Fell Beasts

What the texts say

The Nazgûl did not fly until the winter of the War of the Ring. In the hunt for the Ring in T.A. 3018 they rode black horses, and it was the loss of those horses at the Ford of Bruinen that sent them back to Mordor unhorsed. When they returned they came on wings. Gollum was the first of the travellers to see one, a winged shadow crossing the moon over the Dead Marshes and later over the Emyn Muil, and its cry drove him flat on the ground in terror. On the night of February 23, as the Fellowship rowed past Sarn Gebir, a dark shape came down the river out of the south and Legolas, with the bow of Lórien, shot it out of the sky; the thing fell somewhere on the eastern bank and its cry was heard for miles. Frodo felt in that moment the cold he had known at Weathertop.

The fullest description comes at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, when the Witch-king comes down on the fallen Théoden. The creature is described as having no feathers, only vast wings of webbed skin stretched between horned fingers, like a bat's; it has a naked neck, a beak, and a stench; and it is said to belong to an older world, a remnant of some breed that lingered in forgotten mountains until Sauron found the last of its eggs and nursed the hatchlings on fell meats until they grew beyond all other things that fly. He gave them to his servants. This one settled on Snowmane's body and set its claws in the dying horse, and Éowyn struck off its head with a single stroke. Its carcass was burned afterwards and the ground where it burned stayed bare, while grass grew green on Snowmane's mound beside it.

Other fell beasts carried the remaining Nazgûl. They circled over Minas Tirith during the siege, their cries paralysing the defenders; they hunted over Mordor as Frodo and Sam crossed it; and they flew to Mount Doom at Sauron's last summons and were consumed in the fire and ruin when the Ring went into the Cracks. At the Black Gate the Eagles of the North came down on them, but the Nazgûl broke off before that fight was decided.

What is implied

The narrator's speculation about eggs and a forgotten breed is offered as a guess, not as history, and no name is ever given to the creatures. The term fell beast is the narrator's description; the Men of Gondor called them hell-hawks and the like, and the Hobbits simply called them the Nazgûl's steeds or winged things. That they were not dragons is clear from the description, which gives them neither fire nor scales; that they were mortal animals is clear from the two that were killed by an arrow and a sword. Whether they were bred by Sauron or merely found and reared by him the text leaves open, though it leans toward the latter.

Fate

The last of them died with the Ringwraiths in the fire of Orodruin on March 25, T.A. 3019.

Huge flying creatures with bat-like wings of naked skin between horned fingers, no feathers, a long naked neck, a beak, and claws. They stank. They were black or dark against the sky and cast a cold dread on all who saw them, though the dread may have been the rider's rather than the beast's.

None. Mounts of the Nine.

The narrator supposes them to be the last of an ancient breed that Sauron found as eggs and reared on carrion; the text presents this as speculation.

One shot by Legolas over the Anduin; one beheaded by Éowyn on the Pelennor; the rest destroyed at Mount Doom with their riders.