The Warg and Warg Rider Appreciation Thread

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Greetings Eomer and all Warg Lovers. This is Fordim, first time poster, long time listener to this thread.

While I do genuinely admire your determination to win for the mighty warg a more honourable place within the legendarium, I am afraid that I must nail the wolf skin to the door on this debate by turning to that source of all human knowledge (in English at least) – the Oxford English Dictionary.

‘Warg’ is simply an archaic word for wolf. So far, so good (if you’re a warg or a warg fan). But when we get into the etymology of the word we find that ‘warg’ comes from the Old English wear or wearh which means: “A felon, outlaw, villain.” The full etymology of the word is depressing reading if you are a subscriber to this thread:

OE. wear, wearh = OS. warag, OHG. warc, warch criminal, felon (whence Frankish Law Latin vargus outlaw), MHG. warc monster, ON. varg-r outlaw, hence wolf (Sw., Norw. varg, wolf, mod.Icel. vargur fox), Goth. *warg-s (attested by the compound launawargs unthankful person, and the derivatives ga-wargjan to condemn, wargia condemnation):OTeut. *waro-z.

Probable cognates outside Teut. are Lith. vârgas misery, vargti to be wretched, OPrussian wargs suffering (n.), evil, bad (adj.), Lettish wahrgs ill, OSl. vrag (Russian vrag) enemy.

As you can see, the root forms of the word are all grouped around ideas of criminality, outlawry and even outright monstrosity. Even the cognates are connected with conditions that are far from happy.

To be 'warg' is to be bad.