For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

[Aiwendil]

I think three varieties of return from the dead can be differentiated:

Rebirth: The spirit returns in the body of a newly-born infant. This was Tolkien's original idea for the Elves, and apparently for the Dwarf-fathers, but was later dropped for metaphysical reasons. This is sometimes called 'reincarnation' in the context of Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., but I don't think Tolkien every referred to it that way.

Reincarnation: A new (adult) body is made, fully formed, for the returning spirit. This was Tolkien's later idea for the manner of the Elves' return from death.

Resurrection: The original body, still intact, is re-inhabited by the spirit. This was apparently Tolkien's later idea for the manner of the Dwarf-fathers' return (from, I believe, 'Of Dwarves and Men').

The names could perhaps be quibbled with (and actually, I don't recall Tolkien using the word 'resurrection'), but I think the different concepts are clearly delineated. The Turin and Gandalf examples are clearly reincarnation. The Beren example was either reincarnation or resurrection. But the important points are that: 1. Tolkien eventually rejected the idea of 'rebirth' entirely, and 2. the occurrence of any of these things for the spirit of a human is quite exceptional.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Resurrection: The original body, still intact, is re-inhabited by the spirit.

I disagree with this definition; resurrected bodies, in the Christian usage of the word, with which Tolkien would be most familiar, are not the identical, original bodies but are a special kind, same in appearance, but differing in their material, perhaps? This accounts for the ability to disappear into the spiritual realm after resurrection.

This concept seems to me to apply to resurrected Elves and Gandalf (and, as a human exception, Beren); I tend to agree with those who consider the Barrow situation as something completely different: a kind of inhabitance, something like possession.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I disagree with this definition; resurrected bodies, in the Christian usage of the word, with which Tolkien would be most familiar, are not the identical, original bodies but are a special kind, same in appearance, but differing in their material, perhaps? This accounts for the ability to disappear into the spiritual realm after resurrection.

This concept seems to me to apply to resurrected Elves and Gandalf (and, as a human exception, Beren); I tend to agree with those who consider the Barrow situation as something completely different: a kind of inhabitance, something like possession.

Exactly (for both).

I think the concept is rather:

Resurrection - a dead person is brought back to life again, but in a different quality (absolutely perfect example: Gandalf. Parallel: [Judeo]-Christian term of resurrection)

Reincarnation - in the sense of rebirth: the same person is born again anew in a new body - similar to the former, but a new one still - as a baby (typical example: Dwarven belief of all the Durins returning - I guess they were reborn as babies, or it seems so logically from the narration in the Appendices: it was not so that a fully grown Durin VII. would all of a sudden appear among people. Parallel: Hindu term of reincarnation)

The Barrow scene was really, in my opinion, something like possession, just as Esty said: Merry's memories got sort of mixed with the thoughts of the spirit.

As for why it was Merry who was so prone to all these things, he always stroke me as the most "deep" of all the Hobbits, in the sense of "having close to the metaphysical" - well, of course, with the exception of Frodo - but Merry was the one who kept meeting the Nazgul all the time (in Bree, on Pelennor) and generally being the most "thoughtful", or so it seemed to me. So why not him...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I guess they [Dwarves] were reborn as babies, or it seems so logically from the narration in the Appendices: it was not so that a fully grown Durin VII. would all of a sudden appear among people.

Apparently not:

The Dwarves add that at that time Aule gained them also this privilege that distinguished them from Elves and Men: that the spirit of each of the Fathers (such as Durin) should, at the end of the long span of life alotted to Dwarves, fall asleep, but then lie in a tomb of its own body, at rest, and there its weariness and any hurts that had befallen it should be amended. Then after long years he should arise and take up his kingdom again.

--HME XII.383

and

... the reappearance, at long intervals, of the person of one of the Dwarf-fathers, in the lines of their kings - e.g. especially Durin - is not when examined probably one of rebirth, but of the preservation of the body of a former King Durin (say) to which at intervals his spirit would return.

-- ibid.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Apparently not:

Nice, but uncanonical. Because the canonical works oppose that:

Originally Posted by LotR Appendix A III, Durin's Folk

There he lived so long that he was known far and wide as Durin the Deathless. Yet in the end he died before the Elder Days had passed, and his tomb was in Khazad-dûm; but his line never failed, and five times an heir was born in his House so like to his Forefather that he received the name of Durin. He was indeed held by the Dwarves to be the Deathless that returned; for they have many strange tales and beliefs concerning themselves and their fate in the world.

