Dictionary:

werewolf

  (wâr'wʊlf', wîr'-, wûr'-)

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A person believed to have been transformed into a wolf or to be capable of assuming the form of a wolf.

[Middle English, from Old English werewulf : wer, man + wulf, wolf; see wolf.]

WORD HISTORY   The wolf in werewolf is current English; the were is not. Werewulf, “werewolf,” occurs only once in Old English, about the year 1000, in the laws of King Canute: “lest the madly ravenous werewolf too savagely tear or devour too much from a godly flock.” The wer– or were– in wer(e)wulf means “man”; it is related to Latin vir with the same meaning, the source of virile and virility. Both the Germanic and the Latin words derive from Indo-European *wīro–, “man.” Wer– also appears, though much disguised, in the word world. World is first recorded (written wiaralde) in Old English in a charter dated 832; the form worold occurs in Beowulf. The Old English forms come from Germanic *wer-ald–, “were-eld” or “man-age.” The transfer of meaning from the age of humans to the place where they live has a parallel in the Latin word saeculum, “age, generation, lifetime,” later “world.”

The werewolf (Old English: wer, a man + wulf, a wolf) or lycanthrope is one of the most familiar monsters of European mythology. It has stalked the popular imagination from antiquity through to modern times. In classical literature, the werewolf was usually depicted as the victim of a divine or hereditary curse. In Plato's Dialogues, King Lykaos of Arcadia was changed into a wolf by Zeus after he attempted to trick the gods into eating human flesh. When Pausanias repeated this tale in the second century ad this curse had been transformed into a racial characteristic. He believed that Arcadia was a nation of werewolves, whilst Virgil and Herodotus identified the Neurians of north east Europe as a lycanthrope tribe.

This early conception of the lycanthrope as a victim of heredity left the monster in a morally ambiguous position. The werewolf could be a benign individual, trapped within a bestial frame. In the Eastern and Celtic churches, St Christopher was often portrayed as a dog-headed convert, a representative of Cynocephali who inhabited the mountain ranges of Northern India. In the medieval romances of William and the Werewolf by Guillaume de Palerne and Laide Bisclaveret, by Mavie de France, the werewolves appear as noble favourites of the king, tricked into a wolf form by their adulterous wives, and later redeemed into humanity through royal kindness. As late as the seventeenth century the belief that werewolves could serve as ‘dogs of God’ persisted amongst the Russian and Baltic peasantry. The Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg has reconstructed the trial of one Livonian werewolf, Thiess, who claimed he and his werewolf companions travelled annually to the underworld to protect the harvest from the Devil and sorcerors.

For the most part however, werewolves have been depicted as malign and demonic creatures. The Paschal imagery of Christ as the Lamb of God encouraged the wolf's satanic associations. In post-Reformation Europe, the werewolf was largely seen as a male counterpart of the witch, obtaining his power through a pact made with the devil. Peter Stump, the most notorious werewolf of the sixteenth century, began his lycanthropic career of mass murder, rape, and incest after Satan presented him with a magical wolf skin. His crimes were apparently emulated by thousands of others. Recent authors have claimed that there were 30 000 recorded cases of werewolves between 1520 and 1630 in France alone. Such high estimates must be questioned in light of the recent revisionist historiography of the witch craze.

Post-reformation Europe also saw a growing attempt to medicalize the werewolf. Physicians such as Simon Goulart, Johannes Schrenk von Graftenberg, and Robert Burton claimed that lycanthropy was a form of delusional insanity brought about through an excess of black bile. The condition was epitomized by the madness of Duke Ferdinand in John Webster's Duchess of Malfi. Ferdinand is apprehended clutching a human leg and howling at the moon. As his captors explain, the Duke ‘[s]aid he was a wolf, only the difference/Was a wolf's skin was hairy on the outside/His on the inside’. Similar attempts to explain lycanthropy as a delusion rooted in illness have been repeated throughout the twentieth century. Authors have variously suggested congenital hypertrichosis (abnormal hair growth), rabies canina, and ergot poisoning as possible pathological causes. More recently, Dr Lee Illis, of Guy's Hospital, London, has claimed that werewolves may be victims of porphyria, a disease which results in photosensitivity, reddening of the teeth, and nervous disorders.

With the appearance of novels such as George Reynolds' Wagner the Werewolf (1857) or Dudley Costello's Lycanthropy in London or the Wehrwolf of Wilton Crescent (1859), more psychological accounts of the werewolf emerged. In these works, the wolf-man emerges as a kind of romantic anti-hero, torn between social mores and carnal desire. These moral struggles were repeated in the Hollywood B-movies of the 1950s. Films such as American International's I was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) or Royal's Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1962), presented the lycanthrope as a sympathetic character, led into a life of unbridled lust after attending beat gatherings and bongo parties. This model of the werewolf as a figure in which adolescents could identify their own awkward passions persists to this day. The title track of Michael Jackson's Thriller (1983), the world's best selling pop album, focused on the emotional and sexual difficulties of a pubescent lycanthrope.

