The Nazgûl, introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine, are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron's power through wearing Rings of Power, which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron's control.
Tolkien stated that the Nazgûl's "fell beasts", while not intended actually to be pterodactyls, were "obviously ... pterodactylic". 1897 reconstruction of pterodactyls shown
A Nazgûl, depicted as a shadowy but solid body, cloaked and hooded, wearing a sword, and mounted on a horse
John Garth suggests that the Black Breath may derive from Tolkien's experience of gas in the First World War. Painting Gas Attack, Flanders by Alfred Bastien, 1915
The Nazgûl hacking and slashing at the hobbits' beds in the Prancing Pony inn at Bree, in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film version
The Black Speech is one of the fictional languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien for his legendarium, where it was spoken in the evil realm of Mordor. In the fiction, Tolkien describes the language as created by Sauron as a constructed language to be the sole language of all the servants of Mordor.
Black Speech has been compared to the Hurrian language, seen here on the Foundation Tablet, c. 2000 BC
