Thuringwethil

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Since Draugluin evidently didn't have human/elf form, I don't think Thuringwethil necessarily had to. She maybe roughly had the same size, in order for Lúthien to fit in, and the rest is left to 'the arts of Lúthien' - however we may exactly picture this.
Given the few information we have about her (your two quotes are all we have, if I'm not mistaken, so we don't even know how she died!) we seem to be quite free to imagine her in whatever way we want.

I don't know if Luthien had the ability to alter her form though, even her mother Melian had to 'fix' into an elf shape in order to marry Thingol, so I'm not so sure we could even say that she may have inherited any ability like that.

I could see though that the 'skin' of Thuringwethil may have been of a shifting, mercurial nature as Tolkien seems to describe it that way. Firstly he says "vampire's form" which suggests a human shape, then "bat-like" which might be a form which would merely suggest a bat and then finally "bat" as Luthien in this 'skin' is in the air. This is actually very like the mercurial nature of the vampires of 20th century literature, so maybe it was the 'skin' which could change shape rather than Luthien?

It would have been funny if Thuringwethil had battled Gandalf as then we would have had an additional Balrog style debate to get our fangs into.

Actually, could Balrogs also have possessed the ability to alter their form?