Were-worms?

Deconstructing the term 'were-worm' to it's roots of 'man-dragon' or 'man-serpent' certainly gives you an idea of what Tolkien was thinking about when he wrote it. Don't forget that languages was his thing and he wouldn't have used the term lightly.

I'm not aware of anything in Tolkien's writings that referred to a creature that was half man / half dragon, but perhaps the Middle-earth dragon's abilities to speak and reason gave them enough of a human quality to warrant the term 'were'.

As to location, I believe Bilbo is referring to the far east of Middle-earth. The land of Rhun or even beyond that.

Were-worms!

εὕρηκα!



Father Jacques Marquette saw this monster called Piasa - or better: a depiction of it in form of a rock drawing - during a journey through Illinois in 1673...

The wingless dragon theory seems to be the simplest and most acceptable, including the least speculation, since we know that wingless dragons did indeed exist, and this could merely be a name for them.

But the more intriguing theories are those that include some sort of shape shifters, perhaps inhabited by man-spirits as Nenya suggests. We do know of some examples of shape shifting into snakes and the like, e.g. Sauron, but he is an Ainu. But there's also Beorn (a man) and Thuringwethil, the winged messenger of Sauron about whom we don't know much. In light of this, the were-worm shape-shifter theory may not be as unprecedented.

But what I find the most fascinating is the proposed theory that these were-worms are not shape shifters, but simply half-men half-serpents, or so called 'naga', which are one of my very favourite mythological creatures.

Too bad we don't have more info on this topic, as on numerous others.

On a somewhat more serious sidenote, in ancient myths - especially in those up to the early bronze-age such 'man-serpent' creatures are quite frequently found.

And in later myths they survive, there mostly depictured as evil monsters who are slain by the "good guys". Marduk's victory over Tiamat and her serpent creatures, Zeus' eventual victory over Typhon, Jahweh's victory over Leviathan or Thor's fight with the Midgardserpent are examples of this frequent motif.

Tolkien most probably knew most of these myths and it wouldn't take me by surprise had he - more or less thoughtlessly - used the term were-worms as a reference when he read a tale to his children - which was the primary goal of The Hobbit when Tolkien conceived it: a tale for his children...

It is worth bearing in mind that there is not much to suggest that the term 'werewolf' as used by Tolkien refers to anything similar to creatures of 20-21st century movies. It has never seemed to me that these creatures are mannish in any sense at all. Whilst the form-changing ability may exist, this should not necessarily be taken to imply human origins. Indeed, Sauron took the form of a werewolf. This can only mean that he took the shape of a monstrous wolf, but the term werewolf can be applied since he could also assume a human form. If there were to be any truth to Hobbit legends, I don't think this would mean there were humans who could turn into dragons.

My own theory would be that dragons could perhaps, by use of magic and their domineering spirit, persuade the incredulous and simple that they were seeing a human. The illusion once shattered might give rise to the idea of the wereworm. Again, just a theory.

In Flames said:

"Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert."
This is said by Bilbo in the Hobbit, what exactly are Were-worms?
I have looked through the books but i can't find them mentioned anywhere else. Or have i just missed it?
So can anyone clarify this for me?

Click to expand...

My understanding is that "were-worm" is a synonym for Dragon.

Barley

Snaga said:

It is worth bearing in mind that there is not much to suggest that the term 'werewolf' as used by Tolkien refers to anything similar to creatures of 20-21st century movies. It has never seemed to me that these creatures are mannish in any sense at all. Whilst the form-changing ability may exist, this should not necessarily be taken to imply human origins. Indeed, Sauron took the form of a werewolf. This can only mean that he took the shape of a monstrous wolf, but the term werewolf can be applied since he could also assume a human form. If there were to be any truth to Hobbit legends, I don't think this would mean there were humans who could turn into dragons.

Click to expand...

Very much so. I think Tolkien used 'were-worm" purposely to avoid the term dragon. The word 'dragon' has become a symbol for an animal which - though it doesn't exist in our world - everyone can imagine and this image - more or less - resembles one of the pictures/drawings/paintings we all have seen in our youth.

But the mythological creatures which are considered dragons in old myths are not so easily depicted. Tiamat, for example, which represents the oldest "dragon" in existing written tradition (namely the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation-myth) is not only portrayed as dragon or sea-serpent, but also described as primordial mother, chaos-dragon, the priciple of salt water and the ocean encircling the world.

Picture it!

In passing, on the subject of the prefix "were-"... I noticed that the host that Morgoth unleashed against Feanor is described in the Grey Annals as containing "Orcs and werewolves". This before the arising of the Sun and the awakening of Men.

Snaga said:

In passing, on the subject of the prefix "were-"... I noticed that the host that Morgoth unleashed against Feanor is described in the Grey Annals as containing "Orcs and werewolves". This before the arising of the Sun and the awakening of Men.

Click to expand...

Before we proceed much further with this:

I Googled TOLKIEN WEREWOLF, and came up with this:

"A Note on Beren and Lúthien's Disguise as Werewolf And Vampire-Bat [by]
Thomas Honegger"

"...The following discussion of a possible source for Beren and Lúthien's disguise as werewolf and vampire-bat is intended to provide an example of work in this direction."

Full article at http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/tolkien_studies/v001/1.1honegger.html

This student makes some highly interesting points on our subject (although it's but one more subjective opinion, albeit couched in academic language).

Barley

<snarky comment> Maybe they were only worms during full moons. </snarky comment>

Alcuin said:

<snarky comment> Maybe they were only worms during full moons. </snarky comment>

Click to expand...

That's it!

But then again...maybe they were only men during full moons...