Through its popular associations with sex and violence, the werewolf has become a rich symbol for man's bifurcated human nature. Modern academics see lycanthropy as a fantasy which reveals fundamental aspects of modern personality. The Jungian anthropologist, Robert Eisler, thought that werewolves emerged through an ancestral memory of man's transition from fruit-gatherer to hunter. Man's identification with carnivorous animals, Eisler claimed, was a psychic operation that allowed him to conquer his disgust at killing. This identification could still be seen in hunting groups such as the leopard men of East Africa, Operation Werewolf (a post-war Nazi resistance organization), and British Guards Regiments who continue to decorate themselves with leopard pelts and bearskins.

Sigmund Freud offered a much more reductionist explanation for man's lupine identification. In his study of Wolf-Man, a young Russian whose childhood had been tormented by dreams of wolves that beckoned him from beyond his bedroom window, Freud suggested that the fantasy must be rooted in a primal scene of parental or animal sex. The French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari contested this interpretation of the dream. They argued that the lupine fantasy could be seen as a fundamental challenge to Western notions of subjectivity. It was a dream in which man cast off his atomic individuality, as the lycanthrope surrendered to the multiplicity of the wolf pack.

— Rhodri Hayward

Bibliography

• Douglas, A. (1992). The beast within: man, myths and werewolves. Chapmans, London.
• Woodward, I. (1979). The werewolf delusion. Paddington press, New York and London

See also vampire.

(click to enlarge)
Lon Chaney, Jr., as a werewolf in The Wolf Man (1941). (credit: Courtesy of Universal Pictures; photograph, Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, New York Public Library)

In European folklore, a man who changes into a wolf at night and devours animals, people, or corpses, returning to human form by day. Some werewolves are thought to change shape at will; others, who inherited the condition or acquired it by being bitten by a werewolf, are transformed involuntarily under the influence of a full moon. Belief in werewolves is found throughout the world and was especially common in 16th-century France. Humans who believe they are wolves suffer from a mental disorder called lycanthropy.

For more information on werewolf, visit Britannica.com.

A human temporarily or permanently transformed into a wolf, from the Anglo-Saxon wer (man) and wulf (wolf). It is a term used in the phenomenon of lycanthropy, which in ancient and medieval times was of very frequent occurrence. It was in Europe, where the wolf was one of the largest carnivorous animals, that the superstition became prevalent. Similar tales in other countries usually introduced bears, tigers, leopards, or other animals.

Origins

The belief in werewolves may be a relic of early cannibalism. Communities of semicivilized people would begin to shun those who devoured human flesh, ostracizing them and classifying them as wild beasts. The idea that they had something in common with animals would grow, and the concept that they were able to transform themselves into veritable animals would likely arise.

More likely, however, the belief derives from early ritual practices in the Balkan area. For example, the Dacians, an ancient people who had the wolf as their totem animal, annually turned their young men into wolves during a ritual in which they wore wolf skins and imitated the animal. The wolf was much respected in the area as a hunter. The ritual transformation into a wolf survives today in the Greek word vrkolaka (and its Slavic equivalents), derived from the old Slavic word for wolf-pelt, though the term is now applied to a form of vampire. It has been suggested that as the people settled into an agricultural life, the wolf lost its positive associations and became the outlaw animal many still consider it today. Thus the vrkolaka became the werewolf. Werewolf itself is an Old English term meaning shape-shifter, probably derived from older Germanic roots.

The oldest account of a man changing into a wolf came from Greek writings. Lycaon (from whom the term lycanthropy is derived) was changed into a wolf by Zeus, whom the unfortunate Lycaon had displeased.

The Nature of the Werewolf

There were two kinds of werewolves: voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary were, as has been said, persons who, because of their taste for human flesh, had withdrawn from association with other people.

They possessed a reputation for the magic power to transform themselves into the animal shape at will. This they effected by merely disrobing—by taking off a girdle made of human skin, or putting on a belt of wolf skin, obviously a substitute for an entire wolf skin. There were also cases in which they donned the entire skin. In other instances, the body was rubbed with a magic ointment, or water was drunk from a wolf's footprint. The brains of the animal were also eaten. Olaus Magnus (1490-1558) stated that "the werewolves of Livonia drained a cup of beer on initiation, and repeated certain magic words."

In order to throw off the wolf shape, the animal girdle was removed, or else the magician merely muttered a certain formula. In some instances, the transformation was supposed to be the work of Satan.

