Vargr as outlaw-wolf

Vargr as outlaw-wolf describes the convergence of wolf imagery and outlaw status in older Germanic and Norse usage, then applies that history retrospectively to Varg Vikernes. Its force lies in the disquieting fit between the word’s recorded associations and actions for which Vikernes became known—not in proof that the name predicted those actions or that he chose it with that history in mind. The account explicitly notes that his stated reason was the ordinary meaning of “wolf” and that there is no evidence he knew the older legal sense when he changed his name.

Name and retrospective reading

Vikernes was originally given the first name Kristian, which he increasingly found intolerable in his late teenage years. When he first entered the Black Metal scene, he still used that forename; sometime in 1991–92, he legally changed his name to Varg. The book treats the timing and later associations of the new name as striking, but distinguishes that retrospective interpretation from what can be established about his intention: Vikernes said he chose it mainly for its common meaning, “wolf.” The older connotations are therefore presented as an uncanny correspondence discovered through research, not as a demonstrated motive behind the change.

That distinction shapes the concept’s argument. A name can acquire significance through events that follow it, even when its bearer did not knowingly select every layer of its history. The account reads “Varg” simultaneously as a personal title and as a word with a long, specialized legal and cultural past. The resulting pattern invites interpretation, but does not erase the gap between the history of a word and the knowledge or intentions of the person who adopts it.

Legal meanings of the word

Michael Jacoby’s dissertation, Wargus, Vargr—‘Criminal’ ‘Wolf ’: A Linguistic and Legal Historical Investigation, supplies the principal linguistic and legal framework. Its survey describes related forms across Northern European languages as carrying strongly negative meanings when applied to people: criminal, outlaw, outcast, thief, wrongdoer, evil being, damned person, and even a being associated with Satan. The word was not simply an animal name used metaphorically; in old legal material, it could classify a person and mark that person’s exclusion from ordinary society.

The legal vocabulary could become more specific through compounds. The examples include gorvargher, for cattle theft, and morthvargr, a term associated with killing. Mary Gerstein, discussing the old Icelandic legal text Grágás, explains that morthvarg denoted a particular kind of outlaw and carried the implication of furtive killing and concealment. The book connects this association with the figure of a skulking werewolf, but the point is about the cultural and legal force of the term: the alleged crime and the effort to hide it could be gathered into one label.

The Norwegian legal tradition supplies an especially pointed example. In the Gulathingslov, brennuvargr designated an arsonist, literally a “fire-wolf.” Gerstein’s discussion describes varg as a rare, specialized legal term, preserved in pronouncements that declared a person outlawed and deprived of rights for crimes such as arson, oath-breaking, and secret killing. The term thus joins two kinds of consequence: the naming of an offence and the removal of the offender from the protection of the community. Its force depends on that social judgment, not on a claim that the accused had literally become a wolf.

Crimes gathered under the name

The book aligns several meanings in Jacoby’s research with Vikernes’s record, presenting the sequence as an interpretive comparison rather than proof that the historical word explains his actions. One association is grave robbery. The Salic Law, as cited in the account, assigns the designation varg to a person who has dug up or despoiled a buried corpse. The author argues that Vikernes’s advocacy of and participation in grave desecrations fit this association. The comparison draws its weight from the ancient legal text’s treatment of the act as a marker of profound exclusion.

Treason and theft form further parts of the parallel. The account says Vikernes expressed a desire to see Norway’s government overthrown and identified with Vidkun Quisling, whose name had become internationally synonymous with treason. It also reports that others in the Black Metal scene called Vikernes a traitor after he killed Euronymous. On the question of theft, the text points to his conviction for stealing 150 kilos of explosives, which were stored in his apartment when he was arrested. These details give the word’s broad field of outlawry specific, separate points of contact with the life being discussed.

The comparison reaches its most direct and contested point in the killing of Øystein Aarseth, known as Euronymous. Vikernes was convicted of murdering him; Vikernes, however, maintained that the killing was manslaughter committed in self-defense. The book notes that the older Germanic legal materials it discusses do not appear to distinguish first-degree murder from manslaughter in the same way, and instead refer to manslaughter. That historical contrast does not settle the modern dispute or alter the conviction. It explains why the author can place the case within the older vocabulary while still recording Vikernes’s contrary account of what happened.

Wolf, outlaw, and social exclusion

The cultural history assembled by the book extends beyond legal terminology. Drawing on the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Werewolves, it describes vargr as having a double significance: wolf, and godless or evil man. Baring-Gould also connects the word with forms meaning restless and with terms for a scoundrel or fiend. In the account’s presentation, this semantic overlap helps explain how stories about outlaws could become stories about men transformed into wolves.

The mechanism is social as well as mythical. An outlaw was imagined as driven away from human settlements and made vulnerable to anyone willing to pursue or destroy him; an Anglo-Saxon expression described an outlaw as having the head of a wolf. The person cast outside the law was therefore placed, in both language and legend, near the wild animal beyond the community’s boundary. Werewolf lore could grow around that exclusion, turning a legal and social condition into an image of bodily transformation. The book does not treat this as evidence that the historical outlaw was literally believed to have changed species in every account; it follows how one meaning could gather and reshape another.

Applied to Vikernes, the pattern extends from legal conviction to social isolation. The author describes him as restless and defiant, and says his outlaw position was not limited to relations with wider society: some people within the Black Metal subculture had also sworn to kill him if they had the opportunity. This comparison evokes the old figure exposed to attack after banishment, while remaining an account of threats and reputation rather than a claim that those threats were carried out.

Limits and significance

The name’s significance in the book is created through accumulation: an ordinary stated choice, older linguistic records, legal categories, and later events are set beside one another. The result is a retrospective double image. “Wolf” can suggest an animal name chosen for its common meaning; vargr can also summon the condemned person, the criminal, and the outcast. The older word’s association with arson makes the parallel particularly sharp, while its links to concealed killing and outlawry widen the field beyond a single offence.

The author’s language of uncanny fulfillment gives the discussion its interpretive charge, but the evidence also fixes its limits. Nothing in the account establishes that Vikernes understood this etymological history when he adopted the name, and the later correspondences cannot demonstrate foreknowledge. Vargr as outlaw-wolf is therefore best understood as a framework for reading how a name gathers meaning after the fact: personal identity meets inherited vocabulary, and the word’s old social sentence seems to echo in a modern life. That echo is the book’s argument, not proof of destiny.