The emphasised word is of course mine. But this refers to obvious reincarnation (using the terminology I outlined above), not merely the revival of the old body.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Estelyn

I disagree with this definition

Originally Posted by Legate

Resurrection - a dead person is brought back to life again, but in a different quality (absolutely perfect example: Gandalf. Parallel: [Judeo]-Christian term of resurrection)

Reincarnation - in the sense of rebirth: the same person is born again anew in a new body - similar to the former, but a new one still - as a baby (typical example: Dwarven belief of all the Durins returning - I guess they were reborn as babies, or it seems so logically from the narration in the Appendices: it was not so that a fully grown Durin VII. would all of a sudden appear among people. Parallel: Hindu term of reincarnation)

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.

Nice, but uncanonical.

We probably shouldn't open this particular Pandora's box here - but of course, this comment begs the question: what is 'canonical'?

I do think, however, that a case could be made that LotR, being drawn from the Red Book of Westmarch, and essentially based on Numenorean and Elvish lore as understood by Hobbits, might not be the ultimate authority on the Dwarvish afterlife.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

We probably shouldn't open this particular Pandora's box here - but of course, this comment begs the question: what is 'canonical'?

Well I am not opening anything, but the point was rather that some people consider HoME completely uncanonical, some people don't, but all consider LotR canonical. And when LotR and HoME conflict, people of course take LotR: and LotR says what I just quoted.

[Bêthberry]

Wow, this thread has run on! Great to see it sparked such good comments.

I tend to agree, as Aiwendil put it, that the fundamental difference between the fates of Men and Elves would be a very strong case against the fea of a fallen Man being responsible for Merry's dream.

However, I want to add another pot to this kettle or, rather, relate these concepts of reincarnation to what Verlyn flieger callsa larger theme running through Tolkien’s major works, that the past is not just tributary to the present, but also inhabits and immediately affects it. Particularly interesting is Tolkien's use of the dream memory.

Originally Posted by Fleiger

Drawing on such concepts as Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious, and J. W. Dunne’s notion of serial memory, Tolkien in three separate
examples used the concept of dream-memory as the psychic or psychological
connector/channel between characters in the narrative present and a distant past beyond their waking memory. Two of these examples are his unfinished science fiction stories, “The Lost Road” and “The Notion Club Papers,” written nearly ten years apart but making use of the same concept and method. This treats timetravel as a psychic or psychological mode whereby two modern-day Englishmen travel back to Númenor through the unconscious memories of
a succession of ever more ancient forebears. The third example, and by
all odds the most extreme and puzzling, involves the anomalous experience
of Merry Brandybuck at the barrow in The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien puts forth memory as the vehicle for time travel in his unfinished science fiction work. Instead of Jung's collective unconscious, Tolkien posited an ancestral unconscious and this was clearly for Men, not Elves. And his characters experience the same dream of drowning that permeated his own dreams. (It's in the Letters, which I don't have at hand right now.) Yet Tolkien's stories remained unfinished, perhaps because of his reservations over the implications.

Tom Shippy suggested that Merry takes on the personality of a body in the barrow. It can't be one of the Witch King's Men from Carn Dum, for they won the battle (which wasn't fought on the Downs, anyway, but farther north, as I recall) and Merry's dream comes from one among those who lost and who was ritually buried in some kind of royal--the golden circlet--barrow. The Appendix suggests this is a prince. Somehow, not an ancestral voice, but a voice connected by experience with the Dark Lord speaks into Merry's unconscious mind. And then, later, when Merry meets Theoden in Rohan, he speaks of his relationship to the King as like that of a father and son. I've always thought that a bit odd, responding to a foreign king with filial feelings.

Can it be that one who died at the hands of the Witch King long ago reaches out to Merry, who will worst the Witch King. Or was the memory imbedded in the Barrow Downs themselves. The Downs were a portal to the past, after all, and in LotR even rocks may have memories.

[Mithadan]

Bethberry asks,

Can it be that one who died at the hands of the Witch King long ago reaches out to Merry, who will worst the Witch King. Or was the memory imbedded in the Barrow Downs themselves. The Downs were a portal to the past, after all, and in LotR even rocks may have memories.

I think that it is the Barrow-Wight who is to blame for Merry's nightmare rather than the Downs themselves. Our four Hobbit friends were under its spell and were slumbering as they awaited their death. The Wights were not the shades of those buried at the Downs, but rather evil spirits who later came and inhabited the mounds. Laws and Customs of the Eldar makes specific mention of the fact that the unhoused fear of Elves at times become anchored to particular places. So the Wights may be such spirits perhaps sent there by Sauron or the Witch King. Clearly evil, we can assume the Wight delighted in tormenting his victims. The dreams are likely a form of such torment, communicated to his victims by osanwe.