The superstition regarding werewolves seems to have been exceedingly prevalent in France during the sixteenth century, as is evidenced by numerous trials, in some of which murder and cannibalism took place. Self-hallucination may have accounted for some of these cases, the supposed werewolves admitting that they had transformed themselves and had slain numerous persons, but at the beginning of the seventeenth century such confessions were not believed. Self-hallucination does not cover a number of cases in which werewolves were seen by witnesses, however. In Teutonic and Slavonic countries, men of learning complained that werewolves did more damage than real criminals, and a regular "college" or institution for the practice of the art of animal transformation was attributed to them.

Involuntary werewolves were often said to be persons transformed into animals because of the commission of sin, and condemned to pass a certain number of years in that form. Certain saints were said to metamorphose sinners into wolves. In Armenia it was thought that sinful women were condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. To such a woman a demon appeared, bringing a wolf skin. He commanded her to don it, and from that moment she became a wolf, with all the nature of a wild beast, devouring her own children and those of strangers; wandering at night, undeterred by locks, bolts, or bars; returning only in the morning to resume her human form.

French romance literature often mentions werewolves, and there are complete romances on the theme, such as the Lais du Bisclavret of Marie de France and the Guillaume de Palerne (known as William and the Werewolf) of the twelfth century. However, in such romances the werewolf was the innocent victim of magic, rather than a dangerous cannibal.

Many werewolves were said to be innocent persons suffering through the witchcraft of others. To regain their true form it was necessary for them to kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to lose three drops of blood, to be hailed as a werewolf, to have the sign of the cross made on their bodies, to be addressed thrice by their baptismal names, or to be struck thrice on the forehead with a knife.

According to Donat de Hautemer, quoted by Simon Goulart (1543-1628), "There are some lycanthropes who are so dominated by their melancholy humour that they really believe themselves to be transformed into wolves. This malady … is a sort of melancholy, of a black and dismal nature. Those who are attacked by it leave their homes in the months of February, imitate wolves in almost every particular, and wander all night long among the cemeteries and sepulchres, so that one may observe a marvelous change in the mind and disposition, and, above all in the depraved imagination, of the lycanthrope. The memory, however, is still vigorous, as I have remarked in one of these lycanthropic melancholiacs whom we call werewolves. For one who was well acquainted with me was one day seized with his affliction, and on meeting him I withdrew a little, fearing that he might injure me. He, having glanced at me for a moment, passed on followed by a crowd of people. On his shoulder he carried the entire leg and thigh of a corpse. Having received careful medical treatment, he was cured of this malady. On meeting me on another occasion he asked me if I had not been afraid when he met me at such and such a place, which made me think that his memory was not hurt by the vehemence of his disease, though his imagination was so greatly damaged."

Guillaume de Brabant, in the narrative of Wier, repeated by Goulart, writes in his History that a certain sensible man was so tormented by the evil spirit that at a particular season of the year he would think himself a ravening wolf and would run through the woods, caves, and deserts chasing little children. It was said that this man was often found running in the deserts like a man out of his mind, and that at last by the grace of God he came to himself and was healed. Job Fincel, in the book On Miracles, relates that a villager near Paule in the year 1541 believed himself to be a wolf and assaulted several men in the fields, killing some. Captured at last, though not without great difficulty, he strongly affirmed that he was a wolf, and that the only way in which he differed from other wolves was that they wore their hairy coats on the outside, while he wore his between his skin and his flesh. Certain persons, more inhuman and wolfish than he, wished to test the truth of this story, and gashed his arms and legs severely. Learning of their mistake and of the innocence of the melancholiac, they passed him on to the surgeons, in whose hands he died some days later.

Those afflicted with lycanthropy are pale, with dark and haggard eyes, seeing only with difficulty; the tongue is dry, and the sufferer very thirsty.

Speaking of lycanthropy, Gaspar Peucer (1525-1602) stated the following: "As for me I had formerly regarded as ridiculous and fabulous the stories I had often heard concerning the transformation of men into wolves; but I have learnt from reliable sources, and from the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, that such things are not at all doubtful or incredible, since they tell of such transformations taking place twelve days after Christmas in Livonia and the adjacent countries; as they have been proved to be true by the confessions of those who have been imprisoned and tortured for such crimes.

"Here is the manner in which it is done. Immediately after Christmas day is past, a lame boy goes round the country calling these slaves of the devil, of which there are a great number, and enjoining them to follow him. If they procrastinate or go too slowly, there immediately appears a tall man with a whip whose thongs are made of iron chains, with which he urges them onwards, and sometimes lashes the poor wretches so cruelly, that the marks of the whip remain on their bodies till long afterwards, and cause them the greatest pain. As soon as they have set out on their road, they are all changed into wolves….

