What is the origin of the werewolf?

Answer 1

One "origin" is:

During the 15th - 17th Century, Europe was full of suspicion, the fear of wolves was like a nightmare, Their attacks were so frequent that people even feared to travel from one place to another. Every morning, countryside people would find half-eaten human limbs scattered on their fields.
The first recorded Werewolf sighting took place around the countryside of a German town: Colongne and Bedburg in 1591. A few people saw a large wolf and set their dogs upon it. They started to pierce at it with sharp sticks. Surprisingly the large wolf did not run away or tried to protect itself, rather it stood up and turned out to be a middle-aged man. He was Peter Stubbe from the same village.
Peter Stubbe was put on a torture wheel where he confessed sixteen murders including two pregnant women and thirteen children.

There is no real "Proof" that werewolves have, ever did, or ever will exist. Whether you decide that they are real or not is up to you, but most werewolf sightings are probably just normal wolves, in most cases. It is not a "seeing-is-believing" sort thing. I think many people do believe in them but more people don't. Most cases of werewolves are merely myths or plain fiction or Fantasy Books. But hey, myself and the majority of the rest of the world may be wrong. And I don't mean that in a patronizing way.
The first recorded Werewolf sighting took place around the countryside of German town Colongne and Bedburg in 1591. An age-old pamphlet describes those shivering moments vividly. Few people cornered a large wolf and set their dogs upon it. They started to pierce it with sharp sticks and spears. Surprisingly the ferocious wolf did not run away or tried to protect itself, rather it stood up and turned out to be a middle-aged man he was Peter Stubbe from the same village.
I think the origin of werewolves might be anything, because it doesn't depend on origin, but the human itself.

Add.--The origin of werewolves in mythology come from several different time periods. The first agreed recorded "werewolf" was also a ghoul, or vampire, after death; after this particular legend, however, they were separated into two creatures.

In that legend, the definition of a 'werewolf' was very vague; it basically involved eating the flesh of the long dead.

Another legend from Roman/Greek mythology tells about how King Lycan killed his son and made a soup out of him, then fed it to hungry beggars, trying to see which one was a god. Zeus stepped out of his disguise and cursed King Lycan and his family and descendants to roam forever as wolves. This is where we get the word Lycanthropy, which is the scientific term for the mental illness that made one a werewolf in later time periods.

Also, in the north, in Norse legend, there were men who were called berserker, (Ber-sarkers, originally) who were thought to shape-shift into the form of bears, or wolves, depending on what kind of pelt they wore, during battles.

The word Werewolf comes from the Latin, vir (V is pronounced as a w,) meaning man. Literally, man-wolf.

In Native American culture, there is a myth from a tribe stating that they came from the wolves, thus making them technically werewolves. Also, if you had a spirit guide that took the form of a wolf, you may be thought to have the ability to turn into a wolf.