werewolf

A werewolf (or lycanthrope) 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 fiction agrees that a werewolf can be killed if shot by a silver bullet, although this was not a feature of folk legends. Werewolves are sometimes held to become vampires after death.^[1]

Origins and variations of the word

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 var, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Latin vir, 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 bearlike berserkr who were said to wear a wolf skin into battle.

Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf ^{citation needed]}, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "outlaw" or, euphemistically, "wolf". A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd, but ate only a little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the individual wolf that had run mad before it destroyed their entire flock or herd. They would then often hang the wolf's hide in the bedroom of a young infant, believing it to give the baby supernatural powers. Warg by itself was used in Old English for this specific 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, outlaws (who could be killed at will with no legal repercussions and were forbidden to receive aid) were often referred to as vargr; that is, wolf.

The Greek term Lycanthropy (a compound of which the first part derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root for "wolf", *wlkwo-, as the English word) is also commonly used for the "wolf - man" transformation. The term for the metamorphosis of people into animals in general, rather than wolves specifically, is therianthropy (therianthrope means beast-man). The term turnskin or turncoat (Latin: versipellis,^[2] Russian : oboroten, O. Norse: hamrammr) is sometimes also used. 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]

Compare: Shapeshifting

History of the werewolf

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^{citation needed]}), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, pereverten' ), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (vârcolac), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv), Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf), Galicia(lobisón), Portugal (lobisomem), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra (home llop), Estonia (libahunt), Argentina (lobizón, 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 mentioned in Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði and the Völsunga 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.^{citation needed]} 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. See lycanthropy and therianthropy for more information.

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,^[5] 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^[6] 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.^[7] 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.

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.^{citation needed]} 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.^{citation needed]}

In Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania, according to the bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werewolves 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^[8] 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 Märchen. 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.

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.^{citation needed]} In other cases the body is rubbed with a magic salve.^{citation needed]} 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.^{citation needed]} 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.^{citation needed]} 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. The belief in the curse of the seventh son was so extended in Northern Argentina (where the werewolf 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 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 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

Many authors have put forward the idea that stories of werewolves (and vampires) 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 (such as cannibalism, mutilation and cyclic attacks) commonly associated with the attack of a werewolf. 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 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 not well 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) 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.^{citation needed]} 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

Main article: Werewolves in 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. Some recent fiction also discards the idea that the wolf form overtakes the human mind, and instead postulates that the wolf form can be "used" at will, with the lycanthrope retaining their human thought processes and intelligence.

As a side note, the general belief that silver can be used to defend yourself against a werewolf comes from the story The Beast of Gévaudan from 1764 to 1767. A magician named Joan Chastel blessed a silver bullet (throughout mythology silver is the only metal to "share" its magical property as a whole, in short bless one you bless them all) and seriously wounded the werewolf. Even though it did not die it had been shown that silver had become a powerfull tool to aid the humans.

Examples of werewolves in recent fiction:

• Remus Lupin and Fenrir Greyback, in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
• Jon Talbain is a martial artist in the Darkstalkers videogame series. His personal story revolves around his struggle both with struggle for self controlfrom his beastial nature and his search for a permanent solution.
• Sergeant Delphine Angua von Überwald, and the rest of the von Überwald family, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
• Lupine, from Reaper Man, also by Terry Pratchett, though in his case, the transformation was from wolf into human, instead of human into wolf.
• Velkan Valerias and Van Helsing in the movie Van Helsing.
• Captain Hans Günsche from the manga Hellsing.
• Vivian and many other characters in Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.
• Oz in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It should be noted that the "wolf" form was rarely used in episodes, and most action took place off-screen, being alluded to the next day. One reason for this could be that the werewolf costume has been described as looking like "a rug with a thyroid problem".
• Scott Howard (portrayed by Michael J. Fox) in Teen Wolf.
• An alien (in human form) in Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw.
• Kelley Armstrong has written several books that feature Elena, a female werewolf, and her Pack. Although the Pack are the "good guys", non-Pack werewolves are usually evil.
• Billy Borden and the Alphas in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files
• In the movie Underworld (2003), Michael Sheen plays as Lucian, the leader of the Lycans (werewolves) against the vampires.
• Jacob Black and friends in the novel New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.

Other uses of the term

In World War II, the German SS formed an irregular network of Partisan like units to resist the occupation of allied forces. These units were to be known as "werewolves". 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. Between the years of 1945, and up until 1948 they fought a campaign of resistance. See Werwolf.

See also

• The Book of Werewolves
• Lycanthropy
• Clinical lycanthropy
• Rougarou
• Shapeshifting
• Therianthropy (mythology)
• Vampire
• Hypertrichosis
• Wolfsangel
• Beast of Gévaudan
• Werwolf
• Vârcolac
• Werecat
• Werewolves in fiction
• Witchcraft
• Wild hunt

Footnotes

1. ^ Summers, 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. ^ Pliny the Elder. “viii”, Historia Naturalis, 81. 22/34
6. ^ Herodotus. “iv”, Histories, 105.
7. ^ Virgil. “viii”, Eclogues, 98.
8. ^ “iii”, Demonologie.

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
• 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

• The french website of the werewolf : www.loups-garou.fr
• Arby Stones, "Hellhounds, Werewolves and the Germanic Underworld"
• The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865
• Therianthropy History Timeline
• Allen Varney, "The New Improved Beast" (Originally InQuest, Wizard Press, 1995).