Human to animal shapeshifting creatures are a worldwide phenomenon. Were-predatory beasts exist in a myriad of forms: werehyenas, weretigers, werepanthers, werejaguars… but the werewolf is the most notorious of them all. There’s so much history behind the infamous shapeshifters that we’re going to take two episodes to trace the beginnings of the werewolf in Europe through their entrance into modern literature and pop culture.
The first thing to understand about the history of the werewolf is that there is no single origin. Legends of these lupine shapeshifters are so numerous and widespread, their pervasiveness makes identifying one universal definition or origin of the wolf-human monster challenging. Despite the werewolf ’s widespread appearance in folklore, I’ll admit I haven’t really given the werewolf the attention it deserves—until now.
[Monstrum intro] The wolf has symbolized everything from an admirable patron of warriors, to figures for greed, and even as the Devil in disguise. These near-silent, deadly predators were at one point the most widely distributed land mammal, claiming large swaths of the globe as their hunting grounds—and wolves posed a very real threat to humans and their livestock. Still, we seemed to have admired the animals.
Our ancestors donned the skins of predators while hunting, perhaps to camouflage themselves, or to evoke the spirit of an animal during the hunt, as archeological artifacts and ancient art reveal. Humans and wolves existed as both allies and enemies. While some wolves were eventually domesticated for hunting and protection— their wild brethren remained a threat.
These early connections set the stage for a complex relationship between man, wolf, and were-hybrid. But does that mean werewolves were originally a universal monster, or were there other factors that came into play? To understand the origins of the werewolves more clearly, I reached out to Dr Kaja Franck, werewolf expert and visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire] Wolves themselves exists in many different countries and in many different continents.
And because of this, they have become powerful symbols of the animal, other. Wolves, and their behavior is often very similar to how humans exist. They live in families and they hunt as packs and they predate on the same creatures that we'd like to eat ourselves.
And so it makes sense that folklore would absorb these creatures and they would recur in myths and in legends. And he would, would see them as existing on the boundaries of what it was to be human and what it was to be animal. The connections between wolves and humans are deeply ingrained in ancient literature and lore.
These early stories seem to categorize werewolves into three different types: the “victim” where an innocent person is cursed to turn into a wolf but maintains human reason; the “damned” who are violent humans that become wolves as a punishment to both their body and soul; and the “warrior” where humans take on the guise of the wolf to aid in success in battle. The oldest piece of surviving literature we know about —The Epic of Gilgamesh—portrays a “victim” werewolf in what is widely considered the oldest werewolf story on record. Written between 1300 and 1000 BCE it tells of an unlucky shepherd whom the goddess Inanna, turns into a wolf.
In contrast, werewolves of Ancient Greece and Roman mythology are dominantly portrayed as the “damned” werewolf, representing a tradition of human to wolf transformations distinguished by deviant deeds. In the Greek text, Agriopas’ Olympionics, a man is turned into a wolf for 10 years as punishment for eating human entrails. Cannibalism is a recurring theme in ancient myths that use wolf transformation as a cautionary tale.
Linking human cannibalism to wolves isn’t that far-fetched; wolves are above all opportunistic eaters. In addition to scavenging animal corpses of all kinds—including humans—wolves have been known to eat the remains of their own species. In the first century CE, Pliny wrote Naturalis Historia, associating human cannibalism with wolf-like behavior and features.
About 8 CE, Ovid’s Metamorphoses interprets another Greek legend about the god Zeus and King Lycaon of Arcadia. According to the story, the Roman god Jupiter hears rumors that King Lycaon is practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism, so he descends to earth in human form to discover the truth. Lycaon is unconvinced of Jupiter’s divinity, and decides to put his omniscience to the test.
He kills, butchers, and attempts to serve human flesh to the god. Jupiter is appalled by the crime, and the deception, so he destroys the king’s household in a mad rage. A distraught Lycaon takes to the fields—howling.
Drven mad by his own misdeeds, he begins to slaughter the flocks as a horrible transformation takes place. His clothes become hair, his arms turn to legs—and he transforms fully into a wolf, although his human eyes remain. If the name Lycaon sounds familiar, your wolf sense might be tingling.
