Tolkien's vampires: Sauron's bat form and Thuringwethil

What if I told you that Middle-earth has vampires and werewolves and giant spiders, and that the Dark Lord himself started out as a cat? Tolkien's legendarium has vampires, and they aren't the ones you'd expect. Sauron becomes one, his messenger Thuringwethil is one, and in an earlier version of the story Thuringwethil wasn't a vampire at all.

I've been reading Tolkien since I was about 10. Each of these creatures has a real story and a myth behind it, and you can trace where it comes from in Tolkien's own words. By the end, hopefully you'll see one villain who keeps changing. If you're wondering about Sauron, don't worry. He didn't die. He turned into something even more unpleasant.

Sauron takes the form of a vampire after Huan defeats him

And no, this isn't Dracula, with the cape and the castle and the questionable sleeping arrangements. After Huan batters him, Lúthien makes Sauron give up the island. So he turns into a vampire as big as a dark cloud across the moon, and he flies off with blood dripping from his throat onto the trees below.

It's a powerful passage. It comes in chapter 19, the tale of Beren and Lúthien, straight after Huan defeats Sauron at the bridge and before Lúthien's song breaks the tower: "Sauron yielded himself and Lúthien took the mastery of the isle and all that was there and Huan released him. And immediately he took the form of a vampire great as a dark cloud across the moon and he fled dripping blood from his throat upon the trees and came to Taur-nu-Fuin and dwelt there filling it with horror."

Thuringwethil, Sauron's messenger, flies as a giant bat with iron claws

Sauron isn't the only vampire. His messenger, Thuringwethil, flies between his island and Morgoth's fortress at Angband in the shape of a giant bat, with iron claws at every joint of her wings. Imagine seeing that overhead at night.

Beren and Lúthien wear Draugluin's and Thuringwethil's skins into Angband

After Sauron's defeat, Huan brings back two souvenirs: the skin of Draugluin the werewolf and Thuringwethil's bat skin. Beren and Lúthien wear them to sneak into Angband, Morgoth's actual fortress, which is a rather elaborate disguise.

Then again, given how dressing up as orcs went last time, perhaps they fancied something different.

In the Lay of Leithian, Thuringwethil is Lúthien's false name

Here's a detail I absolutely love. In Tolkien's earlier poem, The Lay of Leithian, found in The Lays of Beleriand, Thuringwethil isn't the vampire at all. It's the false name Lúthien gives herself in front of Morgoth.

In the section where Lúthien, called Tinúviel here, stands before Morgoth in Angband, she speaks with a shrill, thin sound and claims to have come on a lawful errand from the dark mansions of Thû, who is Sauron, to stand before his mighty chair. Morgoth demands, "Thy name, thou shrieking waif, thy name." She answers, "Thuringwethil I am," one who casts a shadow over the moon in the doomed land of shivering Beleriand. So Lúthien is standing before Morgoth's throne in a bat-shaped cape.

Christopher Tolkien suggests Morgoth's bat line may have inspired the disguise

Christopher Tolkien's notes to this line include the words "Explain the name." Morgoth's words, "Who art thou that flittest about my halls as a bat?", also appear in the earlier Tale of Tinúviel, and the outline he discusses several times adopts the wording of that tale directly.

He calls this "a curious point, for in the tale Tinúviel was not attired in a bat skin, whereas in synopsis three she was." His conclusion is that "it is conceivable that Melko's words actually gave rise to this element in the story."