"They travel in thousands, having for their conductor the bearer of the whip, after whom they march. When they reach the fields, they rush upon the cattle they find there, tearing and carrying away all they can, and doing much other damage; but they are not permitted to touch or wound persons. When they approach any rivers, their guide separates the waters with his whip, so that they seem to open up and leave a dry space by which to cross. At the end of twelve days the whole band scatters, and everyone returns to his home, having regained his own proper form. This transformation, they say, comes about in this wise. The victims fall suddenly on the ground as though they were taken with sudden illness, and remain motionless and extended like corpses, deprived of all feeling, for they neither stir, nor move from one place to another, nor are in any wise transformed into wolves, thus resembling carrion, for although they are rolled or shaken, they give no sign of life."

Jean Bodin (1529-1596) related several cases of lycanthropy and of men changed into beasts, including the following: "Pierre Mamot, in a little treatise he has written on sorcerers, says that he has observed this changing of men into wolves, he being in Savoy at the time. Henry of Cologne in his treatise de Lamiis regards the transformation as beyond doubt. And Ul-rich in a little book dedicated to the emperor Sigismund, writes of the dispute before the emperor, and says that it was agreed, both on the ground of reason, and of the experience of innumerable examples, that such transformation was a fact; and he adds that he himself had seen a lycanthrope at Constance, who was accused, convicted, condemned, and finally executed after his confession. And several books published in Germany say that one of the greatest kings of Christendom, who is not long dead, and who had the reputation of being one of the greatest sorcerers in the world, often changed into a wolf.

"I remember that the attorney-general of the King, Bourdin, has narrated to me another which was sent to him from the Low Countries, with the whole trial signed by the judge and the clerks, of a wolf, which was struck by an arrow on the thigh, and afterwards found himself in bed, with the arrow (which he had torn out), on regaining his human shape, and the arrow was recognised by him who had fired it—the time and place testified by the confession of the person.

"Garnier, tried and condemned by the parliament of Dole, being in the shape of a werewolf, caught a girl of ten or twelve years in a vineyard of Chastenoy, a quarter of a league from Dole, and having slain her with his teeth and claw-like hands, he ate part of her flesh and carried the rest to his wife. A month later, in the same form, he took another girl, and would have eaten her also, had he not, as he himself confessed, been prevented by three persons who happened to be passing by; and a fortnight after he strangled a boy of ten in the vineyard of Gredisans, and ate his flesh; and in the form of a man and not of a wolf, he killed another boy of twelve or thirteen years in a wood of the village of Porouse with the intention of eating him, but was again prevented. He was condemned to be burnt, and the sentence was executed.

"At the parliament of Bezançon, the accused were Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun, who confessed to having renounced God, and sworn to serve the devil. And Michel Verdun led Burgot to the Bard du Chastel Charlon where everyone carried a candle of green wax which shone with a blue flame. There they danced and offered sacrifices to the devil. Then after being anointed they were turned into wolves, running with incredible swiftness, then they were changed again into men, and suddenly transformed back to wolves, when they enjoyed the society of female wolves as much as they had done that of their wives. They confessed also that Burgot had killed a boy of seven years with his wolf-claws and teeth, intending to eat him, but the peasants gave chase, and prevented him. Burgot and Verdun had eaten four girls between them; and they had caused people to die by the touch of a certain power."

Some cases of lycanthropy may have been a cover for a perverse appetite for drinking blood or eating human flesh, but it is also possible that there were cases of psychic transformations, in which the astral double of a lycanthrope was projected in the form of a beast, similar to other stories of witches and wizards attacking their victims in an astral form.

Modern attempts to understand the werewolf have opted for a psychological approach, one exception being Robert Eisler, who has explained it in terms of the cycles of human violence that have been a part of social existence since time began. Richard Noll has gathered a variety of reports of modern were-wolves, whom psychologists see as people under the delusion that s/he has been transformed into an animal.

Another aspect of lycanthropy is the Romulus and Remus theme of abandoned children reared by wolves. One classic case of such "feral children," as they are termed, is that of the two wolf girls of Midnapore, India, who were rescued by the Reverend J. A. L. Singh in 1942. This case is discussed in detail by Charles Maclean in his book The Wolf Children (1978). (See also Vampire)

Werewolf Fiction

In the middle of the nineteenth century, as other forms of modern horror fiction were emerging, three werewolf novels appeared: Hughes the Wer-wolf, by Sutherland Mnzies (a serial published in installment in the 1850s); The Wolf-Leader (1857); and Wagner the Wehrwolf, by George W. M. Reynold (1857). The latter is considered the fountainhead of modern werewolf fiction, and it was not until 1934 that another noteworthy were-wolf novel was published.

Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris was bought by Universal Studios, who wanted to produce a cinematic version. The screenplay changes the location of the movie, which appeared in 1935 as The Werewolf of London. The story was inspired by the true story of Francis Bertrand, a French noncommissioned officer who in 1848 was convicted of breaking into several Paris graveyards, and consuming the flesh of several recently buried bodies. His ghoulish activity was transformed into the story of Bertrand Caullet, the son born as a result of a brief affair between his mother and a priest. He discovered that he was a werewolf when shot with a silver bullet. (The now-standard association of werewolves and silver is derived from a Scottish belief in the efficacy of silver in killing witches.)