The Greek word ‘lykos’ meaning ‘wolf’ and ‘anthropos’ meaning ‘man,’ inspired the word lycanthropy or “wolf-man syndrome. ” The word was invented in the early second century by the Greek physician Marcellus to define a melancholy affliction identified by the habit of frequenting cemeteries and behaving like wolves and dogs. The third ancient werewolf trope, the “warrior,” is perhaps most famously associated with berserkers, Ancient Nordic fighters who took on a predatory animal’s characteristics in battle.
Bears, wolves, and boars were revered by berserkers, and it was believed that literally donning the skin of an animal allowed a transformation to occur. They would fight with crazed, seemingly preternatural violence, howling and roaring on the battlefield. Instead of separating humans from beasts, this concept respects both in tandem.
However, psychological and physical shapeshifting were seen as different concepts. The berserker took on the spirit of the animal but did not physically change form. In the 13th century collection, Saga of the Volsungs , werewolves appear multiple times.
In one story, a princess named Signy marries a rival king, who in war kills her father and captures her 10 brothers. One by one, the brothers are eaten by a large mysterious she-wolf. This happens every night until only one, Sigmund, is left.
With his sister's help and a little honey,, Sigmund kills the wolf, believed to be a human woman in disguise, by biting off her tongue. " The now-dead creature is believed to be Signy's mother-in-law who had taken on a wolf form through witchcraft. In another example from the Saga, a thieving father and son duo find two magic wolf pelts in a forest hut.
They put on the skins, transform into wolves, and are horrified to learn they cannot transform back; unbeknownst to them, the skins can only be removed every 10 days. In wolf form, they decide to separate but if they meet too much trouble on their own, they should howl for help. The son ignores this warning and manages to kill 11 men before severely injuring himself.
After the 10 days pass, both men return to human form. Horrified by the experience they burn the magic pelts. As thieves, the two live separated from society, embodying wolfish tendencies before turning into literal wolves.
In the Norse language the word for wolf is varg. Since wolves were considered withdrawn and solitary, varg inspired the word vargr—which roughly translates to outlaw. While some etymologists argue that the ‘wer’ in “werewolf’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘man’ other’s claim that the extra ‘e,’ and the common variations of ‘war-‘ and ‘varg’ challenge this idea.
One thing that does seem clear is that from the beginning of their infamous name, werewolves have been associated with solitude and violence. The etymology itself is somewhat complicated and not always clear. It said that it could come from the old English or from the old German or from a mixture of two.
What does seem to be clear is that it specifically refers to the word man Wolf and by man, I don't mean how we use the term man today, meaning mankind, but rather masculine or male, the male or masculine human. And so werewolf necessarily means a male monster. And this certainly has been the case that we do find that there are definitely more male werewolves than there are female werewolves.
The Germanic Nordic traditions spread across Europe as its people did and that’s why werewolf stories are found in indigenous Icelandic sources It’s also likely that Celtic werewolf stories were likewise influenced by the Ancient Nordic people, especially given that the strongest werewolf tradition comes from Ossory, an area with strong historical ties to vikings. As the werewolf legend spread, different cultures and geographic areas contributed their own unique flourishes—resulting in a staggering number of werewolf variations. Serbian legend says one becomes a werewolf if you drink water from the footprint of a wolf.
Danish tradition dictates that only Danish men can become werewolves. Russian folk belief claims that a witch placing her girdle under a house’s threshold on the inhabitant’s wedding day will turn all who are celebrating into wolves once they cross over it. The introduction of Christianity saw these ancient beliefs and myths rewritten as “pagan” and therefore sinful—so the werewolf became something to be disproved and denied, through mental illness or demonic influence.
Human to wolf transformation would be a defiance of divinity—only God had the power to alter something so completely. The first recorded use of the word “werewolf” appears in the 11th century in the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of King Cnut (c. 1016-1035), where it’s used symbolically to warn Christian clergy to be on the lookout for those who might threaten their congregation.
