overcome part of that dark despair.

As I said, the names I used can be quibbled with. But I think my delineation of three different varieties of return from the dead stands: 1. spirit returns in a new-born infant; 2. adult body is re-made; 3. corpse is re-inhabited by spirit. As far as names go, Tolkien's usage of 'reincarnation' seems to match type 2, contrary to the use of the word in the context of Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. 'Resurrection' comes from 'resurge', which to me suggests a literal rising up of the formerly dead body, but of course I realize that this isn't how it's used in the Christian context.

Didn't Tolkien in one of his letters use the term "serial longevity" in order to avoid the sticky concept reincarnation?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Didn't Tolkien in one of his letters use the term "serial longevity" in order to avoid the sticky concept reincarnation?

No, he was using the phrase to point out that the Elves weren't precisely "immortal."

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

No, he was using the phrase to point out that the Elves weren't precisely "immortal."

um huh. I hear maiar dancing on heads of treble clefs.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

So I wouldn't say that water is always associate with death in Middle-earth, especially since it is the domain of Ulmo. Symbolically it can be purification, rebirth, or baptism, as well as doom. Water is liminal in LotR but not necessarily always perilous.

Perhaps I'll get myself in trouble for following this up, but I feel the baptism/rebirth comment needs expanding on, because saying that water seems linked to rebirth/baptism doesn't so much negate Mith's point about death as underscore it.

In Christian theology, anyway, baptism has always been associated with death. Baptism is the death to self, death to the old self--death that enables rebirth. When someone is pushed under the water (literally or figuratively) within the baptism ritual, this is their death, and the rising from the water is the rebirth.

Within the context of Tolkien's Catholicism, this may in fact be a point wherein his faith shines through the cracks of Middle-earth. My point, regardless, is that insofar as there is something redemptive about water, this does not remove the association with death.

Or, in other words, I agree with Mith.

[Mithalwen]

[QUOTE=Bêthberry;595840]Ah now, your qualification of larger than a bathtub is as qualifying as my per se. I can't refer to the Bath Song!



So I wouldn't say that water is always associate with death in Middle-earth, especially since it is the domain of Ulmo. Symbolically it can be purification, rebirth, or baptism, as well as doom. Water is liminal in LotR but not necessarily always perilous.

But this takes us away from the topic. I first mentioned the details of Merry's experience under the influence of the Black Riders because it relates drowning with the dark side. It is Merry, after all, who dreams of drowning even under the safety and security of Tom and Goldberry. His is given Tolkien's personal nightmare and he is the one who helps overcome part of that dark despair.

QUOTE]

At the risk of going off topic it does say specifically in the prologue to LOTR that the Sea was a token of Death for hobbits. And while I accept that water can represent rebirth that surely must also imply Death! Anyway I may "have a thread coming on" so I will leave this for now..and that purveyor of sub-vogon poetry.

[Bêthberry]

Rather than waiting any longer for others to reply, I want to thank Formy and Mith for their helpful contributions here.

It's good to have a Catholic perspective for those of us who aren't part of Roman rites.

Originally Posted by Formy

In Christian theology, anyway, baptism has always been associated with death. Baptism is the death to self, death to the old self--death that enables rebirth. When someone is pushed under the water (literally or figuratively) within the baptism ritual, this is their death, and the rising from the water is the rebirth.

Originally Posted by Luther's Large Catechism, 1529

To put it most simply, the power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is to save. No one is baptized in order to become a prince, but as the words say, to "be saved". To be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil and to enter into the kingdom of Christ and live with him forever. [my bolding]

While it is true that in most Christian sects baptism means the remission of the Original Sin which brought death into the world, the focus is on redemption, the eternal life into which one is entering. So it would be undertaken with joy and hope, (among other emotions) as befits an essential sacrament that promises Life Everlasting. This is in keeping with my comment that

Originally Posted by Bethberry

Water is liminal in LotR but not necessarily always perilous.

Originally Posted by Mith

At the risk of going off topic it does say specifically in the prologue to LOTR that the Sea was a token of Death for hobbits.

So clearly Tom and Goldberry were giving the hobbits a different experience of water.

Thanks for reminding me of the point in the Prologue, though, as I also found something there which takes us back to the topic of Merry's barrow dream.

Originally Posted by Prologue, LotR

While there was still a king they [hobbits] were in name his subjects, but they were, in fact, ruled by their own chieftains and meddled not at all with events in the world outside. To the last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen to the aid of the king, or so they maintained, though no tales of Men record it. But in that war the North Kingdom ended;

So Tolkien has framed Merry's dream with historical context in the opening of LotR and at its conclusion, in The Appendix. He clearly had put more than passing thought into the dream young Meriadoc had.

[Bruce MacCulloch]

In reference to the whole water/death thing that has been brought up, I would like to note that water is the barrier between Middle Earth and the Undying Lands. Sailing over the ocean as a metaphor for going to Heaven/the afterlife does not seem at all a far stretch.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bruce MacCulloch

In reference to the whole water/death thing that has been brought up, I would like to note that water is the barrier between Middle Earth and the Undying Lands. Sailing over the ocean as a metaphor for going to Heaven/the afterlife does not seem at all a far stretch.

Indeed and it is often used as such in "our world" culture too - Arthur being taken to Avalon, the Styx of Greek mythology, the Pilgrim's Progress, '("When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.',) Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" and many others.