Warg

In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, a warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs.

In her view, both the dark lord Sauron and the evil Wizard Saruman embody "attributes of a negative Odin".

[9] She points out that Saruman has wargs in his army, while Sauron uses "the likeness of a ravening wolf"[T 1] for the enormous battering ram named Grond which destroys the main gate of Minas Tirith.

On the other side, the benevolent Wizard Gandalf leads the fight against the wargs in The Hobbit, using his ability to create fire, and understands their language.

[12] Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings extend the role of wargs as mounts for Orcs, battling the horse-riders of Rohan.

The critic Gregory Hartley treats wargs as "personified animals", along with the sentient eagles, giant spiders, Smaug the dragon, ravens and thrushes.

Tolkien writes about their actions using verbs like "[to] plan" and "[to] guard", implying in Hartley's view that the monstrous wargs are "more than mere beasts", but he denies that they "possess autonomous wills".

[14] T. A. Leederman calls Tolkien's wargs "a species of semi-intelligent but evil-aligned mount wolves ... on whom the orcs rode into battle".

[T 4] Similar Tolkien-based creatures appear in a number of fantasy video games, including The Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, and World of Warcraft, both as four-legged monsters, and as a race of anthropomorphic werewolves, the Worgen.

The jötunn Hyrrokin riding a wolf, on an image stone from the Hunnestad Monument , constructed in 985–1035 AD [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
Wargs being used as cavalry mounts, as depicted in Peter Jackson 's The Two Towers , battling the Riders of Rohan . [ 13 ]