The differences and similarities in European werewolves under Christianity reflect the dominant anxieties and values of Europe during the Middle Ages. One such example emerged in the recurring trope of the “Sympathetic Werewolf,” where a human soul trapped in a wolf body could be divinely saved if they showed their devotion to God. Celtic traditions of werewolves from the time developed to shape the creature into victims suffering from involuntary transformation, a sympathetic interpretation that reflects the heavy influence of Christianity in the country, as illustrated in archdeacon and historian Gerald of Wales’s account of the landscape and people of Ireland.
Published in the late 12th Century, Topographia Hibernica, narrates an encounter between a priest and a werewolf where the monster asks the holy man for communion and last rites for his wife—who is also a werewolf—a fact that is revealed when the desperate male werewolf pulls back her wolf skin to reveal an elderly woman. Perhaps the singular most important ‘Sympathetic Werewolf’ tale of the 12th century is located in Marie de France’s Bisclavret. Published in the latter part of the century, the French poem of a werewolf knight was translated into Old Norse—broadening its readership.
The story focuses on a handsome, happily married noble knight—who just so happens to disappear from home every three days. His wife accuses him of having an affair, and he won’t defend his absence saying the truth will only harm her. The wife asks him again and again for an explanation until finally, he says “My lady, I turn bisclavret;/ I plunge into that great forest.
/ In thick woods I like it best. / I live on what prey I can get. ” He’s naked when this happens and will not tell her where he hides his clothes because if they are lost he could stay a werewolf forever.
After a bit of nagging, he reveals they are under a bush at an old chapel. The terrified wife devises a plan to escape the marriage. She and her lover steal her husband’s clothes and when he never returns home, the lovers marry.
A year later, the missing husband’s friend, the King, is hunting in their woods when he comes across Bisclavret in werewolf form. Instead of killing the beast, the King spares his life after the wolf shows his human side—kissing his foot and leg. The werewolf joins the King’s retinue and is well cared for.
All is well until Bisclavret's wife’s new husband attends the King’s feast and the werewolf bites the knight and drags him away, although the king manages to stop him from killing the man. Bisclavret is violent again when the King’s hunting party comes across his scheming wife and he attacks the woman—tearing off her nose and face. He is about to be killed when a “wise fellow” proposes that his violence against these two people shows he has a great grudge and speculates the beast is the missing knight.
Under the King’s questioning, in pain and fear the lady confesses to stealing the clothing. The King demands its return, but Bisclavret ignores the clothes, too ashamed to show the “terrible” change “from the form of a beast. ” Only when he is alone does Bisclavret don the clothes, turning back to human form.
The lady and her knight are expelled from the realm, and in an interesting extension of the “werewolf’s curse,” some of their female progeny are born without noses. Other European werewolf traditions grew as well. The “Sympathetic Werewolf” was joined by the “Werewolf Lover.
” In these tales, a woman is attacked by a wolf who rips off some of her clothes, usually her apron or skirt. Later, when he returns in human form, the woman recognizes him as the werewolf by the clothing or threads between his teeth. In some versions, the women escape by throwing off their clothing, which the werewolf attacks instead.
Scholars often read these stories as symbolic of sexual assault against women. There is also the “Wounded Werewolf” a trope where the male human form of the werewolf is only revealed when the beast is struck by a knife or a piece of wood. Now that his human identity is revealed, he is no longer a threat.
Then there are the “Back Rider” or “Wolf-Rider” stories, where a man transforms into a werewolf with the help of a special belt or skin. These werewolves would cling to the back of a male victim. During the Middle Ages, werewolf legends evolved and expanded, becoming more widespread—and more demonized by the Church.
Reports of werewolf activity increased. Barry Lopez and his book of wolves and men suggest that one of the reasons why the way that the werewolf was changing in terms of depiction was in part because of the way wolves were being seen in the 14 hundreds in Europe, farming was changing and it was becoming more, um, about sheep and sheep became a center of the economy within Europe. Now, unfortunately not only did humans like sheep, but so did wolves.
And suddenly there was a sense that wolves were predating, that wolves were destroying expensive sheep and because of the preexisting symbolism within, uh, religion, within Christianity, regarding the Wolf and sheep, as God's flock, it quite nicely fitted in together that the Wolf became seen as more monstrous and monstrous. And therefore the wealth became seen as more and more monstrous. And that a transformation into the Wolf was necessarily an evil thing, most likely caused by the enemy of God, the devil.
