Do Elves BURY their dead?

[Girl in the Grass]

If Elves did just "turn to dust" when they died, it seems that depending on the amount of time it took for them to...dissolve (for lack of a better word) the Elves would have a sort of memorial service, and then let the dust be scattered by the wind. It sounds appropriate to me, and accounts for the apparent lacking of burial mounds. If a body was just going to crumble into dust there would be no need for burial, as animals wouldn't be able to desecrate the remains and there would be no chance of disease from rotting flesh. Of course this is just pure opinion.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Girl in the Grass

If Elves did just "turn to dust" when they died, it seems that depending on the amount of time it took for them to...dissolve (for lack of a better word) the Elves would have a sort of memorial service, and then let the dust be scattered by the wind. It sounds appropriate to me, and accounts for the apparent lacking of burial mounds. If a body was just going to crumble into dust there would be no need for burial, as animals wouldn't be able to desecrate the remains and there would be no chance of disease from rotting flesh. Of course this is just pure opinion.

I do agree that it would be an exelent explanation to why there is so few elven graves to be found, but I think one has to take a broader view. This does not explain why there is relatively few human graves mentioned and while this is not part of the question, it might very well be part of the answer.

As I stated before there seems to be a clear tendency to Tolkien leaving burial rituals and such, exept for the ones for the nobility. . .which ofcourse is important for the stories.

Another thing is that if the elves did just turn to dust then there would be no reason at all to save Fingolfins body and give it a burrial.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

On the Uruk-hai in Rohan:

Interesting that Tolkien usually associates cremation with 'carrion': Ugluk's band, the Witch-king's beast (whereas Snowmane was buried) and so on: the 'burned Dwarves' of Azanulbizar were considered in a way to have made a second sacrifice after death, so sorrowful were the survivors at being forced to take that option.

[alatar]

In Frank Herbert's Dune books, a organization of superwomen (the Bene Gesserit) bury their dead, when possible, under fruit trees. These women see the bodies of their Sisters as just so much dead organic matter as the fallen can live as memories in live Sisters, so no one is ever 'missed.' A body's a body, but the souls live on or something.

The more I thought on this, the more strange it sounded. Frank Herbert, being an ecologist, through his work had suggested it, and so it might not be just some fantasy writings. I presume that as these superwomen had the ability to protect themselves from diseases that the practice of placing dead bodies under food sources may be more plausible.

Would this then be possible with the elves, as they too would not carry diseases that could be retained in the food supply? Maybe that's why their food taste so good...

[Eönwë]

Alatar, are you suggesting that elves feed their trees off'f the nutrients of dead people?

[alatar]

And just where would you think those nutrients come from? Circle of life and all of that. And not that this is conclusive evidence, but note the correlation between elven deaths and the size of forests. Wasn't the Old Forest much larger in the past, back after the days of Nirnaeth Arnoediad? By the end of the Third Age the elven losses were slight, and the size of Mirkwood and Fangorn significantly smaller. Hmmm...just what was in the box Sam got from Galadriel?

P.S. It's even more probable. When the Fell Beast dies, doesn't it leave a 'stain' where nothing grows? Aren't there other examples where evil creatures die and their rot becomes a herbicide? Now, take something that spent some time in the Blessed Realm. How much more likely would its 'dust' impart some good effect on whatever was grown from it?

2+2=22

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

It has always seemed to me that the Elves tend to bury their dead near the spot where they fell (if possible), and do not have the mortal custom of erecting memorials on the site. Perhaps this is because of the Elves' seemingly greater connection to the natural world, perhaps it's because of their knowledge that they may be reincarnated, thus making the body less important than the spirit. I'm currently on vacation, so I don't have any of my books with me (and thus I'm taking this from memory), but I think that the difference between Elves and Men concerning the raising of memorials to the dead is made rather clear by Faramir when he tells Frodo and Sam of Gondor and its people, how they have fallen into the habit of constructing more lavish houses for the dead than for the living, dwelling too much upon past glories. This may be an "affliction," if you will, of living in mortal lands, where all things eventually die or fade. The Elvish "memorials" I can recall are those for places which their builders believed they would not see again because of the Ban: Turgon's Gondolin (fashioned after Tirion) and Galadriel's Lothlorien (fashioned, if not after Lorien in Valinor, then after the West itself, where the trees and grass did not fade and die).

Hmm, I'm rambling. Too much fresh air and sunshine.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by alatar

And just where would you think those nutrients come from? Circle of life and all of that. And not that this is conclusive evidence, but note the correlation between elven deaths and the size of forests. Wasn't the Old Forest much larger in the past, back after the days of Nirnaeth Arnoediad? By the end of the Third Age the elven losses were slight, and the size of Mirkwood and Fangorn significantly smaller. Hmmm...just what was in the box Sam got from Galadriel?

P.S. It's even more probable. When the Fell Beast dies, doesn't it leave a 'stain' where nothing grows? Aren't there other examples where evil creatures die and their rot becomes a herbicide? Now, take something that spent some time in the Blessed Realm. How much more likely would its 'dust' impart some good effect on whatever was grown from it?

2+2=22

Do the Elves actually have enough corpses to sustain all those crops? I mean, that works well for a fruit tree, maybe, but it won't take care of an orchard, and you'd need a whole cemetery to grow grain for lembas. Sure, after the Last Alliance there might have been a burst of Elven agriculture, but there would not have been a good supply of fertilizer thereafter.

Furthermore, by implication you are suggesting that the food in the Blessed Realm was nothing as good as the stuff out of Rivendell, since the corpse supply there was precisely two... Míriel and Finwë.

And... what about the Wandering Companies? If someone dies, do they haul the corpse back to the Grey Havens for fertilizer?

Very importantly:

What about the Dead Marshes? Are you suggesting there's some really awesome watercress waiting to be harvested there?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by alatar

When the Fell Beast dies, doesn't it leave a 'stain' where nothing grows? Aren't there other examples where evil creatures die and their rot becomes a herbicide? Now, take something that spent some time in the Blessed Realm. How much more likely would its 'dust' impart some good effect on whatever was grown from it?

And "The grass grew long on Snowmane's Howe" or whatever the exact quote was.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Do the Elves actually have enough corpses to sustain all those crops? I mean, that works well for a fruit tree, maybe, but it won't take care of an orchard, and you'd need a whole cemetery to grow grain for lembas. Sure, after the Last Alliance there might have been a burst of Elven agriculture, but there would not have been a good supply of fertilizer thereafter.

Maybe they dried all the corpses, like in the box Galadriel gave to Sam, so they would last longer. In fact, maybe the last remains of someone like Gil-Galad were in that box that was given to sam. Eurgh!