I remembered I'd started a thread on this topic some 10 months or so ago and here it is:
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...=thuringwethil
Now there I quoted all it said in the Sil which was:
Quote:
He turned aside therefore at Sauron's isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf-hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire's form to Angband; and her great fingered wings were barbed at each joint's end with an iron claw. Clad in these dreadful garments Huan and Luthien ran through Taur-nu-Fuin, and all things fled before them.
Beren seeing their approach was dismayed; and he wondered, for he had heard the voice of Tinuviel, and he thought it now a phantom for his ensnaring.
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and
Quote:
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By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Luthien he was arrayed now in the name of Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of Thuringwethil. Beren became in all things like a werewolf to look upon, save that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean; and horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a bat-like creature clinging with creased wings. Then howling under the moon he leaped down the hill, and the bat wheeled and flittered above him.
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I still stand by what I said in that thread, that there is no reason why Tolkien's vampires should not take on the familiar vampire form (and especially so given that I found out a little more when in Whitby as mentioned above). Now what does interest me anew is that this thing which Luthien puts on is called a 'fell' and a 'fell' is a skin - a 'fellmonger' was someone who prepared skins for the tanner.
So did Thuringwethil put this 'fell' on when in Vampire form or was she killed and skinned? The text suggests the former as she was 'in vampires form', though if it was the latter, who skinned her? Eyuw. Hardly bears thinking about (though I will, later, and have nightmares no doubt...) - was it Huan who killed and skinned her if this was the case? Was she a Maia? And how would you skin a Maia anyway? Tolkien does call them 'dreadful garments' after all...which brings to mind that scene in Rob Roy where Liam Neeson hides inside a rotting cow or Silence of the Lambs
Had a look in the Lay of Leithian but it doesn't really give us any more info than what we have.
It's also interesting how Tolkien stuck to the resolutely Real World terminology of Vampire. I mean, could you better describe a Vampire in any word other than what they always called?
And it also brings me to the other current thread about Beorn...another 'skin changer'...was he really donning some grisly Bear skin?