Annotation - Page 16
From Riddley Walker Annotations
- (3:16) "Arga warga"
An exclamation meaning that someone has met with a bad fate ("uh-oh"). Hoban explains it as "onomatopoeia suggestive of gobbling-up" EE, but he is also surely familiar with Baba Yaga, the ravenous old witch of Russian fairy tales. It also recalls argy-bargy, a Britishism meaning an argument or brawl. EB
And: a warg is of course a wolf (Germanic—see Tolkien). Arga, in a northern Germanic language, makes insulting reference to a man supposed to be effeminate and a catamite. SLK