In Anglo-Saxon lawwer was the value of a man's life. He could be required to pay his wer to the king as a penalty for crime.[2] If he was murdered then his relatives were entitled to his wergild as compensation from the murderer.
The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, Latinvir (as in virility) and Gaelicfear (plural fir as in Fir Bolg) both mean a male human.
It is likely that wer forms part of a compound word in werewolf (man-wolf), although there are other proposed etymologies.[3] In folklore and fantasyfiction, were- is often prefixed to an animal name to indicate a therianthropic figure or shapeshifter (e.g. "were-boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. There is no attested counterpart wifwylf or wyfwylf .
↑Molyneaux, George (2015). The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p.72. ISBN978-0-19-871791-1.
