: Can Elves be "re-incarnated" after they are sent to the Halls of Mandos?

: Recap: Glorfindel the Golden was a Lord of Gondolin and was the one who fell off a cliff while fighting a Balrog. Glorfindel the Fair was one of the White Council, from Imladris, who defended the King of Gondor from the Witch King after the destruction of Angmar and Arnor.

: My personal understanding of Tolkien's world was that Elves, while BOUND to the world until the end of time, could not actually return from the halls of Mandos to the mortal world before the end, Luthien & Beren being the exceptions because Luthien was a fab singer and made Mandros go all weepy.

: Come on... there must be some opinions out there.

I have seen this been discussed before... And it is supposebly stated in one of the HOME-books that the Glorfindel of the Lord of the Rings was indeed the same as Glorfindel, Captain of Gondolin. I was puzzled with this at first, as I never heard of any elf returning from Aman after the Noldor left (with the exception of those fighting in the War of Wrath), and certainly not one who had indeed "died".

One thing that *is* certain though, is that elves do indeed return from the Halls of Mandos after a longer of shorter period of time (only with the exception of Fëanor and maybe a few more who stay there till the end of the world; there has been a discussion about this too). As it says in the Silmarillion after Finrod Felagund dies, "but Felagund walks beneath the trees in Eldamar with Finarfin his father" (or something to that extent). It is also, as mentioned above, stated specifically that Fëanor will be in the Halls of Mandos forever, and thus it is easy to conclude from that that his fate was more or less unique.

I would like to have a question answered too, if anyone knows anything more about Glorfindel; why did just he come back? And, is he Sindarin or Noldorin? It makes more sense that he would come back if he was Sindar; but then, shouldn't more have come, perhaps Beleg and all the other Sindar elves who were much more tied to Middle-Earth than to the Undying Lands? Why was Glorfindel so unique in that respect?