For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

[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?