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tolkiens legendarium - What happened to Huan the Wolfhound after he died?


I just finished reading the chapter of The Silmarillion devoted to Beren and Lúthien, which contains the greatest character in all of Tolkien's work, in my opinion: Huan, the Wolfhound of the Valar. He catches arrows midflight; kills countless werewolves; beats the living snot out of Sauron; scares Morgoth silly; turns on his former master when said master attempts to do evil; lets Lúthien ride him like a horse; dresses himself in a werewolf's hide to travel incognito; talks, but not so often that it gets annoying; never sleeps; and so on.


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Huan and Sauron



Sadly, he sacrifices himself to save the people he loves, and as a misanthrope who adores dogs more than anything else in the world, I need to know what happened to him afterwards.


Did Huan go to the Undying Lands, or even get reincarnated on Arda to hang out with Beren and Lúthien some more?


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Beren, Lúthien, and Huan (source)



Answer



Yes. Huan is a Maia.



But true ‘rational’ creatures, ‘speaking peoples', are all of human / ‘humanoid’ form. Only the Valar and Maiar are intelligences that can assume forms of Arda at will. Huan and Sorontar could be Maiar — emissaries of Manwë.



(HoME X, Myths Transformed)



Following the footnote, we find:



See p. 138. - At the bottom of the page bearing the brief text V (p. 389) my father jotted down the following, entirely unconnected with the matter of the text:


Living things in Aman. As the Valar would robe themselves like the Children, many of the Maiar robed themselves like other lesser living things, as trees, flowers, beasts. (Huan.)



(HoME X, Myths Transformed)


As one of the Maiar, Huan can never truly die. So whether he went back to the Valar on his death (most likely), or won't be seen again until the End, he'll be back.


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