Werewolves

[Greg C.]

Another compilation of articles for your creepy enjoyment...

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.

[Greg C.]

Becoming a werwolf

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). 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. 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). 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.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)

[Greg C.]

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.

Others believe that werewolf legends were partly inspired from shamanism and totem animals in primitive and nature-based cultures.

Werewolves in 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. 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.

[neferetus]

Lon Chaney Jr. remains the motion picture screen's favorite werewolf. As Larry Talbot, a transplanted American who returns to his father's estate in Wales, Chaney is bitten by a werewolf (Bela Lugosi) and discovers soon enough that he too is now a werewolf. What separates THE WOLF MAN from later werewolf tales is that the viewer comes to like and even feel sorry for poor Larry Talbot and his predicament. This, even after he has killed several innocent people. That's quite a feather in the cap of the film's creators.

There's an advertizement for a soon to be released werewolf movie about a pack of vicious werefolk, that I will probably not go see. They all look like dirtbag werewolves and I have no sympathy for them. They are evil and if they should all get killed, I would not care in the least.




The producers apparently just do not get it. An audience wants to really feel for the character on the screen and then mourn his loss. As I said, I really felt bad for Larry Talbot. I even felt bad for that American werewolf in London. But to go to a new werewolf film that's just going to make me come away feeling angry...what's the point?

[Greg C.]

American Werewolf in London was very good and you are right, it left me feeling sorry for him in the end.

[Cole_blooded]

Boy I like Werewolf flicks too, have since a youngster! ;D

My favorite Werewolf flicks are:

The Wolfman

I was a Teenage Werewolf

The Howling

American Werewolf in London

Bad Moon

Cursed

Dog Soldiers

Ginger Snaps

TED COLE....aka....Cole_blooded

[neferetus]

The most infamous scene in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON occurs when the two young American backpackers seek refuge in a local pub. Somehow the talk turns to movies. One of the backpackers remarks how "Laurence Harvey was in the Alamo. That was a bloody film." "Yeah," smirks one of the locals, "Bloody awful!"

[Bromhead24]

admin said:

American Werewolf in London was very good and you are right, it left me feeling sorry for him in the end.

I felt more sorry for Jenny Agutter...I wanted to compfort her in a way no other man could

[neferetus]

What can one say to that?

Ahhhhhhhhoooooooo, (Werewolves of London.)

[Greg C.]

neferetus said:

What can one say to that?

Ahhhhhhhhoooooooo, (Werewolves of London.)

I never liked Jethro Tull....

[neferetus]

The version of WEREWOLVES OF LONDON I'm referring to is by Warren Zevon.

[Greg C.]

neferetus said:

The version of WEREWOLVES OF LONDON I'm referring to is by Warren Zevon.

Oops. I thought it was by Jethro Tull...

[Cole_blooded]

I listened to Jethro Tull for several years 69-73 but never had a chance to see them live! 8-)

TED COLE....aka....Cole_blooded 8-)

[neferetus]

coleblooded said:

I listened to Jethro Tull for several years 69-73 but never had a chance to see them live! 8-)

TED COLE....aka....Cole_blooded 8-)

I gues that makes you feel Thick As A Brick now, Ted.

[neferetus]

Even a man who is pure of heart
And says his prayers at night
Can become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms
And the full moon's shining bright.

[Cole_blooded]

You betcha, when that transformation starts with the full moon I`ll be out in the forrest howling "Bungle in the Jungle"! ;D

TED COLE....aka....Cole_blooded