As werewolf stories continued to rise in popularity, the Church’s stance on the creature changed. Where before, it was an official sin in the Christian Church to believe in werewolves because it suggested that beings other than God could alter physical substance. However, beginning in the later 16th century it was considered heretical to not believe in werewolves, a change that came after the Church shifted its attention to persecuting witches.
This change seems to be an attempt again, to deal with the proliferation of werewolves, but also to deal with the fact that the belief and the myth of Wells doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And so it made more sense to suggest that the devil literally could transform man into Wolf. And I think this is because the church saw that it was far better to keep responding and adapting and absorbing these beliefs rather than absolutely refuting them.
Shape-changing into wolves became a component in witchcraft accusations and was often accompanied by charges of cannibalism. Part of the rise of the so-called “werewolf trials” is also due to a seminal text on identifying and punishing witches— the Malleus Maleficarum. Co-authored by Catholic clergyman and inquisitors Heinrich Kraemer and Johann Sprenger, after its publication in 1486, this legal and theological text not only became the standard for witch-hunting, it served as a handbook for the approved torture of those accused.
The text claimed some witches were able to turn into wolves, although this metamorphosis was an illusion rather than a true transformation. It was the “Devil” who helped produce glamours, a kind of magic that makes things appear different from their true form, in this case—making someone appear as a wolf. This werewolf glamour increased strength, speed, and intelligence, all advantages to help them kill and eat humans.
Medieval Christian demonologists also believed the Devil could appear in the form of a wolf. The rise in Christian doctrine condemning witchcraft is only one factor as to why cannibalistic werewolf accusations rose. The Black Death, or the bubonic plague, is another.
By the end of the 14th century, it is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 75% of the global population succumbed to the Black Death. Fewer people meant less encroachment on the wolves’ natural habitat, and therefore the wolf population grew. In the 15th and 16th centuries, reports of roving wolf packs increased.
They ate livestock and occasionally attacked humans, which corresponded to an increase in werewolf accusations throughout Europe. In France belief in werewolves, or in loup-garou --men destined to become wolves at the full moon, were at an all-time high during the Inquisition, with 30,000 reported cases between 1520-1630, not surprising given the aim to combat heresy. And when French colonizers traveled to places like Canada, Haiti, and Louisiana, the loup-garou took on additional characteristics as it encountered the folklore of the indigenous and enslaved peoples.
The myths and the ideas regarding werewolves and wolves would travel to the new world with the settlers and colonizers who came from Europe. These creatures that we had thought we had destroyed or left behind in many ways, therefore the landscape seemed to be a landscape of nightmares. Now, the colonizers made use in some ways of these preexisting myths, it gave a function for why wolves had to be destroyed.
Unfortunately, the hatred of wolves would be misapplied as well to the indigenous population. And so the way that Walzer this seen as Savage and voracious creatures was used in intimately recessed and violent terms against the native Americans themselves and the death of the walls was done alongside the death of the native Americans. Werewolf trials in Central and Western Europe peaked in the early-17th century.
the label “werewolf” could be applied to someone who engaged in heinous crimes outside of witchcraft—like murder, cannibalism, and rape In many cases the shapeshifting was less significant than the murder and cannibalism associated with the change. In fact, during the 16th century, many of the werewolf executions reported by the Catholic Church involved confessions of eating human flesh, particularly that of children. No 16th-century werewolf gained more notoriety than German farmer Peeter Stubbe.
It was said he had made a deal with the Devil that allowed him to take the shape of a wolf in order to kill men, women, and children without getting caught—for over 25 years. Stubbe was captured by a group of hunters looking for the beast that had been slaughtering their families and livestock. Their dogs succeeded in chasing down a wolf, but the hunters lost sight of it—only to see Stubbe in the same spot the wolf had vanished.
The hunters assumed he had removed his werewolf girdle and regained his human form, After a little torture on the rack, he quickly confessed to procuring the girdle, becoming a wolf, murdering 14 children and 2 pregnant women, He reportedly killed his own son and ate his brain, committed incest with his daughter and sister and was rumored to have a long affair with a “she Devil” sent to him by Satan. His daughter and mistress were also tried and found guilty as accessories to the murders and on October 31, 1589, they were all executed. Stubbe was laid on a wheel and burning pincers were used to pull the flesh off his body.
