Through many years wolves have been one of the biggest enemies of the free people of Bree, so it seems only natural to start with an investigation of legends involving them.
Wolves are a sophisticated animal working in packs, and even though many a folkloric story tells us of the evils of these beasts, it seems they do little out of malice, and there suggests little involvement with those who have threatened the free peoples in the past. Often the wolves around Bree have been seen to steal away little more than a few sheep, and occasionally an unlucky traveller or farmer fall prey to these carnivorous beasts. However, these wolves are not the subject of interest when this book indeed is of legends and myths.
When younger I, as many other children of Bree, had heard the stories of fabled beasts that could shift between being beast and man, one of these were the so-called werewolves, or lycanthropes as some have named them in past works written. Seemingly the dwarf, Trauni the Hunter wrote in his hunting memoirs about different things he hunted, and he wrote about the difference in the two. Though his penmanship was poor, his illustrations suggested that werewolves were little more than beasts when stricken by their sickness, and the lycanthropes seemingly being able to switch at will. Trauni suggested that normal weapons did little damage to these beasts, yet that a bolt with a silvered tip seemed to weaken the beasts. He also seemed to suggest that the Lycanthropes were capable of complex thought, and even speech. However whether any of these ramblings are little more than stories are hard to tell.
With Trauni the Hunter's testimony we do however have the most recent mention of said beings, as legends long lost tells us of the first of his breed, Draugluin or Drauglir in depending on what treatise you read. Little suggest this mythical beast ever were more than a very well-trained guarding dog, yet if he is counted the first, he were likely to have shown some sort of barbarian intelligence. This beast resided at, in most accounts, Tol-in-Gaurhoth, an island in the upper river Sirion. Some stories suggest Draugluin were the jealous brother of Huan the Hound, making Huan a werewolf like creature himself, whether there is any truth to such claims there is little to support, however in many an account it is said that a great struggle at some point emerged between the two, ending in Huan slaying Draugluin. Childhood stories suggest that the skin of Draugluin was used by Beren Erchamion and Lúthien Tinúviel the Elf-Maiden to sneak into Angband during The Great Struggle for the Silmarils. Which leads to another interesting mention of one of these beings, Carcharoth, the guardian of Angband. The spawn of Draugluin who bit off Beren's hand with a silmaril in itsending him into a craze that eventually led him to be hunted by a group of famed heroes including Beren Erchamion and Huan the Hound. The beast was slain, though both Huan and Beren were mortally wounded in the struggle. If there is any truth to these old stories that can be found in many a library under mythic sections we cannot be sure, though it does suggest these great beasts existed once upon a time, if just all but a memory now.
Some tales also suggest that the white wolves that has plagued the Shire in days gone by were descendants of these mighty beasts, yet no proof of such statements have ever existed. We do know these beasts only some hundred years ago battled with the inhabitants of the region, but were eventually driven out when the Horn-call of Buckland was sounded.
A much more likely suggestion is that the wargs were some cousin of Draugluin, and given that some works of scholars and adventures have mentioned the wargs being able to speak this is all the more likely. If these mentions are little more than delusions in the face of death and battle is hard to tell, though it is hardly a singular incident, and the wargs are far from rare in lands far away, then there might be something to these claims.
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