"The Devil's Coach Horses" is a 1925 philological essay by J. R. R. Tolkien ("devil's coach horse" is the common name of a kind of rove beetle). [1]
Tolkien draws attention to the devil's steeds called eaueres in Hali Meidhad , translated "boar" in the Early English Text Society edition of 1922, but in reference to the jumenta "yoked team, draught horse" of Joel (Joel 1:17), in the Vulgata Clementina computruerunt jumenta in stercore suo. [2]
Rather than from the Old English word for "boar", eofor (German Eber) Tolkien derives the word from eafor "packhorse", from a verb aferian "transport", related to Middle English aver "draught-horse", a word surviving in northern dialects. The Proto-Germanic root *ab- "energy, vigour, labour" of the word is cognate to Latin opus .
