(urth) Hero as Werwolf

[James Wynn]

> Also, the OED entry on "werewolf" notes: "The first element has
> usually been identified with OE. wer man WERE n.1, but the form were-
> in place of wer- (cf. however were- and wer{asg}ild WERGELD), and the
> variants in war-, var-, makes this somewhat doubtful.
>  Evidence for the real currency of the word (chiefly in the {beta}
> and {gamma} forms) is rare, and confined to Sc., after the 17th cent.
> In modern use it has been revived through folk-lore studies, and until
> recently the most usual form has been werewolf, and occas. wehrwolf
> from German.] "
> The first entry from 1000 has "werewolf" as the spelling.

I'm going to hypothesize that the reason "werewolf" has the extra "e" is 
because the pronunciation requirements for an Old English speaker to say the 
"ehr"  sound in front of a "w". I'm not offering any proof of this. It is 
just that the translation "man-wolf" is just too compelling in absence of an 
alternative.

J.