Werewolves
         
 
There are a number of cultures which have were-creatures in their mythology, usually involving large, nocturnal predators. Often the were-creature takes the form of the most menacing animal found in the area. India has weretigers, Africa has were leopards, but the most famous of all are the werewolves of medieval Europe.

The term 'were' is from the Old English word wer meaning man. Thus, werewolves, man-wolves, are half human and half animal. In tribal cultures, the ability of shape-shifting expressed power and mystery but was not always evil; it took that on later when associated with the devil and unmanageable urges. A werewolf in folklore and mythology is a person who shapeshifts into a wolf, 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, but this concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by modern fiction writers. Most modern references agree that a werewolf can be killed if shot by a silver bullet, although this is more a reflection of fiction's influence than an authentic feature of the folk legends. A werewolf allegedly can be killed by complete destruction of heart or brain; silver isn't necessary.

Arcadians believed that some members of their culture had the ability to turn themselves into wolves. If they tasted human flesh during this change, they were banished to live out their lives as a wild beast unless they abstained from eating flesh for a full nine years. The ancient Greek writer Herodotus wrote in the fifth century B.C. of a tribe living north of the Black Sea which could turn themselves into wolves for a few days each year. The Roman poet Virgil wrote in the first century B.C. about a sorcerer who took lethal herbs to turn himself into a werewolf. The belief in mystical herbs lasted for centuries; in the fourth and fifth century A.D., magicians sold herbs that "guaranteed" such transformations. One of the earliest uses of mistletoe was as a werewolf repellent.

However, not all scholars of the day were believers. Pliny wrote: "That men can change into wolves and then back to men once more I shall dismiss absolutely as nonsense."

Werewolves were considered to have two origins, intentional and unwilling.

Many elective werewolves were believed to be people who had made a pact with the devil. Most werewolf tales described men who turned into werewolves at night, when they gorged on people and animals, and then reappeared as man at dawn . Night was the time of the devil.
Unwilling werewolves were those whose actions had accidentally caused a horrible transformation. Persons born on Christmas Eve were often thought to be werewolves. In Sicily, a child created during a new moon was thought sure to grow up to be a werewolf. Folk tales from Germany told of a mountain brook whose waters turned humans into werewolves. Siberian tales created werewolves from people who drank water collected in wolf footprints. People with slanting eyebrows were also routinely assumed to be wolfmen. All Grecian epileptics were thought to be werewolves.
Some werewolves were believed to be sinners transformed by God for their actions. Certain saints were thought to have the power to change sinners into werewolves. In Armenia, it was believed that an adulterous woman would be visited by the devil, who would bring her a wolf skin to wear. To pay for her sins, she had to wear the skin for seven years before she could return to human form.

Other involuntary werewolves were those who for one reason or another were hated by their contemporaries. In 1685, a wolf preying on livestock near Ansbach, Germany, was identified as the reincarnation of a despised town official. The wolf was killed and dressed in a suit, complete with wig and beard. Its muzzle was cut off and a mask of the official was placed over the face. The body was then hung.

Voluntary werewolves intentionally took magic potions or wore magic robes to achieve the transformation. In the seventeenth century, English sorcerer believed that they could transform themselves into werewolves by wearing an enchanted girdle and by anointing their bodies with a magical ointment.

The Romans believed that werewolves could not be shot, for their skin was thought to be bullet-proof. The belief in werewolves was so prevalent that bandits wore wolf skins in order to prevent being shot at by local peasants.

Many tales had the common thread of a werewolf suffering an injury at night and the injury reappearing when the beast assumed human form again at daylight. Peasants hid scars for fear of punishment as a werewolf.

Great Britain had myths describing werewolf families, whose curse was passed on through generations.

Authorities took werewolf tales very seriously. They had reached their peak in France in the 1600's, when hundreds of innocent men and children were put to death for their imagined powers. Often it was the mentally ill of the physically handicapped who paid a terrible price for their infirmities. A child with Down's syndrome was thought to be an offspring of a werewolf because of a flat face. Many were burned at the stake.

Some writers have put forth the opinion that many medieval werewolves were people who were suffering from lycanthropy, a psychiatric illness in which the person considers himself to be part man and part animal. According to medical history, the disorder is very uncommon and is not liable to explain the substantial numbers of supposed werewolves.

Amazingly, there are still believers. A 1992 Russian study showed that almost 80% of farmers surveyed believed in werewolves, proving the bad image that wolves still maintain. Most recent examples of werewolves have made them the willing instrument of the supernatural or mentally deranged. Like other stories and legends, they will take whatever form we need to fear at the present.


