“Then Sauron stripped from the their disguise, and they stood before him naked and afraid. But though their kinds were revealed, Sauron could not discover their names or their purposes.

He cast them therefore into a deep pit, dark and silent, and threatened to slay them cruel, unless one would betray the truth to him. From time to time they saw two eyes kindled in the dark, and a werewolf devoured one of the companions; but none betrayed their lord.”

Though if I were stuck in the pit, dark, silent and know that at any moment a werewolf could appear to eat me I’d have been shouting for a quiet tête-à-tête with Sauron on day one

On Ederachillis’ shore
The grey wolf lies in wait-
Woe to the broken door,
Woe to the loosened gate,
And the groping wretch whom sleety fogs
On the trackless moor belate.

The lean and hungry wolf,
With his fangs so sharp and white,
His starveling body pinched
By the frost of a northern night,
And his pitiless eyes that scare the dark
With their green and threatening light.

He climeth the guarding dyke,
He leapeth the hurdle bars,
He steals the sheep from the pen,
And the fish from the boat-house spars,
And the digs the dead from out of the sod,
And gnaws them under the stars.

Thus every grave we dug
The hungry wolf uptore,
And every morn the sod
Was strewn with bones and gore:
Our mother-earth had denied us rest
On Ederchaillis’ shore

It’s an excerpt from a poem in The Book of Highland Minstrelsy, 1846, and if you’ve got a copy lying around please feel free to forward it my way

Anyway, this is a quick painting to get me in the mood…