The Werewolf of London was followed by its more famous sequel, The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chaney, Jr. Chaney reappeared in several movies with other Universal monsters, but made his next notable appearance in the 1961 remake, The Curse of the Werewolf. The werewolf became a television star as a character in the early 1960s in the vampire television soap opera Dark Shadows.

Since the 1970s the werewolf has become an integral part of a horror genre that has grown spectacularly. While not approaching the popularity of the vampire, new werewolf novels have appeared annually and some, such as Whitney Streiber's Wolfen have become popular movies. Gary Brandner's The Howling led to no less than five sequels, most of which were made into movies. The lycanthropy/shape-shifting theme also was prominent in movies like the Cat People, which features a woman able to transform into a panther.

Sources:

Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves. London, 1965; New York: Causeway Books, 1973.

Cooper, Basil. The Werewolf in Legend, Fact and Art. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977.

Douglas, Adam. The Beast Within: Man, Myths and Werewolves. London: Chapmans, 1992. Reprint. London: Orion, 1993.

Dunn, Charles W. The Foundling and the Werewolf: A Literary-Historical Study of Guillaume de Palerne. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960.

Eisler, Robert. Man into Wolf: An Anthropological Interpretation of Sadism, Masochism, and Lycanthropy. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ross Erikson, 1978.

Gesell, Arnold. Wolf-Child and Human Child. London: Harper/Methuen, 1941.

Hamel, Frank. Human Animals. London, 1915. University Books, 1969.

Kaigh, Frederick. Witchcraft & Magic of Africa. London: Richard Lesley, 1947.

Maclean, Charles. The Wolf Children. Hill & Wang, 1978.

Noll, Richard. Vampires, Werewolves, and Demons. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1992.

O'Donnell, Elliott. Werewolves. London, 1912. Rev. ed. New York: Wholesale Book Corp., 1972.

Summers, Montague. The Werewolf. London, 1933. University Books, 1966.

Woodward, Ian. The Werewolf Delusion. London & New York: Paddington Press, 1979.

Legendary human beings who are magically transformed into wolves. Werewolves supposedly prowl at night, devouring babies and digging up corpses, and cannot be killed with ordinary weapons. They are particularly associated with the full moon.

n.

A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."

A German woodcut from 1722

Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes, are mythological or folkloric people with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or wolflike creature, either purposely, by using magic, or after being placed under a curse. The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the transformation with the appearance of the full moon; however, there is evidence that the association existed among the Ancient Greeks, appearing in the writings of Petronius. This concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by fiction writers.

Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fictional books and films, although fictional werewolves have been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore, most notably the vulnerability to silver bullets.^[1]

Etymology

Werewolf, by Lucas Cranach der Ältere, 1512

The name most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer, and Old Norse verr, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras, and Welsh gŵr, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast." An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the berserker, said to wear a bearskin in battle.

Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw," or, euphemistically, "wolf".^{[citation needed]} A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd but ate little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the rogue wolf before it destroyed the entire flock or herd. Herders would often hang the wolf's hide in the bedroom of a young infant, believing it to give the baby supernatural powers.^{[citation needed]} The term Warg was used in Old English for this kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit) and for what would now be called a serial killer. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, an outlaw (who could be murdered with no legal repercussions and was forbidden to receive aid) was typically called vargr, or "wolf."

The Greek term lycanthropy (a compound of which "lyc-" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlkwo-, meaning "wolf") formally denotes the "wolf - man" transformation. Lycanthropy is but one form of therianthropy, the ability to metamorphose into animals in general. The term "therianthrope" literally means "beast-man," from which the words turnskin and turncoat are derived. ^{[citation needed]} (Latin: versipellis,^[2] Russian : oboroten, O. Norse: hamrammr). The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf.^[3] The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning "werewolf." This in turn is most likely from Frankish *wer-wulf meaning "man-wolf."^[4]

History

Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in tales from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves. See lycanthropy and therianthropy for more information.

Ancient beliefs

In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon was said to suffer a similar fate.

Herodotus in his Histories^[5] tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves.^[6]

The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes,^[7] says that a man of Anthius' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across, resulting in his transformation into a wolf, a form in which he wandered for nine years. On the condition that he attacked no human being over the nine year period, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form.

