Chapter Werewolves Not Just in Transylvania
Werewolves have been a fear of humankind since the Neolithic age and may have originated in the shamanic rituals that seemingly transformed men into wolf-like creatures. During the Middle Ages, legends of the werewolf expanded into tales of daily occurrences. There are places in the world that even today the werewolf remains a feared creature that decimates livestock and threatens the lives of local inhabitants. The interesting thing about the folklore surrounding the werewolf is that, like the Fairies and Wild Men legends, it is a common folklore motif found around the world. Well, almost around the world. Gervase of Tilbury, according to Simpson and Roud, "wrote in 1211 that werewolves were common in England, the examples he then gave are all French." Werewolves could not have been present in England as the wolf had already been extinct for centuries.1 "The belief" in werewolves, wrote Harvard lecturer John Fiske in 1881 "is supported by a vast amount of evidence, which can neither be argued nor pooh-poohed into in-significance."2 Fiske cautions that the stories are a "curious mixture of mythical and historical elements." Nevertheless, why, we may ask, is the werewolf legend so universally known?
Some scholars associate the original werewolves with martial brotherhoods, which were extent in the early Greek, Persian, German, Scythian, Da-cian and Celt societies. The initiates "magically assumed lupine features."3
1. Simpson, Jacqueline and Steve Roud. Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000, 386. There is one other exception. Lewis Spence noted in his book Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends (pg. 272): "So far as one can judge, the idea of the werewolf or any similar form was unknown in ancient Egypt."
2. Fiske, John. Myths and Myth-Makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company 1881, 70.
3. White, David Gordon. Myths of the Dog-Man. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1991, 27.
This may account for many of the European tales but certainly not for those of other locations around the world.
Others believe that the werewolf legend are related to the ancient Sanskrit texts that spoke of the "howling Rakshasa" or storm-wind. According to Hindu folklore, Rakshasa is "a great misshapen giant with red beard and red hair, with pointed protruding teeth, ready to lacerate and devour human flesh; his body is covered with coarse, bristling hair, his huge mouth is open, he looks from side to side as he walks, lusting after the flesh and blood of men, to satisfy his raging hunger and quench his consuming thirst. Towards nightfall his strength increases manifold; he can change his shape at will; he haunts the woods, and roams howling through the jungle."4
Were-men are not confined to a wolf form, however. Depending on where the particular folklore originates these half-man half-animals may be a mix with bear, jaguar, tiger and even crocodile. Aztec shamans wore the hides, including the snout, hearts, claws, tails, and fangs, of jaguars and were said to be greatly feared because of the powers these objects transferred to the shaman.5 This was/is a common practice in shamanism. Lapp shaman supposedly transform into demonic reindeer to fight each other. However, the cause of a person being transformed into werewolf is almost always due to an evil agent, most likely the acts of a witch or a punishment for some specific and grievous sin. William Howells, once chair of the department of anthropology at Harvard University, wrote, "Werewolves in general...are related to witchcraft in spirit if not explicitly."6 However, there were two forms of werewolf, those who voluntarily transform into these creatures and those whose transformation is involuntary. The voluntary werewolf became one because of his or her unnatural obsession with human flesh. This person also had sufficient magical powers to affect a physical transformation. Spence wrote of this form of werewolf: "In Teutonic and Slavonic countries it was complained by men of learning that the were-wolves did more damage than real wild animals, and the existence of a regular 'college' or institution for the practice of the art of animal transformation among were-wolves was affirmed."7 The involuntary werewolf was transformed by an evil magician or was sentenced to become such a beast for a certain number of years to atone for the commission of a sin. These individuals "were no malevolent beasts," notes Michael Kerrigan, "but tragic victims of evil magic."8 Kerrigan goes on to say that, "The willing werewolf was a terrible man-beast, ravening de
5. Miller, Mary and Karl Taube. An Illustrated Dictionary ofThe Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1993, 102.
6. Howells, William. The Heathens: Primitive Man and His Religions. New York: Doubleday Books 1962, 124.
7. Spence, Lewis. Legends and Romances of Brittany. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc. 1997, 291. A reprint of the Frederick A. Stokes Company publications, no date, New York.
8. Kerrigan, Michael. "The Faces of the Changeling" in Forests of the Vampire: Slavic Myth. New York: Barnes & Noble Books 1999, 120.
