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Wolf-language

The wolf-language[1] was a language that was used by certain dogs, wargs, and wolves in Arda.

Description

While much about this language is untold, it is described as queer, sounding "like animal noises turned into talk".[2]

The wargs over the Edge of the Wild used a dreadful dialect of this tongue which Gandalf understood, though it "sounded terrible" to Bilbo Baggins.[3]

History

During the Quest of Erebor, when Thorin and Company were found by the wargs at their meeting-place in the pine-woods above the Vales of Anduin, their chief posted wolf-guards beneath the trees before he spoke to the other wolves in a circle "about cruel and wicked things" in the wolf-language. Occasionally, the other wolves would speak in unison in answer to their chief. Gandalf overheard them discussing how the Orcs were late for their planned raid on the Woodmen that night. After Gandalf and the Company threw burning pine-cones at the wolves, the wolf-guards began "cursing the dwarves in" this language.[3]

Later, when Gandalf and Thorin and Company arrived at Beorn's hall, Beorn spoke to his long-bodied grey dogs in the wolf-language, asking them to retrieve torches for illuminating the hall.[2]

In the early hours of January 14 in the year 3019,[4] the wolf-language was used by the Hound of Sauron to signal his pack to attack the Fellowship of the Ring after surrounding the the ring of boulder-stones where the Fellowship chose to shelter at.[5]

See also

  • Animalic

References

  1. ↑ The History of The Hobbit: Mr Baggins and Return to Bag-End, "The Second Phase: VI. Wargs and Eagles"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Hobbit, Ch. VII: "Queer Lodgings"
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Hobbit, Ch. VI: "Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire", pg. 204
  4. ↑ The Chronology of The Lord of the Rings, pg. 40
  5. ↑ The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring, "A Journey in the Dark", pgs. 296-9