Vampires

Finding Frodo

Finding Frodo

Tol Eressea
I was just reading over in Feedback about how there used to be a lot more random threads in the RR, and about how the RR is intimidating because so many of the posts are intellectual/painstakingly researched/whatever. So since I'm leisurely making my way through The Sil and just hit the part where Luthien is disguised as a vampire, let me toss this random and non-intellectual question in for variety.

What do you think of Tolkien's vampire? What is its nature? Does it belong in Middle-Earth? Why or why not?
 
It's really just thrown out there without much information in the Beren & Luthien story......

I guess somebody who knows the history of how the chapter was constructed for The Silmarillion better than me could answer better, like Vorowe the Faithful as the Lost Tales are really not of that much interest to me (I find them so archaichally written that they're difficult to get through although I just bought HoME 1-5 to try again).

I really don't know if but do not think that this vampire is intended to be a Dracula type human (or I guess i should say Edward Cullen nowadays, lol) as it is speciffically called a 'bat-like creature'

The odd thing I find is that she is apparently already dead when the story begins, or Luthien and
Huan kill it & it is not mentioned in the story because otherwise how would Luthien have taken her shape if indeed it was done in the same manner as it was apparently done with the body of the dead were-wolf Draugluin?
 
linkinparkelf suggested Durthang was originally the castle of a vampire.
Lion seemed to support her idea, but you winced. It appears you still don't like vampire that much.
 
What do you think of Tolkien's vampire?

I never thought much about it. It doesn't bother me, though.

What is its nature?

It sometimes takes the appearance of a large bat. Other than that, we don't know much, although the name suggests that it is not just a bat.

Does it belong in Middle-Earth? Why or why not?

Why not? Although Bram Stoker's vampire is a fairly modern invention, the word itself, in Slavic languages, is quite old. And Tolkien doesn't say enough about his vampires to associate them with Stoker's. Even if he did, by now the vampire has become another part of the fairy/horror/fantasy "soup" from which Tolkien draws inspiration for much of Middle-earth, although Tolkien turns it around and pretends that Middle-earth is in fact the inspiration for those legendary creatures.

I'm wondering why you find the notion jarring.
 
I don't think (and my relative unfamiliarity with both the Sil and the Hobbit are going to show here! gasp) Tolkien ever describes his vampires at any great length, does he? It seems the female "vampire" (name escaping me) whose disquise Luthien wears is just a big bad bat. I mean, isn't necessarily a human capable of turning into a bat, a la Dracula, etc. Is there anywhere Tolkien gives any greater characteristics of "vampires"? Does he even say they are "the undead" for instance?

Are the bats that show up with the Goblin Army in The Hobbit (in the Battle of the Five Armies) vampires as well? If so, I think Tolkien was just equating bats with vampires.

Maybe he was attempting to explain the background myth to vampires, show how they were originally just big evil bats that somehow transmogrified over time into the myth of undead humans capable of wearing bat form?

a.s.
 
What do you think of Tolkien's vampire? What is its nature? Does it belong in Middle-Earth?

Maybe it belongs in Narnia with Father Christmas. [:)]
 
At least, the word vampire is, even if that part of the world can't exclusively claim the concept of a hematophagic ghost or monster. That makes it pretty atypical for Tolkien, and an ill-fit, or at least, not an ideal fit. And that makes it somewhat discordant to my ears. Grendel was a blood-drinking monster; why not go for something a bit more like that? The only other Eastern European name I can readily think of is Medwed (the name of Beorn in the drafts of The Hobbit, but changed before publication — wisely). Can anybody else think of anything from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Anatolia, etc.

All that being said, I don't really mind it. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek about Narnia and Father Christmas. Tolkien criticized Lewis for mixing Father Christmas into the world of Narnia, but didn't Tolkien mix a little bit of Middle-earth into Father Christmas?
 
probably because I recently read some of the posts discussing Tolkien's thoughts on Narnia and remembered some remark about the mishmash of various creatures.
 
Sure, anything belongs in MIddle Earth if Tolkien says so. Or, to take another perspective, since the name "Middle Earth" is supposed to identify it as our world, anything that human beings tell stories about would fit, if not too anachronistic. Thus, Santa Claus would not fit, because Santa Claus is distinctly post-Christian.

This doesn't include anachronistic technology, however. Shire technology seems to be at roughly the same level as was typical of rural communities in Tolkien's childhood: not yet reached by electricity, gas, or automobiles, but having clocks on the mantlepiece and knowing what a train-whistle sounds like (I always wondered about that!) Naturally, they are considered the more rustic and backwards people, as compared to Gondor, which has invested all of its progress into ideas rather than manufacturing. But I digress.
 
Tolkien criticized Lewis for mixing Father Christmas into the world of Narnia, but didn't Tolkien mix a little bit of Middle-earth into Father Christmas?
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Sorry, I don't understand.

As for "vampire" being Slavic, fair enough, although I think most readers would be unaware of that, and I'm not aware of any Norse or Germanic monsters immediately associated with bats.
 
There are elements of Middle-earth, or near enough to Middle-earth, mixed into The Father Christmas Letters. Gollum seems to make an appearance, as do elves and goblins (not quite the same, I grant, though one of the elves is called Ilbereth), polar bears with Finnish names (suggesting Quenya), etc.

I'm not aware of any Norse or Germanic monsters immediately associated with bats.
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Yeah, probably because bats become less common the further you get from the equator, right? They had them in Northern Europe, but I guess not near so many of them (and probably not the vampire species, though I don't know for sure).
 
What do you think of Tolkien's vampire?

Mysterious, as it probably should be.


What is its nature?

Like wargs are to wolves, probably Tolkien’s vampires are to bats.


Does it belong in Middle-Earth?

Sure.


Why or why not?

Vampires are part of universal myth: Assyrian, Babylonian, Chinese, India, etc.

The European concept of the vampire seems to have migrated from the East.

What’s interesting is that vampirism is a real disease. Bram Stoker’s description of Count Dracula is a clinically accurate description of the symptoms of porphyria. The disease was first described by Hippocrates.
 
Good thought, N.E.B. The Variags had slipped my mind. The source of the name would seem to be the Russian Varyag [grr, the Cyrillic is not working on these boards!], referring to a Scandinavian people of the north of Europe. Basically, the Vikings of Rus (modern-day Russia). So the word is akin to the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe, but has more specifically a northern origin.
 
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