werewolf - Origins and variations of the word, History of the werewolf, Becoming a werewolf, Theories of origin

In traditional belief, a person assuming the form of a wolf, usually involuntarily and temporarily. There are traces of the belief in Ancient Greek religion, and it existed in much of Europe, but especially in the Balkans. It seems to be related to some kind of initiation rite, in which youths wore animal skins.

A werewolf (also lycanthrope or wolfman) 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.

Origins and variations of the word

The name most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. 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 , 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. 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 French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf.

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), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, pereverten' ), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (vârcolac), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), Holland (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), Estonia (libahunt), Argentina (lobizón, hombre lobo) and Italy (lupo mannaro).

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;

In Latvian mythology, the Vilkacis was a person changed into a wolf-like monster, though the Vilkacis was occasionally beneficial.

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; This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape for nine years. 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.{The Fables of Mkhitar Gosh (New York, 1987), translated with an introduction by R. Bedrosian, edited by Elise Antreassian and illustrated by Anahid Janjigian} A spirit comes to such a woman and brings her a wolf's skin. When morning draws near she returns to human form and removes her wolf skin.

France in particular seems to have been infested with werewolves during the 16th century, and the consequent trials were very numerous. in other cases, as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf, but none against the accused.

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 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.

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. 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.

Indeed, the power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but also to Christian saints. 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.

Some werewolf lore is based on documented events. 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.

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. It is also said that the seventh son of the seventh son will become a 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. 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.

Various methods also existed for removing the beast-shape. 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.

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.

A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. (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.

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.

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. 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.

Note that an alternative explanation for the "silver" weakness is that it has been a mistranslation of "silvered metal" which actually refers to quicksilver/mercury, an injection of which was thought to be fatal to werewolves (and, of course, to other living beings!)

Examples of werewolves in recent fiction:

Remus Lupin and Fenrir Greyback, in J. Lupine, from Reaper Man, also by Terry Pratchett, though in his case, the transformation was from wolf into human, instead of human into wolf. 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".The original costume was more like a wolf which was only used in the first episode, Phases, while in the third and fourth seasons, the costume gained the look of an ape rather than a wolf. Kelley Armstrong has written several books that feature Elena, a female werewolf, and her Pack. Kern in Charles de Lint's novel Wolf Moon Adam and others in Patricia Briggs' Moon Called An episode of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has people transforming into mechanical monsters known as "wirewolves". In 2000, the film Ginger Snaps, about a teen-aged werewolf and her sister was released. In the soon-to-be-released nintendo game the legend of zelda the twilight princess, link, the main protagonist, is a bimorphic werewolf for most of the game.

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.