’22 A To Z Challenge – W

I recently had a visit, and a lovely conversation with J. R. R. Tolkien.  It’s been delayed because of COVID19, and the fact that he’s been dead for a while.  For the letter W, in the A to Z Challenge, he (strongly) suggested that I go with a High Fantasy theme.  He said that, since I’d conjured him up, if I didn’t, he’d come back to haunt me, and force me to go on a quest for a ring that was quite different from the ones on my beer-can pull-tabs.  He felt that I should write about

WARLOCK

a man who professes or is supposed to practice magic or sorcery; a male witch; sorcerer.

a fortuneteller or conjurer.

WIZARD

a person who practices magic; magician or sorcerer.

a conjurer or juggler.

Also whiz, wiz  [wiz] . a person of amazing skill or accomplishment:

WYRD

The Old English term wyrd derives from a Proto-Germanic term *wurđíz.  Wyrd has cognates in Old Saxon wurd, and Old Norse urðr.  It used to refer to one or all of the three Greek Fates, and, while it is sparsely used, has come to mean fate, or, that which happens.  The word slowly became “weird,” and Shakespeare turned the Fates into the three prophetic witches – The Three Weird Sisters – in Macbeth.

WYVERN

a two-legged winged dragon having the hinder part of a serpent with a barbed tail.

Smaug, eat your heart out – but barbecue it with your breath first.

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I knew it sounded familiar.  My apologies to my longer-term readers.  Apparently, I forgot to delete a few candidate-words from my blog-notes list, and managed to more-or-less replicate my W Challenge post from 2019.  Oops!  Sorry.  😳