Be sure to pack your silver bullets, werewolves are here.
Lycanthropy (ly·can·thro·py): noun:
1: a delusion that one has become a wolf
2: the assumption of the form and characteristics of a wolf held to be possible by witchcraft or magic
In this excerpt, we're going to mostly talk about the causes of lycanthropy, weaknesses, and a small bit of history. Being that werewolves are awesome, there is no amount of writing I can do that will do them any justice. You can Google, borrow books, watch movies, and listen to countless podcasts to get your fill of man-turned-furball stories. I just want to talk about the nitty gritty.
Lycanthropy, when broken down, comes from the Greek words of lykos and anthrōpos, meaning "wolf" and "human being" in respective order. The myths behind lycanthropy vary to such a degree as it has been seen as a curse, a genetic disorder, caused by a heinous act, and sometimes as a blessing. Legend almost always associates it with the phases of the moon, typically presenting itself when the moon is full, turning the afflicted individual into a werewolf. Depending on what you believe, someone with lycanthropy can transform at will, suffers a painful transformation under a full moon, or is permanently stuck in this form until death.
One such legend begins and ends with Lycaon king of Arcadia in Greek mythos. In most tales, Lycaon was a cruel king who attempted to fool Zeus into eating human flesh (a sacrificed young boy (unknowingly. Zeus being Zeus, king of the gods and all, was not having it, devasting Lycaon by turning him and his sons into wolves. In Nordic folkore, and more commonly associated with the telling of werewolves, the Saga or the Volsungs persists it was magic wolf pelts that began the legend. It tells of a father and son happening upon these wolf pelts that had the power to turn people in wolves for ten days. The pair donned these pelts and became wolves, rampaging through a forest killing any and all animals that crossed their paths. The rampage ended when the father attacked his son, nearly killing him. A small variation of the story states that upon attacking/slaying another human would trap the wearer of the pelts in the form of a wolf for eternity, and becoming bored with animals, a group of hunters were attacked and slain, beginning the curse of the werewolf.
Looking into various customs and legends, back to the beginning of time almost, there were many causes or ways for someone to transform into a werewolf. After finding most of these, I probably should be one a couple times over. Most common causes of lycanthropy in history are being bitten or scratched by another werewolf, selling your soul to the Devil, wearing an enchanted belt or pelt made of wolf skin and fur (with various tales to make it permanent), witchcraft and black magic (including magical salves, potions, spells, curses, and rituals), drinking water from the paw print of a wolf or downstream from a wolf, having sex with a werewolf, eating a human (more common with wendigos), being blasphemous, not going to confession for ten years, being the seventh son, being born on a full moon or sleeping on a Friday night under a full moon, being "chosen" by the Native American spirit, and genetics. There are quite a few variations, and other catalysts that can cause lycanthropy, but you get the gist, you can become a werewolf for basically sneezing while watching True Blood on a Tuesday night if you don't salt your popcorn from the left side of the bowl.
As far as a weakness that all werewolves supposedly possess, well silver. We all learned that from the 1983 novella and movie 1985 Silver Bullet, thanks Stephen King! So why silver? Why not lead or aluminum? Hell, why not any metal? Well, that goes back to the metals of antiquity, the seven metals that we had found and identified in prehistoric times. These metals included gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury; popular metals because they helped forge the modern world that you know and love today. Now each of these seven metals corresponded with a day of the week and a known planet; see where this is going? In regard to the other metals of antiquity, we are only focused on silver, which represented Monday, and you guessed it, the Moon. It further deepens based on the Law of Contagion, which is a superstitious folk belief that basically suggests a magical link exists between two people or objects once they have been in contact. Thus, solidifying that a moon-based monster can only be wounded by a moon-based item/entity. Quick, somebody call Moonknight!
Now let's step back to one of the first reported cases of lycanthropy, at least in "modern times", 1589, the case of Peter Stumpp (also read as Stube, Stubbe, Stübbe, or Stumpf.) Good ol' Pete was just your regular run-of-the-mill German farmer, who was successful and considered wealthy, married with two children, and he was also an alleged serial killer accused of witchcraft, cannibalism, and lycanthropy becoming known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg". We start with the killings occurring in Bedburg ranging from 1564 to 1589, but by the 1580s rumors of a werewolf were in full swing. One such instance, according to sources, say a girl was attacked by this beast when a herd of cattle caught in in a stampede. The girl survived, reporting the incident, which led to the village men conducting an all-out hunt for the beast. The werewolf was cornered, with nowhere to go it tried to flee when one of the villagers swung his axe down and managed to cut off its front left paw. This would later be the downfall of Stumpp.
It's said that hunters again searched for the monster at a later date and almost captured it, having it cornered it transformed back into Peter, where he stood missing his left hand. Stumpp was brought inf or questioning, facing the most famous trial for lycanthropy in history, where he was placed on a rack to stretch his body before undergoing more torture. Before the torturing could even begin, he started confessing to everything he had done.
Beginning when he was 12 years old, he had practiced black magic, he claimed to have met the Devil and was given a magical belt (girdle in some stories) that would allow him to transform into:
“The likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.”
Upon removing the belt, he would transform back to his human shape; however, the belt was never located. For over twenty years Peter ravaged the community with his acts as a werewolf, said to have murdered and consumed livestock, men, women, 14 children, two pregnant women, whose fetuses were torn out of their mothers and ate raw, to which he would go on to describe as "dainty morsels". Of the 14 children that he had eaten, one was revealed to be that of his own son, whose brain was the eaten without remorse. With the accusations of being a cannibal and serial murderer, Stumpp was sentence to death, and that was before they found he had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Sybil (Beele, aged 15-18) and with a distant relative, who became his mistress. He also confessed to repeated intercourse with the succubus sent to him by the Devil.
Peter Stumpp's execution was carried out on October 31, 1589 (Happy Halloween Pete!), as well as the execution of his daughter and mistress, Katherine. This execution would go down was one of the most brutal, gory ones on record. Peter was placed on a wheel with a red-hot iron pinching claw, in ten various places, where the flesh from his body would be torn off slowly. While this was being carried out, an axe man would take his axe and beat and break Peter's limbs with the blunt side, just to make sure if the werewolf rose from the dead, it would no longer be able to function well enough to hunt. Before cementing his death, Sybil and Katherine had already been strangled, flayed, and burned on a pyre. A swordsman was then ordered to step up and behead Stumpp before tossing his body upon the pyre to join his family. The wheel which he was tortured on was then displayed on a pole, along with a figure of a wolf, and the severed head of Peter Stumpp placed on the top as a caution to others who may behave in the same fashion.
Of course, in present day this could all be chalked up to clinical lycanthropy, it's a whole thing; where the patient believes they have been turned into a wolf. It is a mental disorder where the delirious individual begins with becoming melancholy, before later being linked to agitated madness or mania. There are international reports on some of these clinical cases and they are all extremely interesting. The medical condition known as hypertrichosis is also a very rare case that causes someone to have excessive hair. The hair is so much more than a long mane and bushy beard, no it covers the entire body except for the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. Because of the resemblance to a wolf-like creature, hypertrichosis has been nicknamed "werewolf syndrome", and while it is extremely rare, roughly 50 cases reported since medieval times, it is a real condition that can actually happen.
Today, the presence of a werewolf is likely not something we will hear about again other than in popular culture, TV, and movie, or a child's nightmare. One does have to wonder though, if there was once a history chalked full of these kinds of legends and mysterious cases, and some people were reported to have actually transformed, what happened? Moreover, where are they now?
Comments