Wargs

"The wise will stay here and hope to rebuild our town..." — Master of Lake-town This article or section needs to be rewritten to comply with Tolkien Gateway's higher standards...

Wargs by John Howe.

Taken from the Old English warg, the Wargs or Wild Wolves were a race of wolves.

Appearance

In The Hobbit, the Wargs appear twice, once in chasing Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and the dwarves just east of the Misty Mountains, and once at the Battle of Five Armies. In The Lord of the Rings, they are most prominently mentioned in the middle of The Fellowship of the Ring, where a band of Wargs, unaccompanied by Orcs, attacks the Fellowship in Hollin, and again in The Two Towers at the Battle of the Hornburg.

Etymology

In Old Norse, warg or vargr is a term for "wolf" (ulfr). In Norse mythology, wargs are in particular the wolf Fenrir and his sons Skoll and Hati.

Portrayal in adaptations

2001-3: The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy:

Wargs appear to be more like a "hyena-bear-wolf hybrid" rather than wolves, in an effort to distinguish them from regular wolves by presenting them as some sort of distant cousin. However, it should be noted that Tolkien never actually described Wargs beyond stating they were demonic wolves.

See also

• Images of Wargs