{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2556",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2556,
    "subject": "Tolkien's Wargs",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-01-25T21:53:21+00:00",
    "last": "2001-01-25T21:53:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0263@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Rabin",
        "address": "wolfe-lists at danrabin.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-01-25T21:53:21+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tolkien's Wargs",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I happened to be flipping through my copy of _The Annotated Hobbit_, \njust now, and ran across the following citation from a letter by \nJ.R.R. Tolkien that addresses the etymology of \"warg\", the name that \nTolkien gives to the ferocious wild wolves who menace the \nprotagonists:\n\n     It is an old word for wolf, which also\n     had a sense of an outlaw or hunted\n     criminal.  This is its usual sense in\n     surviving texts.  I adopted the word, which\n     had a good sound for the meaning, as a name\n     for this particular brand of demonic wolf\n     in the story.\n\nEditor Douglas A. Anderson continues by noting that \"Tolkien derived \nthe word from Old English _wearg-_, Old High German _warg-_, Old \nNorse _varg-r_ (also = \"wolf\", especially of a legendary kind).\"\n\nThe letter in question was written in 1966 to one Gene Wolfe.\n\nEditor Daniel E. Rabin comments that this shows Wolfe's early concern \nwith words, especially those bearing on his surname (contributors to \nthis mailing list have noted several cases of his literary plays on \n\"Wolfe\").  The letter also pleases said editor in that it shows a \nmeaningful connection between his two favorite authors.\n\nPerhaps this is not as remarkable in the grand sweep of things as the \nfact that Gandhi corresponded with Tolstoy, but it's Definitely Up \nThere.\n\nThe note is on page 111, for those of you following along at home.\n\n   -- Dan Rabin"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}