Is THIS how you imagined the vampires?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by sallkid

Quite so, but seeing as Luthien wore the skin of Thuringwethil to take the form of a vampire i'd say it's accurate.

Not exactly, she donned the bat-fell of Thuringwethil --

fell (fĕl)
n.
1. The hide of an animal; a pelt.
2. A thin membrane directly beneath the hide.

She appeared as a vampire bat (albeit a large one), not a vampire...an important distinction, as Tolkien also referred to 'vampire bats' in The Hobbit. I cannot find any reference to Day's assertion that "Vampire spirits came into the service of Melkor". Thuringwethil could assume the shape of a vampire bat, which does not necessarily mean she was indeed a vampire. We can't expect Morgoth's minions to fly about like overgrown canaries or laden swallows, it would be unseemly, and certainly not the 'look' the Dark Lord was seeking.

And Lalwende, interestingly enough, the word 'hame' in Draugluin's wolf 'hame' does not correspond directly to 'skin' or 'pelt'; in nearly every dictionary I've looked at, a hame is as follows:

hame(hm)
n.
One of the two curved wooden or metal pieces of a harness that fits around the neck of a draft animal and to which the traces are attached.

Only when one goes further back to a corresponding word in Old Norse hamr, base *hem-, 'to cover', do we get anything even remotely close to 'skin'. However, I found an obscure website referring to Odinic Rites, here....

http://odinic-rite.org/Hama.htm

that makes reference to the following: "From the word 'Hama,' old Norse also derives the word 'Hamr,' which means 'spirit skin'- a skin that maintains the soul's energies and stops them from being dispersed when travelling from the body."

Also, "Háma may be derived from the Old English word hám meaning "village, hamlet" or it may come from the word hama meaning 'covering, garment'."

Interesting stuff.