  Many European countries and cultures have stories of werewolves, including France (loup-garou), Greece (lycanthropos), Spain (hombre lobo), Bulgaria (varkolak, vulkodlak), Czech Republic (vlkodlak), Serbia (vukodlak), Russia (oboroten' , vurdalak), Ukraine (vovkulak(a),vovkun, pereverten' ), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkolak), Romania (varcolac), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werwolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), Denmark/Sweden (Varulv), Galicia(lobisÛn),, Portugal(( lobisomem)) Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra (home llop), Estonia (libahunt), Argentina (lobizon, hombre lobo) and Italy (lupo mannaro). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into animals including bears and wolves.   In Norse mythology, the legends of Ulfhednar (an Old Norse term for a warrior with attributes parallel to those of a berserker, but with a lupine aspect rather than ursine; both terms refer
 to a special type of warrior capable of performing feats far beyond the abilities of normal people. Historically, this was attributed to possession by the spirit of an animal) mentioned in Haraldskvaeoi and the Volsunga saga may be a source of the werewolf myths. These were vicious fighters analogous to the better known berserker, dressed in wolf hides and said to channel the spirits of these animals, enhancing their own power and ferocity in battle; they were immune to pain and killed viciously in battle, like a wild animal. They are both closely associated with Odin.   In Latvian mythology, the Vilkacis was a person changed into a wolf-like monster, though the Vilkacis was occasionally beneficial.   A closely related set of myths are the skin-walkers. These myths probably have a common base in Proto-Indo-European society, where the class of young, unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves.   Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in myths from all
 over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.   In Greek mythology the story of Lycaon supplies one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one form of it Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycaon was said to suffer a similar fate.   The Roman Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthus' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then, if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former shape. Probably the two stories are identical, though we hear nothing of participation in the Lycaean sacrifice by the descendant of Antaeus.   Herodotus in his Histories 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. In the novel Satyricon, written about year 60 by Gaius Petronius, one of the characters recites a story about a man who turns into a wolf during a full moon.
Profile of a Werewolf
A werewolf is a human being, man woman, or child (more often the first), who either voluntarily or involuntarily changes or is metamorphosed onto the apparent shape of a wolf, and who is then possessed of all the brute strength, and swiftness of that animal... Werewolfery is hereditary or acquired; a horrible pleasure born of the thirst to quaff warm human blood...Masqued and clad in the shape of the most dreaded and fiercest denizen of the forest the witch came forth under the cover of darkness, prowling in lonely places to seek his prey...
The werewolf loved to tear raw human flesh. He lapped the blood of his mangled victims, and with gorged reeking belly he bore the warm offal of their palpitating entrails to the sabbat to present in homage and foul sacrifice to the Monstrous Goat who sat upon the throne of worship and adoration. His appetites were depraved beyond humanity. In bestial rut he covered the fierce she-wolves amid their bosky lairs.....
 