stroyer of anything in its path. Those changed by another's curse, however, were submissive creatures, clinging hard to their old human nature....Gentle in their ways, and protective of family and friends, they killed only when driven to desperation by hunger."9
However, it was only through Christianity that the belief in werewolves became synonymous with witchcraft. Fiske wrote that the belief in werewolves "did not reach its complete development, or acquire its most horrible features, until the pagan habits of thought which had originated it were modified by contact with Christian theology. To the ancient there was nothing necessarily diabolical in the transformation of a man into a beast. But Christianity, which retained such a host of pagan conceptions under such strange disguises...did not fail to impart a new and fearful character in the belief in werewolves. Lycanthropy became regarded as a species of witch-craft...and hundreds of persons were burned alive or broken on the wheel for having availed themselves of the privilege of beast-metamorphosis."10
It may be, in fact, the influence of Christianity that induced such a strong belief in werewolves in the first place. Such belief is particularly strong in Navajo culture. Anthropologist Harold Driver wrote "Witches are thought to roam at night as were-animals (wolves, coyotes, bears, and owls), to meet in witches' Sabbaths to plan and perform rites to kill or injure people, to have intercourse with dead women, to initiate new members, and to practice cannibalism."11 As with the indigenous religions of Mesoamerica, Christianity has tainted the original belief systems and has made them into a mimicry of Christian theology along with the same gods, devils and traditions. Undoubtedly the belief in these were-animals and the powers that the shamans had to shape-change are drastically changed from their original nature. There is one bit of Christian folklore that even claims that St. Patrick caused this metamorphosis. According to the story, a family's lack of faith so displeased St. Patrick that he turned the entire clan into a pack of werewolves.12
Obviously, Christianity cannot be credited entirely with the belief in werewolves. Werewolves appear in nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish folklore as well. According to the tale, "An evil spirit takes possession of a sinful woodcutter, making him into an evil sorcerer. He then transforms himself into a werewolf, who attacks children led by the Baal Shem Tov because their singing is so pure that Satan fears that it might hasten the coming of the Messiah."13 After an attack by the werewolf, a young boy by the name of Israel ben Eliezer, later known as "the Baal Shem Tov" tracked the huge wolf prints into the forest. Suddenly the tracks turned into the tracks
11. Driver, Harold E. Indians of North America, 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1969, 410.
12. Anon. StrangeStoriesAmazingFacts. Pleasantville: The Readers Digest Association, Inc. 1976, 435.
13. Schwartz, Howard. Lilith's Cave:Jewish Tales ofthe Supernatural. New York: Oxford University Press 1988, 250.
of a man. With the aid of Elijah, who appeared in a dream offering the Baal Shem Tov secrets to destroy the werewolf, it was finally defeated. Like other legends of the werewolf, the creature only appeared during a full moon and was the result of an intentional transformation by an evil sorcerer. According to Schwartz, "This theme is one of the most prominent in Hasidic literature" because it "establishes that the soul of the Baal Shem Tov, even as a young man, was so holy that it was a worthy adversary to Satan."14
That is not to say that shamans have not metamorphed into other animal forms since the Stone Age. Writing on shamanism, anthropologist and religious historian Mircea Eliade noted, "Naturally, the South American shaman, like his colleagues everywhere, can also fill the role of sorcerer; he can, for example, turn into an animal and drink the blood of his enemies. The belief in werewolves is widely disseminated in South America."15 The shaman is able to change into an animal form but his true body does not change. In shamanism, the body appears to be in deep sleep while the soul journeys out in the form of an animal to either fight with other shamans, wreck havoc upon a local populace or to experience other spiritual transformations. This shamanic technique was known in later times also and anyone so unlucky to fall into a stupor or coma was often accused of witchcraft. "According to one mediaeval notion," wrote Fiske, "the soul of the werewolf quit its human body, which remained in a trance until its return."16
Such abilities are also part of Polynesian mythology. A dog on Oahu, known as Kaupe, also known as "dog-man," was said to be able to transform itself into either a man or a dog — and it was a cannibal. This is the only dog in Hawaiian lore that was malevolent. Another legend is that of Pa'e who was able to "change herself into a 'woman, a mo'o (lizard) or a brindled dog."17 While Pa'e in the form of a dog did kill an elderly couple, it was in defense rather than from a malevolent nature. The Hawaiians closely linked dogs to humans. The lesser god Ku'ilio-loa was said to have been "formed from man" by the god Maui.
Leslie Spier recorded the Yuman Indian story of the Dog Pima: "Two men have a dog. While they hunt, she turns into a girl and cooks for them. They discover her and persuade her to remain a human. Their children become the Dog Pima, a tribe."18 It is of interest that legends from Polynesia and Native America speak of werewolves with the ability to change shape at will and to remain in human form — usually female at that. Outside of European folklore, the werewolf is not savage or demonic.
15. Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1964, 324.
17. Titcomb, Margaret. Dog and Man in the Ancient Pacific. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 59, 1969, 20.
18. Spier, Leslie. Yuman Tribes ofthe Gila River. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1978, 422.
There are several tales based in reality of werewolves, or at least of insane humans who believed themselves to be such. Fiske and others believed these human werewolves to be obsessed with cannibalism and they acted out the part of wild animals to kill and eat their victims. Since we have already consulted Fiske let us again turn to him for one of these true stories:
In the year 1598, in a wild an unfrequented spot near Caude [France], some countrymen came one day upon the corpse of a boy of fifteen, horribly mutilated and bespattered with blood. As the men approached, two wolves, which had been rending the body, bounded away into the thicket. The men gave chase immediately, following their bloody tracks till they lost them; when, suddenly crouching among the bushes, his teeth chattering with fear, they found a man half naked, with long hair and beard, and with his hands dyed in blood. His nails were long as claws, and were clotted with fresh gore and shreds of human flesh.
