Hombreslobo

The history, meaning, allure and reality of this shapeshifter, the werewolf

MOST OF US are only aware of the werewolf through films, TV shows and perhaps novels, but the tradition of the werewolf reaches back into prehistory, and similar creatures are found in cultures around the world. Why does the werewolf resonate so profoundly with us? We spoke with Dr. Bob Curran, author of Werewolves: A Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts, a brilliant and fascinating look at these creatures and the meaning they have held for humankind through the ages.

Q: How far back have you been able to trace werewolf lore?

Curran: I think that the idea of a werewolf - the man-wolf - can be traced very far back into the mists of pre-history. Our earliest hunter ancestors often competed with the wolf for food, especially when the ground was hard and the game scarce. The wolf, of course, is a perfect hunting and killing machine - it is strong, swift and highly intelligent. Like men, it also lives largely in communities - wolf packs - and has a very strict social order. It may also have been a much more successful hunter than our lumbering hominid ancestors.

Therefore, early man may have feared but also admired the wolf, and may have wished that they were more like it. They may have thought that by donning wolf skins and pelts and by pretending to be wolves, they might acquire some of the creature's skills and abilities. We know this because of a cave drawing found on the wall of an underground chamber in the Montesquieu-Avantes region of the Pyrenees Mountains, which is referred to as "Le Sorcier des Trois Freres" (from the Trois Freres area) and which depicts a curious hybrid creature, half man, half wolf, which appears to be dancing on its hind legs. This is probably a shaman, invoking a wolf spirit for the purposes of hunting, and suggests that early men thought they could call down wolf spirits in order to possess them. The name for such a figure, as coined by the French anthropologist Henri Breuil (1877-1961), is "therianthrope." It's an idealised figure combining both human and animal characteristics, but probably serves as an idea for the first primitive werewolves.

The first written account in Western Europe is to be found in the works of a medieval monk, Geraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales), writing in 1185 in his book A History and Topography of Ireland. In it he records, as fact, an old legend that he may have heard at the courts of his Irish kinsmen, the Fitzgeralds, concerning the Werewolves of Ossory. In this story, a priest, travelling on ecclesiastical business along the borders of Meath in the diocese of Ossory, camps for the night in a forest. There he is approached by a talking wolf, who asks him a religious favour. He and his wife are members of Clan Altan, a clan which was cursed by an irascible holy man, St. Nechtan. Under the terms of the curse, two of the clan members are turned into the shape of wolves for a period of seven years. They then return from the forest and two others take their place. Whilst serving this penance, his wife, in wolf form, has been struck by a huntsman's arrow and is near to death. He asks the priest if he will come and give her the Holy Offices of the Church so that she may die as a Christian. This the priest does, and the wolf guides him to the edge of the forest and directs him where he has to go. The monk promises to return once his business in Meath is complete, but here the story ends and we don't know if he does. To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest written werewolf tale, but the oral tradition goes back much further than this.

Q: Is the werewolf tradition cross-cultural? Global?

Curran: The idea of changing into another form - that of an animal - is to be found in many cultures and probably dates back to a time when men were little more than animals themselves and serves to emphasise that connection. However, it is not only a wolf that men can transform themselves into, for other animals were also admired. One of these was the bear, and in Scandinavia we find many stories about were-bears. For example, in Norway and Denmark, there are tales of warriors who donned bear-shirts - baar-sark - in order to increase their prowess and ferocity in battle. This is where we get the words "berserk" and "berserker." There were brigades of these warriors, some of whom fought for the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair during the unification of the country in the 9th and 10th centuries.

However, many cultures seem to believe that the transformation occurs into a dog-like creature, although not necessarily a wolf. For instance in the Middle East, the emphasis seems to be on the transformation into creatures like jackals and hyenas. Native American cultures suggest transformation into a coyote or something similar. Japanese culture has a tradition of were-foxes, which are thought to be highly intelligent but great tricksters. So transformation, often into a wolf-like creature, is to be found in a great number of cultures all across the world.

 

Q: Is there a difference between a lycanthrope and a werewolf?

Curran: In popular culture the two terms have often been counted as virtually interchangeable. Some people have, however, seen subtle differences. The term "lycanthropy" is derived from the Greek lykanthropos, meaning "man wolf". Some have argued that the latter is derived from Mount Lykaon in the highlands of Arcadia in the Pelopponnesus peninsula, which was heavily wooded and where wolves were common. There was also said to be a shrine there to the god Zeus in wolf form, where young boys were supposedly taken as part of a "rite of passage" into manhood. It may have been some sort of male bonding session. The name is derived from King Lykaon - a monarch who ruled before the Great Deluge - who, in order to test the divinity of the visiting Zeus, offered him up the flesh of his own son as part of the banquet. The god was so outraged that he turned Lykaon into a wolf.

In some cases, storytellers have used the two terms to differentiate between the transformation of the individual into a pure wolf or into that of a furry man-like creature, such as the wolf-man in a number of films.

Q: Today, werewolves have a sinister or dangerous reputation. Has this always been the case? Are there any exceptions?

