Not sure those mentions were in Sil, though. It was definitely stated more than ones in HOMES.
Number of Boats I am not sure of. You are correct that Gandalf came last.
Semi useful quote:
Tolkien did not know how or when Glorifindel returned. It is not even impossible that he was in the Hosts of the Valar that threw down Angband. I was just expressing a feeling that he came over with the Istari. I would narrow this down further to I believe he arrived at the Grey Havens with Olorin as Mithrandir. I believe Cirdan was the first Elf in Middle-Earth to see Mithrandir.
BTW: Olorin was handpicked by Manwe himself. Olorin protested “I am too weak and I fear Sauron” Manwe replied “Is that not all the more reason you should go”. (Quotes are from Memory, may be wrong but close)
That’s some memory you’ve got there.
mmm, I’d be careful about asserting that Professor Tolkein ever specifically intended anything with regard to the various conundrums that showed up at one time or another in his writings.
Often, he would spend the rest of his life attempting to “discover” (as he would put it) the reason that explained the conundrum.
In the absence of something to show that he contemporaneously decided to put Glorfindel of the First Age in the LotR, I’d have to believe most of his effort to show how that happened would be his usual after-the-fact effort at rationalization.
And, no, I’m not dragging out my multi-volume history of how the writings came to be to look. 
What is really scary is my memory for most things is poor but this I remember from years ago. Even scarier is in my mind I turned it into dialogue and can almost hear them talking. 
Men (and Hobbits) re-use their own names and those of Elves, and Dwarves re-use Dwarvish names extensively, but we have seen no other examples of Elves themselves re-using names. Given that Elves are reincarnated after bodily death, and given what Elrond says of Glorfindel after the battle at the Fords (You saw him as he appears on the other side"), I think it’s safe to say that the fellow who brought Frodo to the Fords is the same as the fellow who died fighting the balrog in the flight from Gondolin.
Nor, I think, is it necessary that he came over by ship. One doesn’t come back from the Halls of Mandos by just standing up and walking out the front door, and boom, you’re in Valinor. Elves that come back from Mandos do so by being born to Elvish parents. Upon reaching adulthood, the reborn Elf remembers his prior life, as well as whatever has occured in his new life to that point. Most Elvish parents, of course, are in Valinor, and there might be some more ideological reasons why Valinorean rebirth is preferred, but it’s still possible that Glorfindel was reborn in Middle-Earth, and didn’t have to take ship to get there.
Can you cite the part about “being born to Elvish parents”? I have never seen that spelled out in any book or letter. Huge piece of information I have been missing if you can. I may have to skim through **Letters ** again tonight.
Now that I think on it more, the two viewpoints I mentioned above are an “in-mythology” explanation and a “real world” explanation.
From what I’ve read of Tolkein (granted, not as much as jrfranchi, Qadgop, or Chronos), he seemed to re-use names quite a bit. Of course, now I’m at work, so I can’t look it up, but I seem to recall an elf named “Gimli” somewhere in the Book of Lost Tales.
We came darn close to **Bingo ** being the translation for **Bilbo ** and **Trotter ** for Strider. I can’t remember the various options for Frodo.
I am thankful for both considered decisions of translation.
Hee. Trotter the hobbit with wooden feet. Qadgop’s mentioned that before. The image made me laugh for days.
Well, I am. 
In HOMES XII, we find two essays JRRT wrote about Glorfindel, the last very similar to the first, and written in the last year of JRRT’s life.
In that essay we learn that,
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/book_reviews_01.html
So we see that Glorfindel I = Glorfindel III in JRRT’s mind.
We also see that JRRT had abandoned the view that the Eldar were re-incarnated as newborns, but rather as full adults.
And yes, he did this revising all post-publication. But none of it is really inconsistant with the backstory present from Hobbit or LOTR. It may not mesh perfectly with Sil as published, but Sil was CJRT’s attempt to cobble together something semi-coherent from his dad’s disparate writings.
As for Elvish name recycling, we did a thread on that a few years ago. But damned if I can find it now. I pulled up a few examples of apparent name re-use of different elves.
Two Gelmirs were found, one of the folk of Finarfin, who later guided Tuor to the Gates of the Noldor, and later voyaged with Earendil. The other was a Noldo of Nargothrond, captured by orcs, blinded, and slain in front of his brother Gwindor, thus triggering the premature attack on on the forces of Morgoth, later called Nirnaeth Arnoediad (the Battle of Unnumbered Tears).
Two Haldirs were found also. The first was a son of Orodreth, who was slain by orcs outside Nargothrond, which made the Nargothrondians (Nargothrim?) more secretive. The other was an elf of Lorien.
Two Rumils also, the Sage of Tirion for the first, and the brother of Haldir and Orophin in Lorien for the second.
That’s all I can recall offhand, and I’d say they add up only to weak evidence that elves don’t recycle names. But given the fact that the elvish languages all had similar original roots, and that the elves gave their folk names that meant something, I’d be surprised if there weren’t occasional name overlap occurring among widely separated Eldar, such as the Avari and the Vanyar, or even the Sindar and the Teleri.
Way Cool.
Never saw that before. I love the confirmation that he possibly or even probably came back with Mithrandir.
I noticed that Glorfindel was rewarded for slaying a Balrog so I wonder if that leaves open room for Ecthalion also. Not in ME but in Valinor at least.
Excellent find.
It is interesting that Tolkien was so concerned with the ban. The ban was lifted after Angband was destroyed. So Glorifindel could have been held until that day and reincorporated then. (This was one of my assumptions along with him coming over with Olorin/Mithrandir)
Sorry, but anything he wrote in the last year of his life is a post-hoc rationalization. Which doesn’t make it wrong, but doesn’t mean he didn’t unintentionally use the name in the LotR without quite thinking out the potential implications.
The question is does the History say anything about putting Glorfindel at the Council, or at the Fords?
So you’re asking “What did JRRT know and when did he know it?”
Now that would be a fine topic for a scholarly paper or two, and maybe even an academic career!
I don’t recall much about the Third age Glorfindel history in the early drafts of LOTR. I’ll see about digging out those volumes when I’ve got time.
This to me is a particularly smile-inducing typo–a right sensible combo of reincarnated and corporeal. Too bad it’s already taken as a business word!
Not even a typo in this case, I started using the term years ago to describe both Elves and what is basically the verb for the receiving end of a transporter.
I may have lifted it from Heinlein though. He used a similar term with his Martians.
I believe he at least used the term Disincorporate.
A quick browse through Volume 6 of the History of Middle Earth doesn’t show that there was any discussion relevant to the Glorfindel issue, but I wasn’t thorough, and you have to be thorough to be sure, since you can’t search the damn text of a paper book! :mad: 
The Index in the back list occurrences of Glorfindel on page 480.
He is mentioned 17 times in the book. Page 214-15 on the ID of Rivendell & Gondolin.
Thoughts are from 1938:
Glorfindel tells of his ancestry in Gondolin.
…
JRRT mused Glorfindel most of his life and came to the conclusion that both were the same and after falling to death against a Balrog in Gondolin was released from Mandos and returned to ME in the 2nd age.
Is that the jist of what you were looking for?