       There are women, so the Armenian belief runs, who in consequence of deadly sins are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. A spirit comes to such a woman and brings her a wolf's skin. He orders her to put it on, and no sooner has she done this than the most frightful wolfish cravings make their appearance and soon get the upper hand. Her better nature conquered, she makes a meal of her own children, one by one, then of her relatives' children according to the degree of relationship, and finally the children of strangers begin to fall as prey to her. She wanders forth only at night, and doors and locks spring open at her approach. When morning draws near she returns to human form and removes her wolf skin. In these cases the transformation was involuntary or virtually so. But side by side with this belief in involuntary metamorphosis, we find the belief that human beings can change themselves into animals at will and then resume their own form.   France
 in particular seems to have been infested with werewolves during the 16th century, and the consequent trials were very numerous. 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, as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf, but none against the accused.   Yet while this lycanthropy fever, both of suspectors and of suspected, was at its height, it was decided in the case of Jean Grenier at Bordeaux in 1603 that lycanthropy was nothing more than an insane delusion. From this time the loup-garou gradually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous heretic, and fell back into his pre-Christian position of being simply a "man-wolf-fiend".   The lubins or lupins of France were usually female and shy in contrast to the
 aggressive loup-garous.   In Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania, according to the bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werwolves were in the 16th century 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".   The wolf was still extant in England in 1600, but had become extinct by 1680. At the beginning of the 17th century the punishment of witchcraft was still zealously prosecuted by James I of England, and that pious monarch regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic".   Many of the werewolves in European tradition were most innocent and God-fearing persons, who suffered through the witchcraft of others, or simply from an unhappy fate, and who as wolves behaved in a truly touching fashion, fawning upon and protecting their benefactors. In Marie de France's
 poem Bisclaveret (c. 1200), the nobleman Bisclavret, 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 behavior at court was so gentle and harmless than when his wife and her new husband appeared at court, his attack on them was taken as evidence of reason to hate them, and the truth was revealed. Others of this sort were the hero of William and the Werewolf (translated from French into English about 1350), and the numerous princes and princesses, knights and ladies, who appear temporarily in beast form in the German fairy tales, or Marchen.   Indeed, the power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but also to Christian saints. 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 transformed Vereticus, a king in Wales, into a wolf; and St. Natalis cursed an illustrious Irish family with the result that each member of it was doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is still more direct, while in Russia, again, men are supposed to become werewolves through incurring the wrath of the devil.   Some werewolf lore is based on documented events. The Beast of Gévaudan was a creature that reportedly terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, in today's Lozère département, in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France, in the general timeframe of 1764 to 1767. It was often described as a giant wolf and was said to attack livestock and humans indiscriminately.   In the late 1990s, a string of man-eating wolf attacks were reported in Uttar Pradesh, India. Frightened people
 claimed, among other things, that the wolves were werewolves.     Becoming a Werewolf  Historical legends describe a wide variety of methods for becoming a werewolf. One of the simplest was the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolf skin, probably a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin which also is frequently described.   In other cases the body is rubbed with a magic salve.   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.   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. It is also said that the seventh son of the seventh son will become werewolf.   Another is to be directly bitten by a werewolf, where the saliva enters the
 blood stream.   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. This belief was so extended in Northern Argentina (where it is called the "lobizón"), that seventh sons were abandoned, ceded in adoption or killed. A law from 1920 decreed that the President of Argentina is the godfather of every seventh son. Thus, the State gives him a gold medal in his baptism and a scholarship until his 21st year. This ended the abandonments, but it is still traditional that the President godfathers seventh sons.   Various methods also existed for removing the beast-shape. The simplest was the act of the enchanter (operating either on himself 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 saluted with the sign of the cross, or addressed thrice by
 baptismal name, 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.   In other cases the transformation was supposed to be accomplished by Satanic agency voluntarily submitted to, and that for the most loathsome ends, in particular for the gratification of a craving for human flesh. "The werwolves," writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628), "are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an oyntment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, doe not onely unto the view of others seeme as wolves, but to their owne thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they weare the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in wourrying and killing, and
 most of humane creatures." Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote. The ointments and salves in question may have contained hallucinogenic agents.   Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern fiction, but rare in legend, in which werewolf attacks seldom left the victim alive to transform    Theories of Origin  A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. 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 at least poor areas of towns and results in hallucinations, mass hysteria and paranoia, as well as convulsions and sometimes death. (LSD can be derived from ergot.)   Ergot poisoning has been proposed as both a cause of an individual believing that he or
 she is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had seen a werewolf. However, this theory is controversial and unsatisfactory. Witchcraft hysteria and legends of animal transformations, as well as hysteria and superstition in general, have existed across the world for all of recorded history. Even if ergot poisoning is found to be an accurate explanation in some cases, it cannot be applied to all instances. An over-reliance on any one theory denies the diversity and complexity of such occurrences.   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) as an explanation for werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features which include photosensitivity (so sufferers only go out at night), hairy hands and face, poorly healing skin, pink urine, and reddish colour to the teeth. 
 There is also a rare mental disorder called clinical lycanthropy, in which an affected person has a delusional belief that he or she is transforming into another animal, although not always a wolf or werewolf.   Others believe werewolf legends arose as a part of shamanism and totem animals in primitive and nature-based cultures.   The term therianthropy has been adopted to describe a spiritual concept in which the individual believes he or she has the spirit or soul, in whole or in part, of a non-human animal.     Werewolves in Modern Fiction  The process of transmogrification is portrayed in many films and works of literature to be painful. The resulting wolf is typically cunning but merciless, and prone to killing and eating people without compunction regardless of the moral character of the person when human. The form a werewolf takes is not always an ordinary wolf, but is often anthropomorphic or may be otherwise larger and more powerful than an ordinary wolf.   Many
 modern werewolves are also 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 a disease by the bite of another werewolf.   More recently, the portrayal of werewolves has taken an even more sympathetic turn in some circles. 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.
  
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