What happens when elves die?

[Butterfingers]

by violence, that is: by poison, fire or sword? Do their bodies rot and wither like everybody (!), and what happens to their souls? Can they become ghosts or wights? I can't remember any mention of such things. And do the elves bury/cremate their dead?

I am thinking whether I should put any corpses in the Refuge in Mountains of Mirkwood...

[Halbarad]

I’m not entirely sure about the ghosts and wights thing, but it appears that Elves bury their dead.

Here’s a reference,

haudh is a Sindarin word meaning "funeral mound"

J.R.R. Tolkien, "Quenya Phonology", in Parma Eldalamberon XIX (edited by Christopher Gilson), p. 91

[Stormcrow]

The spirits of elves go to the Halls of Mandos, there to experience purgatory until, finally, they are released in new bodies. What happens naturally to their slain bodies is, I think, never described. Dead elves in the Silmarillion do seem to get buried: Finduilas and Glorfindel and the hill of the slain from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.

The exact nature of barrow-wights is not made clear; they're spirits inhabiting corpses of men, but who the spirits are is not fully known. ("Wight" is an old English word meaning "guy, dude," so "barrow-wight" just means "grave-dude." Later use by Dungeons & Dragons has made everyone think that "wight" is some kind of undead creature.)

It's not inconceivable that elvish spirits could be bound to corpses, but I don't tend to think so; I think the spirits of the barrow-wights were the random sort of disembodied spirits that float around all over Middle-earth.

In early drafts, Tolkien imagined that the Necromancer had distributed more rings to elves than to anyone else, and that these rings had turned them all into wraiths (ghosts), but he eventually abandoned that idea, until the only wraiths he describes are the Ringwraiths, and these are spirits of men, not elves. So I don't think we have any evidence of disembodied elvish spirits hanging around Middle-earth. There is evidence that High Elves have a presence in the "otherworld" to which the Rings of Power (other than the Three) drag their wearers and slowly cause them to become wraiths; maybe other elves might become wraiths in this way if given a Ring of Power, but certainly not High Elves. There is, of course, a distinct lack of available Rings of Power to try this with.

I'd say put elvish corpses there if you think it suitable, and assume that even elvish corpses decay over time, though only through natural processes, not by evil blight. If you have beautiful flowers growing about their bodies or graves in the otherwise evil forest, so much the better.

[Butterfingers]

Yes. but having a word for a mound doesn't mean they use them, it might be used to refer to human ones? Not saying you're wrong though.

EDIT: Stormcrow answered in the meantime. Yes, that sounds good.

I thought I need to give the companions some clue as to a whereabouts of a hidden cache of loot in the ruins of the Refuge. As it is overgrown by trees, and the remaining tower ruin is inhabited by spiders and their thralls, any easily discoverable items would have been looted, if not by orcs then later by the spiders. They seem to be looking for something in the ruins, uprooting trees and digging holes...

However in an overlooked tangle of roots and rubble there's patches of Simbelmyne/Evermind growing, and there might be something underneath?

[Glorelendil]

Just remember that every time an Elf dies, a baby Dwarf gets its beard.

[Otaku-sempai]

I do seem to recall a handful (or less) of instances when Elven spirits have refused to return to the Halls of Mandos, at least for a time. Then there is the question of Avari (East-elves) who never took part in the Great Journey, much less ever reached the Undying Lands. They might more easily resist the urge, after physical death, to make their way to Mandos' halls and their spirits might well linger in Middle-earth.

By the way, when the spirit of an Elf does return to the Halls of Mandos, one of two things may happen: 1) the Elf may be eventually reincarnated in his/her original form in a new body (as we generally assume with Glorfindel*); or, 2) the Elf is reborn to Elven parents as an infant with no memories of his/her previous life. Tolkien played around with the idea that an Elf might be reincarnated as an infant with past memories, but I seem to recall that he ultimately rejected that idea. I recommend looking up Tolkien's essay "Laws and Customs among the Eldar" collected in HOME Volume X, Morgoth's Ring. One caveat: I'm not sure that "Laws and Customs" is entirely consistent with the legendarium published in Tolkien's lifetime.


* When we don't assume that there were two, different Eldar named Glorfindel. Three Glorfindels, if we count our own.

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Just remember that every time an Elf dies, a baby Dwarf gets its beard.

Nah, better cultural reference....

Every time an elf dies, a balrog gets it's wings.

[Otaku-sempai]

Every time an elf dies, a balrog gets it's wings.

*chuckle*

[Tolwen]

by violence, that is: by poison, fire or sword? Do their bodies rot and wither like everybody (!), and what happens to their souls? Can they become ghosts or wights?.

Tolkien discusses these things in the the HoMe10. An isolated note in the HoMe12 answers part of your question as well.
Much has been said already, so I'll just give a short summary
Elves can die by violence, but they are harder to kill than men. Tolkien says that they survive (and heal) injuries that would kill men (humans). They cannot regrow lost limbs though.
If an elf is killed, his soul (the fë) leaves the body. It is then called to Mandos to await his time and be re-housed (i.e. given a new body) after the appointed time in Aman. This call can be refused though (even if the call is very strong and urging) and then the elven spirit will remain in Middle-earth and become in effect a ghost. This is seen as a sign of taint/shadow though. Interestingly, men do not have this choice. They have to leave Arda after their death by default. Only extraordinary strong magic (e.g. Rings of Power) or circumstances (the Oathbreakers) can change this by force. It is nothing that men can choose to do after death. Game canon(s) may vary of course.
Concerning dead elven bodies, there is an isolated note. In essence, they decompose quicker than those of men:

24. The flesh of Dwarves is reported to have been far slower to decay or become corrupted than that of Men. (Elvish bodies robbed of their spirit quickly disintegrated and vanished.)
--- HoMe12.Late Writings (Glorfindel, Note 24)

[Butterfingers]

Almost like Obi-wan then?