His legs and arms were broken, and his head was removed, the body burned to ash. His daughter and mistress were burned to death with his corpse. Stubbe’s severed head was spiked on a pole and displayed below a wooden carving of a wolf.
The cruelty of the crimes and punishment were immortalized in 1590 as an English narrative: A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter—the first popular werewolf narrative in England that reinvigorated Great Britain’s interest in the monster after it had all but been eradicated in the previous few centuries after aggressive wolf cleansing campaigns. The Stubbe case, and others like it, are today recognized by many scholars as evidence of early human serial killers rather than supernatural werewolves. This reflects a movement that began hundreds of years before as history attempted to rationalize or explain the actions of those who claimed to be wolf shapeshifters.
While today there is a distinction between the fictional werewolf and the condition of lycanthropy, the two ideas were entwined for most of history. As early as the second century and well into the 18th century, “Lycanthropy” could refer to both the literal transformation of human to wolf using magic and to a form of mental illness where a person believed they could become a wolf. Today, physicians recognize ‘clinical lycanthropy’ or “lycomania” as a real disorder— a rare condition where patients believe they are transforming into or have transformed into a non-human animal.
Another explanation behind werewolves is a hallucination brought on by drugs. Archeological and literary evidence suggests that the ‘trance’ that endowed the berserkers with supposed increased strength and speed may have been caused by the ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Another commonly cited hallucinogen that may have contributed to werewolf delusions is outbreaks of ergot poisoning.
The fungus can infect rye, wheat, barley, and oats—common food sources—and when ingested causes hallucinations and physical symptoms like uncontrollable body movements, panic attacks, a burning sensation, and gangrene. As recently as in 1951, victims of ergot poisoning in France reported werewolf hallucinations. Yet another proposed medical explanation for werewolf lore is .
Also called “werewolf syndrome” or “Ambras syndrome. ” The disease causes extreme hair growth that often covers the entire body. Documented since the 17th century, it is a recognized condition today believed to be caused by gene mutation.
An excess of hair in unusual places was often cited as evidence of a werewolf in their human form, so some accused werewolves may have just been suffering from this condition. Then in the 20th century, two new explanations appeared: porphyria and rabies. Porphyria is a rare genetic disease characterized by severe photosensitivity that results in some stereotypical werewolf traits: hyperpigmentation, excessive hair growth, nocturnal wandering, and red or reddish-brown teeth.
The rabies virus causes crazed and frenzied behavior in animals (including wolves) who are driven to more aggressive behavior when the virus attacks the brain, often against other animals and even humans. In humans, symptoms include difficulty swallowing, increased thirst, inflammation of the brain, hypersexuality, irrational fear of water, contraction of the lips—and although extremely rare, the desire to bite other humans. I can't count the number of times that people have explained to me that the reason why anyone has ever believed in werewolves is because of porphyria or ergot poisoning or hyper hirsutism.
And I find this a really flawed way of thinking about where wolves and monsters more generally. I think tried to explain the way beliefs actually destroys the power and the wonder of the supernatural and also the symbolism and importance of monsters. I think really it's far better to allow werewolves, to remain a creature that can be interpreted in a multiplicity of different ways.
And for us to understand that where wolves, wolves, and other monsters remain powerful symbols within the human imagination. The proposed explanations for werewolves aren’t quite as numerous as the different variations of this monster, but they indicate a desire to understand strange and deviant behavior. Given that wolves were at one point the most common and dangerous land-based predators in Europe and did pose an immediate threat to humans, their connection to witchcraft and werewolves—other perceived threats to humanity—isn’t all that surprising.
Fear of the werewolf in the Medieval and Early Modern period seems to be about the possibility that the body is malleable. The mental capacity to shed one’s identity so dramatically, into another “body” or persona that seems more monstrous, violent, and unpredictable, may have helped us explain the crimes humanity can commit against one another. The werewolf is one of the most well-known monsters we’ve covered on Monstrum, and one that has endured for centuries.
But why? In part two of the series, we’ll cover how the Werewolf has continued to claw at our modern imagainations.
