# Wolves, wargs, werewolves - what's the difference?



## Nameless Thing (Oct 20, 2018)

Some texts indicates that these are all the same. Others make it seem like these are at least 2 different species, if not 3. Are there wolves who are not evil, just simple wild animals who mind their own business? Or they are all connected to Morgoth/Sauron? Are the wargs or the orcs the same as the werewolves of the Silmarillion? If they are all evil and Morgoth can't create anything new just ruin good things others created, did he make wolves by ruining dogs? Basically he "de-domesticated" (if such a word exists) them?


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 20, 2018)

I don't know of a reference by Tolkien defining what the difference was; there may be one in HoME, but as I'm not near my library, others will have to speak to that. That there _was _a difference, I have no doubt; recall Gandalf's words in "A Journey in the Dark":

_'It is as I feared,' said Gandalf. 'These were no ordinary wolves hunting for food in the wilderness.'
_
Aragorn's words, earlier in the episode,

_'The Wargs have come west of the Mountains!'
_
would seem to indicate that, in the Third Age at least, Wargs were centered between the Misty Mountains and the Anduin, which fits with The Hobbit. In which case, the wolves that invaded the Shire would have been ordinary wolves.

As for wargs, Shippey discusses possible origins in Author of the Century; I can't quote it now, but there's an excerpt here:

http://legacy.owensboro.kctcs.edu/crunyon/Tolkien/hobbit/wargs.htm


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## Elaini (Oct 20, 2018)

I don't know the actual source of this, but I've read from Tolkien Gateway that wargs were stronger, and intelligent enough to speak with a language?

Edit: Looks like it was in Southerner's link too, though as a popular culture reference?


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## Nameless Thing (Oct 21, 2018)

Thank you for the link, it was very interesting.


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## Alcuin (Sep 19, 2021)

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.


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