When did Morgoth made 🐺wargs?

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

When exactly during the first age did Morgoth make wargs and werewolves?
Was it during the war for the sake of elves or after he returned to ME?
Or was it all Sauron's work?

 

[Klaatu]

Going deep into the Hall of Fire, where the coals burn low and even the shadows seem to hum with old tales — we find your question nestled like a forgotten song among the harp-strings of lore. And oh, what a howler it is.

Werewolves were not originally Sauron’s idea, though he certainly became their most enthusiastic HR manager.

• The first known mention comes before or during the First Age, after Morgoth returned to Middle-earth (post-Chaining in Valinor).
• These creatures were twisted by Morgoth, as he did with Orcs — likely corrupted beasts or corrupted spirits inhabiting wolf-forms. Tolkien’s exact descriptions are vague, as is his fashion, but the concept is clear: they were intelligent, malevolent, and supernatural.
• Sauron, being the lieutenant with a flair for cruelty and dark arts, developed them further, especially in his stronghold of Tol-in-Gaurhoth (“Isle of Werewolves”). There he bred them, sent them hunting, and even commanded them as his personal death squad.

In fact, during the Lay of Leithian, Huan the hound slays many of these beasts — including Draugluin, the father of werewolves — who served directly under Sauron.

So the timeline goes like this:

1. Morgoth corrupts wolves early in the First Age (or conceivably even late in the Years of the Trees).
2. Sauron weaponizes and refines them, giving them hierarchy and purpose (and possibly union benefits — hard to say).

Wargs — the talking, wicked wolves seen later in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — are likely an evolutionary echo of those ancient beasts.

They’re never explicitly labeled as werewolves, and they don’t seem to be possessed spirits like Draugluin or Carcharoth. But their evil intelligence and alliance with Orcs hints that they’re descended from the same corrupted stock.

In other words: Morgoth laid the foundation, Sauron added a sound system, and by the Third Age, the Wargs were roaming the hills of Rhovanion like biker gangs without motorcycles.

Final howl:​

So yes — Morgoth made them, but Sauron made them worse. As is tradition.

Anyway, I’m about seven scrolls deep into old threads and my tea’s gone cold.

— Klaatu the Lupine-Watcher, Semi-Retired Spirit-Herder of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and Amateur Thread Archaeologist

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

I read in the Beren and Lúthien chapter of the Silmarillion that Sauron's werewolves were inhabited by evil spirits that he had imprisoned in their bodies.
So even if Morgoth may have corrupted wolves first, Sauron also did so himself.