In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods^[8]

European beliefs

Many European countries and cultures influnced by them have stories of werewolves, including Albania (oik), France (loup-garou), Greece (lycanthropos), Spain, Mexico (hombre lobo), Bulgaria (valkolak), Turkey (kurtadam), Czech Republic/Slovakia (vlkodlak), Serbia/Montenegro/Bosnia (vukodlak, вукодлак), Russia (vourdalak, оборотень), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, перевертень), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (vârcolac, priculici), Macedonia (vrkolak), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), the Netherlands (weerwolf), Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv), Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf, varúlfur), Galicia (lobisón), Portugal/Brazil (lobisomem), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra (home llop), Hungary (Vérfarkas and Farkasember), Estonia (libahunt), Finland (ihmissusi and vironsusi), and Italy (lupo mannaro). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into animals including bears, as well as wolves.

Werewolves in European tradition were sometimes innocent and God-fearing folk suffering from the witchcraft of others, or simply from an unhappy fate, and who, as wolves, behaved in a truly touching fashion, adoring and protecting their human benefactors. In Marie de France's poem Bisclavret (c. 1200), the nobleman Bizuneh, for reasons not described in the lai, had to transform into a wolf every week. When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter. His behaviour at court was so much gentler than when his wife and her new husband appeared at court, that his hateful attack on the couple was deemed justly motivated, and the truth was revealed. Other tales of this sort include William and the Werewolf (translated from French into English ca. 1350), and the German fairy tales Märchen, in which several aristocrats temporarily transform into beasts. See Snow White and Rose Red, where the tame bear is really a bewitched prince, and The Golden Bird where the talking fox is also a man.

The legends of ulfhednar mentioned in Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði, and the Völsunga saga may be a source of the werewolf legends. The ulfhednar were vicious fighters similar to the better known berserkers, who were dressed in bear hides and reputed to channel the spirits of these animals to enhance effectiveness in battle. These warriors were resistant to pain and killed viciously in battle, much like wild animals. Ulfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.

In Latvian folklore, the vilkacis referred to someone transformed into a wolf-like monster which could be benevolent at times.^{[citation needed]} A closely related collection of stories concern the skin-walkers. The vilkacis and skin-walkers probably have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European society, where a class of young unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves.

In sixteenth century Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, according to bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werewolves were far more destructive than "true and natural wolves," and their heterodoxy appears from the Catholic bishops' assertion that they formed "an accursed college" of those "desirous of innovations contrary to the divine law."

According to the first dictionary of modern Serbian language (published by Vuk Stefanović-Karadžić in 1818) vukodlak / вукодлак (werewolf) and vampir / вампир (vampire) are synonyms, meaning a man who returns from his grave for purposes of fornicating with his widow. The dictionary states this to be a common folk tale.

Common amongst the Kashubs, and the Serbs and Slovenes of what is now northern Poland, was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shape-shifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf^[9].

According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form.^[10] In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.

The 11th Century Russian Prince Vseslav of Polotsk was considered to have been a Werewolf, capable of moving at supehuman speeds, as recounted in The Tale of Igor's Campaign: "Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Sun, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at St. Sophia the bells; but he heard the ringing in Kiev."

There were numerous reports of werewolf attacks—and consequent court trials—in sixteenth century France. In some of the cases–e.g. those of the Gandillon family in the Jura, the tailor of Chalons and Roulet in Angers, all occurring in the year 1598—there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of association with wolves; in other cases, such as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf but none against the accused. Even though belief in lycanthropy reached a peak in popularity, it was decided in the case of Jean Grenier at Bordeaux in 1603 that lycanthropy was nothing more than a delusion. The loup-garou eventually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous heretic and reverted to the pre-Christian notion of a "man-wolf-fiend." The lubins or lupins were usually female and shy in contrast to the aggressive loup-garous.^{[citation needed]}

Some French werewolf lore is based on documented events. The Beast of Gévaudan terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, now called Lozère, in south-central France. From the years 1764 to 1767, an unknown entity killed upwards of 80 men, women, and children.^{[citation needed]} The creature was described as a giant wolf by the sole survivor of the attacks, which ceased after several wolves were killed in the area.

Wolves were still found in England as late as 1600, but became extinct by 1680. At the beginning of the seventeenth century witchcraft was zealously prosecuted by James I of England, who piously regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic."^[11]

World beliefs

Common Turkic folklore holds a different, reverential light to the werewolf legends in that Turkic Central Asian shamans, after performing long and arduous rites, would voluntarily be able to transform into the humanoid Kurtadam (literally meaning "Wolfmen"). Since the wolf was the totemic ancestor animal of the Turkic peoples, they would be respectful of any shaman who was in such a form.

In popular belief of Ethiopian highlands, similar to the werewolf folklore, is the myth of people being able to transform into hyenas through exposure to a curse or explicit association with the devil. Though not linked to the presence of a full moon or any other seasonal event, the myth has it that those people often perform the transformation at will and often at night. The subjects are closely associated with the phenomenon of the evil eye ("Buda" in Amharic) popular in the province of Gojjam.