This man, Jacques Roulet, was a poor, half-witted creature under the dominion of a cannibal appetite. He was employed in tearing to pieces the corpse of the boy when these countrymen came up. Whether there were any wolves in the case, except what the excited imaginations of the men may have conjured up, I will not presume to determine; but it is certain that Roulet supposed himself to be a wolf, and killed and ate several persons under the influence of the delusion. He was sentenced to death, but the parliament of Paris reversed the sentence, and charitably shut him up in a madhouse.19
Roulet was said to be suffering from a psychological condition known as Lycanthropy. This condition has been recorded since classical times although it is a rarity in the modern day. These unfortunate people would flee to the woods at night, howl at the moon and seek out local victims or, if no living soul was available, dig up corpses and devour them. While common in Europe during the 15th to 18th centuries this condition is also known to have occurred in Ethiopia, India, Malaysia and China. In Italy it was believed at one time that any child born on St. Paul's Night (June 29) or on the Annunciation (March 24) was likely to become a werewolf unless the infant's father or grandfather burned the child's foot or the nape of the neck with hot coal.
Other tales included that of Perrenette Gandillon. A French women, she "turned herself into a wolf and killed a child, the creature had no tail and human hands in place of front paws."20 The rumor of 1573, again in France, was that a pack of donkey-sized wolves was attacking and eating people in an area near the village of Dole. That such tales and charges were common in an area and a time so charged with the inquisition and witchcraft trials may not be coincidental.
Fiske notes that werewolves, or rather, the belief in werewolves was also present in North America and Africa but it was mostly in Europe where can
20. Briggs, Robin. Witches & Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. New York: Viking 1996, 88.
nibalistic desires drove men to such extremes in behavior. In many Native American traditions, various gods and nature spirits were also were-men. These were not the evil cannibals mentioned above but spiritual beings. Among the Yuma tribes that live on the Gila River in the American Southwest it is said that "dogs are persons"21 that may appear in dreams in human form to relate various pieces of information. One informant during the 1930s related that he never kicked his "really annoying curs" because they were, in fact, people.22
During the Classical Age Marcellus Sidetes, who lived in the reign of Hadrian, discussed the psychological condition of Lycanthropy:
Men afflicted with the disease.go out by night in the month of February in imitation of wolves or dogs in all respects, and they tend to hang around tombs until daybreak. These are the symptoms that will allow you to recognize sufferers from this disease. They are pallid, their gaze is listless, their eyes are dry, and they cannot produce tears. You will observe that their eyes are sunken and their tongue is dry and they are completely unable to put on weight. They feel thirsty....One must recognize that lycanthropy is a form of melancholia.23
Originally, the werewolf was an aspect of the magical arts of the shaman. A transformation was sought in order to control others, seek revenge, or simply to experience the life of an animal to understand its powers as a spirit helper. Mircea Eliade wrote, "The shaman encounters the funerary dog in the course of his descent to the underworld, as it is encountered by the deceased or by heroes undergoing an initiatory ordeal. It is especially the secret societies based on a martial initiation...that developed and reinterpreted the mythology and magic of the dog and the wolf."24 In the Navajo tradition, a wicked man after death may be transformed into a coyote, an owl or a crow. According to historian Marc Simmons, "Navajos believe in were-animals, or witches who transform themselves into beasts so that they may move about at night with speed and greater freedom....The guise of the werewolf, just as in the Old World, is most popular. Any Indian who comes upon a wolf with his tail hanging straight down will kill it, since to his way of thinking it has to be a witch. Real wolves, as he knows, always run holding the tail straight out behind."25
Like the vampire, the werewolf is supposed to have certain physical traits that give it away. A single eyebrow that stretches across the bridge of the nose is one, and hairs on the palms and between the shoulder blades are telltale signs, according to some.
23. Ogden, Daniel. Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002, 177.
25. Simmons, Marc. Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish & Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1974, 138.
Slavic lore says that children born feet first and with teeth already showing are likely to become werewolves. The only way to defeat the werewolf, according to Slavic tradition, is by the intercession of the Kresnik, "a Good Spirit who battles demonic forces."26
The werewolf's continued existence in European thought might have been due to the Church using it as a convenient criminal charge to persecute nonbelievers and to intimidate people into submission. Montague Summers, writing in his most Christian manner, said, "Hateful to God and loathed of man, what other end, and what other reward could he look for than the stake, where they burned him quick, and scattered his ashes to the wind, to be swept away to nothingness and oblivion on the keen wings of the tramontane and the nightly storm."27
27. Summers, Montague. The Werewolfin Lore and Legend. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc. 2003, 123-124.
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