This has been gnawing on me for a while.
Wargs were large, intelligent, organized,
evil wolves that sometimes, perhaps often, allied with
Orcs. They could be killed, skinned, and their skins or heads planted on poles, as
Beorn did in
The Hobbit. The had a language (many
animals may have had
languages in
Tolkien’s mythos; for all we know, many animals in our own world have “languages” we humans don’t comprehend), and in
The Hobbit, that language is presented as reasonably sophisticated.
As Squint-eyed Southerner points out, however,
Gandalf said the wolves or wargs that attacked
the Nine Walkers in Eregion (I think the Company was in
the old ring of the House of the Mírdain among the
ruins of Ost-in-Edhil, but that’s not germane) “were no ordinary wolves” –
There were no dead wolf (or warg) bodies when the sun arose.
Even Draugluin the Wolf of
Sauron left a body after losing his fight with
Huan the Hound of
Valinor, because Huan brought the skin (“hame”) of Draugluin to
Beren and
Lúthien in order to disguise Beren. These seeming wargs in Eregion did not leave mortal remains: they were some sort of sorcerous apparitions of Sauron; Gandalf even addressed their leader as “Hound of Sauron.”
In our real world, a
werewolf (from the Anglo-Saxon for “man-wolf”) or
lycanthrope (the same, but in Greek) is likely a remembrance of ancient Proto-Indo-European warrior initiation rites. Both the Greeks and the Romans told
tales of
men who transformed into wolves, either through violating cultic prohibitions or because of witchcraft; the dark age Germanic-Nordic tradition famously includes the
berserkers (Old Norse “bear shirt”, one who wore the skin of a bear into battle), warriors who transformed themselves into fighting animals (or more properly, fought animalistically) such as bears or wolves: in
The Hobbit, Beorn is one of these, and in line with the most ancient tales could actually
skin-change or
shapeshift at will into a gigantic bear.
This short article from the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen outlines some historical views. (I have read in the past, but cannot find tonight, claims that
William the Conqueror might have been a berserker.) However, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches
strongly discouraged such berserker tactics, since practitioners invoked traditional pagan gods and practices.
Sauron is called “Lord of Werewolves”, but exactly what Tolkien meant by “werewolf” is unclear. Draugluin would seem to reference such a creature;
Carcharoth the
Red Maw another, particularly since we know that some evil spirit (presumably a fallen
Maia) passed into the physical body of the wolf through the power of
Morgoth. Certainly neither Draugluin nor Carcharoth transformed into Men, nor are they said to be Men transformed into wolves –
werwulf, “man-wolf”.
The closest thing to a proper “werewolf/man-wolf” is Beren sewn into the hame (skin) of Draugluin in order to disguise him as he and Lúthien (in the hame of Thuringwethil) approached
Thangorodrim. The closest thing to a traditional berserker and shapeshifter is Beorn in
The Hobbit, who is exactly that:
a traditional berserker and shapeshifter.
As for the “wargs” that attacked the Nine Walkers in Hollin, these do not seem to have been traditional
werewolves, nor, as Gandalf observes, were they “ordinary wolves [wargs].” They fought and died on the hillock, but their remains were nowhere to be found once the sun arose. They were not men transformed into wolves or wargs: those would be traditional werewolves. They were not dead wolves (or wargs) animated by evil
spirits: that would be necromancy. They appear to me to have been physical manifestations of
magia, as Tolkien describes in
Letter 155:
The supremely bad motive is … domination of other “free” wills. The Enemy’s operations are … “magic” that produces real effects in the physical world. … [H]is
magia he uses to bulldoze both people and things… Their
magia the
Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a
magia producing real results (like fire in a wet faggot) for specific beneficent purposes.
The wargs in Hollin were most likely
magia, sorcerous physical manifestations of wargs produced by Sauron that could deliver real damage to the Company, and that could likewise be “killed,” eliminated from the fight, by the Nine Walkers and their
weapons.
And if that’s what Tolkien wants to call “werewolves,” well, he knew more about their place in traditional literature than I ever will. But they sure don’t look like “werewolves” to me.