Becoming a werewolf

Historical legends describe a wide variety of methods for becoming a werewolf, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described).^[12] In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve.^[13] To drink water out of the footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis.^[14] Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia. According to Russian lore, a child born on December 24 shall be a werewolf. Folklore and literature also depict that a werewolf can be spawned from two werewolf parents.

In Galician, Portuguese, and Brazilian folklore, it is the seventh of the sons (but sometimes the seventh child, a boy, after a line of six daughters) who becomes a werewolf (Lobisomem).^[15] In Portugal, the seventh daughter is supposed to become a witch and the seventh son a werewolf; the seventh son often gets the Christian name "Bento" (Portuguese form of "Benedict", meaning "blessed") as this is believed to prevent him from becoming a werewolf later in life. In Brazil, the seventh daughter become a headless (replaced with fire) horse called "Mula-sem-cabeça" (Headless Mule). The belief in the curse of the seventh son was so widespread in Northern Argentina (where the werewolf is called the lobizón), that seventh sons were frequently abandoned, ceded in adoption, or killed. A 1920 law decreed that the President of Argentina is the official godfather of every seventh son. Thus, the State gives a seventh son one gold medal in his baptism and a scholarship until his twenty first year. This effectively ended the abandonments, but there still persists a tradition in which the President godfathers seventh sons.

In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628), "are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures." Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote.

The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh king Vereticus into a wolf; St. Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men are supposedly become werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of a man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other Werewolves were the Hounds of God.^[16] He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the abundance of the earth down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that Werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolacy and superstitious belief.

A distinction is often made between voluntary and involuntary werewolves. The former are generally thought to have made a pact, usually with the Devil, and morph into werewolves at night to indulge in mischievous acts. Involuntary werewolves, on the other hand, are werewolves by an accident of birth or health. In some cultures, individuals born during a new moon or suffering from epilepsy were considered likely to be werewolves.

Werewolves have several described weaknesses, the most common being an aversion to wolfsbane (a plant that supposedly sprouted from weeds watered by the drool of Cerberus while he was brought out of Hades by Heracles). Unlike vampires, werewolves are not harmed by religious artifacts such as crucifixes and holy water.

Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. The simplest method was the act of the enchanter (operating either on oneself or on a victim), and another was the removal of the animal belt or skin. To kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to be reproached with being a werewolf, to be struck three blows on the forehead with a knife, or to have at least three drops of blood drawn have also been mentioned as possible cures. Many European folk tales include throwing an iron object over or at the werewolf, to make it reveal its human form.

Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern horror fiction, but this kind of transmission is rare in legend, along with another form of this being "licked" by a werewolf to turn one's self (in this case the person is continuously a werewolf but has total control over the form, and has no blood lust, but gains increased strength and agility)

Theories of origin

Many authors have speculated that werewolf and vampire legends may have been used to explain serial killings in less enlightened ages. This theory is given credence by the tendency of some modern serial killers to indulge in practices commonly associated with werewolves, such as cannibalism, mutilation, and cyclic attacks. The idea (although not the terminology) is well explored in Sabine Baring-Gould's seminal work The Book of Werewolves.

A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.^{[citation needed]} Ergot, which causes a form of foodborne illness, is a fungus that grows in place of rye grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or poor sections of towns, resulting in hallucinations and convulsions. (The hallucinogen LSD was originally derived from ergot). Ergot poisoning has been propounded as both a cause of an individual believing that one is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had witnessed a werewolf. This theory, however, is controversial and not widely accepted.

Some modern researchers have tried to use conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth over the entire body), or porphyria (an enzyme disorder with symptoms including hallucinations and paranoia) to explain werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features which include hairy hands and face, poorly healing skin, pink urine, reddish colour to the teeth, and photosensitivity, the latter of which leads sufferers to only go out at night.

There is also a rare mental disorder called clinical lycanthropy, in which an affected person has a delusional belief that he or she is, or has transformed into, another animal, but not necessarily a wolf or werewolf. Supernatural lycanthropy myths could originate from people relating their experiences of what could be classified as a state of psychosis.^{[citation needed]}

Others believe that werewolf legends were partly inspired from shamanism and totem animals in primitive and nature-based cultures.^{[citation needed]}

Werewolves in fiction

Main article: Werewolf fiction

The process of transmogrification is often portrayed as painful in film and literature. The resulting wolf is typically cunning but merciless and prone to killing and eating people without compunction, regardless of the moral character of its human counterpart. The form a werewolf assumes is not always that of an ordinary wolf but often anthropomorphic or otherwise larger and more powerful than an ordinary wolf. Many modern werewolves are supposedly immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects (usually a bullet or blade). This negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the metal on a werewolf's skin will cause burns. Current-day werewolf fiction almost exclusively involves lycanthropy being either a hereditary condition or being transmitted like an infectious disease by the bite of another werewolf.