Curran: This is an interesting question. In earlier medieval times the werewolf - the man transformed into a wolf - was not a ravening monster, but rather an extremely noble creature. In many of the ancient medieval tales, they are noblemen who have become trapped in the guise of wolves and who behaved like the animals when they were in the forest, but who still retained the sensibilities, intellect and grace of a sophisticated man. In most they had been trapped in their wolf-form by the guile of a woman, and in most stories ultimately redeem themselves and regain their human form - sometimes through the intervention of the king.

One of the most famous medieval tales - Bisclavret - which appears in a collection of prose poems attributed to Marie de France (an unnamed French woman who wrote the lais - or poem-tales - at the court of King Henry II of England in the 12th century) and deals with a noble knight who is transformed into the shape of a wolf by evil magic wrought by his unfaithful wife. He ultimately has his revenge on the woman and her lover, and is restored to human form and even greater honours from the monarch.

It was only in the late medieval period as the Church assumed greater power and control over peoples' lives and perceptions that the idea of the ravening beast - the man who could deliberately change himself into a monster - came into play. The Church portrayed agents of the Devil, living in the midst of God's people and seeking to subvert or kill them. Their only defence against Satan was, of course, the Church itself. In this case, the notion of werewolfery was inextricably linked with that of witchcraft and the witch-hunter's manual, the Malleus Malificarum (The Hammer of the Witch), written by Sprenger and Kramer on the authority of Pope Innocent VIII and printed in 1484, pulled no punches regarding the evil of those who could change their shape and become as wolves. Furthermore, such beings were living in the very heart of communities, and the godly had to be on their guard against them. This moved the werewolf away from the noble beast and into the realms of the savage monster.

Q: Not all shapeshifters are werewolves, but are all werewolves shapeshifters?

Curran: Shapeshifting was a common notion amongst witch-hunters. The Devil could allow his minions to take on whatever form they wanted through dark magic as long as it was for evil purposes. Thus, witches took on the guise of crows, cats, stoats and others; several witches were accused of taking on more than one guise in order to work their evil. The werewolf seems a fairly static transformation. The sorcerer simply took on a form of a wolf and behaved in that fashion. Usually it was to physically attack, kill and eat some of their neighbours. (Cannibalism may have been more common than had been previously supposed during this time.)

The idea of the werewolf may also have referred to actual wolves who behaved oddly and who were then deemed to have some human traits. The term "werewolf" itself, of course, comes from the Saxon wher or war meaning "man" and the word wulf. This term was sometimes used to denote status in Saxon society; in fact, several leading churchmen used the term "wulf" in their names. They were definitely not shapeshifters.

Q: Both vampires and werewolves are very popular right now. We know why vampires are popular - there's a kind of sexy allure. But what do you think accounts for the continued fascination with the werewolf?

Curran: I think that vampire and werewolf stories have survived and still continue to be popular because they address some of our fundamental issues. The vampire, for example, addresses the problems of aging and death. It poses the question - and the hope: "What would it be like to live forever and retain one's looks?" and "If I did live forever, would there be a price?" As you point out, there is a certain sexiness about that idea.

The werewolf idea addresses the notion that, for all our seeming "culture" and "civilisation" there is a remnant of those old prehistoric hunters still buried somewhere in our psyche. I think that idea both fascinates and repels us. I think it is the dichotomy of the civilised man and the wild hunter - or the crouching beast that I think lies within all of us - that proves the basis of that "allure" - a kind of horrified fascination if you will - and has resulted in the notion of the werewolf roaming with us down the years, just as much as the vampire.

Q: In her book The Beast of Bray Road, Linda Godfrey presents some evidence, mostly in the form of eyewitness sightings, that there may actually be real werewolves out there. What do you think? Could there possibly be real werewolves?

Curran: It depends, of course, by what you mean by "real werewolves." Coming from my perspective as a folklorist and a psychologist, the question is not so much "Do these creatures exist?" (a question that I'm asked a lot) - they may or they may not - but a much more interesting question is: "Why do people want - or need - to believe in them? What role does such a belief fulfill in our lives?" As I said above, I think that the werewolf idea addresses a number of very basic questions about ourselves and our nature. Is there perhaps some form of early animalistic-like being lurking beneath the veneer of civilisation? Are we, in effect, really no better than the animals around us? This is, I think, a question which humans have been asking themselves since earliest times, and the werewolf motif is a way of answering it.

There are of course "real" werewolves if you cast your definition wide enough. There have been feral children who have been abandoned by their human parents and who have been raised in the wild by animals, including wolves, which are often sociable animals with a strong emphasis on rearing young. There are children like Amala and Kamala, the "wolf children" found in India in the 1920s. Feral children go back even to Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron in 1797 and Peter of Hanover in 1724.

Then, of course, there are those who suffer from mental disorders that make them behave like wolves; there is a specific mental condition known as lycanthropy. But you never know, and I'm not discounting anything. Perhaps out there in the wild woods there is something living which may correspond to our idea of a werewolf - something that might indeed be very hungry.