More recently, the portrayal of werewolves has taken an even more sympathetic turn in some circles.^{[citation needed]} With the rise of environmentalism and other back-to-nature ideals, the werewolf has come to be seen by some authors as a representation of humanity allied more closely with nature. Some recent fiction also discards the idea that the werewolf dominates the mind when one transforms, and instead postulates that the wolf form can be used at will, with the lycanthrope retaining its human thought processes and intelligence.

Other uses of the term

In World War II, the German SS formed an irregular network of Partisan-like units known as Operation Werwolf to resist the occupation of allied forces. These units were under the leadership of the SS and were comprised of members of that group, along with members of the Heer and Hitler Youth. Their campaign of resistance was, however, an almost complete fiasco, especially following their disownment by Hitler's successor, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz.

See also

• Beast of Bray Road
• Beast of Gévaudan
• Clinical lycanthropy
• Hypertrichosis
• Lycan
• Rougarou
• Soul eater (folklore)
• Therianthropy
• Vampire
• Werecat
• Werewolf (Harry Potter)
• Werwolf
• Witchcraft
• Vârcolac

Footnotes

1. ^ They originated in Germany, and there were similar creatures in IndiaSummers, Montague. The Werewolf in Lore and Legend. Dover. ISBN 0-486-43090-1. 
2. ^ Versipellis. Perseus Digital Library. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.
3. ^ (2000) "loup-garou", The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4. 
4. ^ (2000) "Appendix I: Indo-European Roots: w-ro-", The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4. 
5. ^ Herodotus. "iv", Histories, 105. 
6. ^ Virgil. "viii", Eclogues, 98. 
7. ^ Pliny the Elder. "viii", Historia Naturalis, 81.  22/34
8. ^ Petronius (1996). Satyrica. Berkeley: University of California, 56. ISBN 0-520-20599-5. 
9. ^ Willis, Roy & Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1997), World Mythology: The Illustrated Guide, Piaktus, ISBN 0-7499-1739-3
10. ^ The Fables of Mkhitar Gosh (New York, 1987), translated with an introduction by R. Bedrosian, edited by Elise Antreassian and illustrated by Anahid Janjigian
11. ^ "iii", Demonologie. 
12. ^ Bennett, Aaron. “So, You Want to be a Werewolf?” Fate. Vol. 55, no. 6, Issue 627. July 2002.
13. ^ Bennett, Aaron. “So, You Want to be a Werewolf?” Fate. Vol. 55, no. 6, Issue 627. July 2002.
14. ^ O'Donnell, Elliot. Werwolves. Methuen. London. 1912. pp.65-67
15. ^ Bennett, Aaron. “Lobo-Hombres of Latin America.” Fang, Claw, & Steel. Issue #13. Winter 2002.
16. ^ Gershenson, Daniel. Apollo the Wolf-God. (Journal of Indo- European Studies, Monograph, 8.) McLean, Virginia: Institute for the Study of Man, 1991, ISBN 0941694380 pp.136-7

References

• Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition. London: Smith, Elder, 1865. ISBN 0-7661-8307-6
• Douglas, Adam. The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf. London: Chapmans, 1992. ISBN 0-380-72264-X
• Lecouteux, Claude. Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 2003. ISBN 089281096-3
• Prieur, Claude. Dialogue de la Lycanthropie: Ou transformation d'hommes en loups, vulgairement dits loups-garous, et si telle se peut faire. Louvain: J. Maes & P. Zangre, 1596. (By a Franciscan monk, in French)
• Rev. Montague Summers, The Werewolf London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1933. (1st edition, reissued 1934 New York: E.P. Dutton, 1966 New Hyde Park, N.Y: University Books, 1973 Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 2003 Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, with new title The Werewolf in Lore and Legend). Written by an individual claiming that werewolves are real, it is understandably filled with a number of bizarre conclusions but has an impressive bibliography. ISBN 0-7661-3210-2
• Wolfeshusius, Johannes Fridericus. De Lycanthropia: An vere illi, ut fama est, luporum & aliarum bestiarum formis induantur. Problema philosophicum pro sententia Joan. Bodini ... adversus dissentaneas aliquorum opiniones noviter assertum... Leipzig: Typis Abrahami Lambergi, 1591. (In Latin; microfilm held by the United States National Library of Medicine)

External links

• Arby Stones, "Hellhounds, Werewolves and the Germanic Underworld"
• The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865
• Therianthropy History Timeline
• Cryptozoology - Werewolf - Skeptic World
• Allen Varney, "The New Improved Beast"

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - varulv

Nederlands (Dutch)
weerwolf

Français (French)
n. - loup-garou

Deutsch (German)
n. - Werwolf

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - λυκάνθρωπος

Italiano (Italian)
lupo mannaro, licantropo

Português (Portuguese)