Hola everyone. I am just posting info on werewolves, on of the most famous of all monsters. When you think of werewolf, most of the time you picture a large, disturbing bipedal creature covered in hair, and an inhuman wolf-like face. They are said to be ferocious creatures with an appetite for human flesh. Werewolves were subject to myths as far back as medieval times. The concept that werewolves were a human-wolf hybrid is due to the wolves behavior. Even though there is nothing recorded of anyone being killed by a wolf, they were feared and hated among the Europeans. However, bears, hyenas and big cats are also configured into the shape of the werewolf.

The most intriuging case is that of the Beast of Gevuadan, the notorious killer of at least 100 people. It was said to have ripped it's victim's throats out, in the fashion of many big cats. It was also unusually large, and had strange markings and details unlike that of a regular wolf. It is also called the " loup garou ".

Werewolves were also called berserkers, which may explain the hysteria and fear of the werewolf. There are many diseases and conditions that may induce some werewolf-like symptoms. And back in the middle ages, there was no proper equipment and little knowledge of the human body, and pscycological illness was dismissed as the doings of the supernatural. In the Baltic and Slavic regions, there was a wolf deity worshipped, it was said to be an unpredictable being that echoes the behavior of many wild animals, unpredictable and an uncertain temprament. As Christianity rose to power, the preists condemned such pagan beliefs as Satanic, and the werewolf was therefor classified as a messenger of the Devil itself, demonic terrifying beasts of the night. It turns out that in Northern Europe, in some houses, if a family member was a werewolf, during the full moon they would be put in the room while the rest of the family would wait for the phase to diminish. However, there are many reports of American werewolves as well.

The American werewolf has probably traveled overseas along with the European settlers, the legend carrying on in America. Whether the Native Americans believed in a wolf-like creature, I am not sure. The werewolf is probably just a product of the human's forever active imagination. It is just one of the many famed shape shifters of the human mind.

Peace and love to all!

Thanks for that info. I heard that Werewolf stories started before silver bullets and that only showed up resently in folk lore and stories in books and movies. They were killed for bride and honor in some places.

hmmm a bipedal creature covered in hair that haunts the night? in europe they call these things werewolves.. in the US, the natives call these things sasquatch, skin-walkers, etc. the thing is that the first person who coinned the name..interpret what they see/hear with familiar animals.. ever heard a bigfoot call recording? it eerily sounds like a wolf howl...but with nothing else in nature to compare to in europe and that these are elusive creature and seldom seen in the day, the person did not get a detailed look at the face of the creature.. it only take one person to start the story, give it a name and it will run it's course thru history.. so the first guy who saw it and heard it scream at night coined it 1/2 man 1/2 wolf.. got the story out.. the next person who sees it after hearing the story will also call it werewolf for he is too scared to make any detail observation to correct what the first person saw...and he too backs up the werewolf and so on and so on...
so 1/2 man 1/2 wolf..not likely.... a sasquatch/yeti being? more likely

I really don't think there's anyway a person can turn into a WW, I know there are alot of people that believe in this creature, But it's just not possible...

yep... just bigfoot mis-identified as wolf-man

Yes, indeed Isis. There is not supernatural, natural, or anything that's in between that could cause a man to turn into such a creature. The legend probably came from unknown medical conditions, nothing more. makes fer an awesome campfire story though


peace and love to all!

I happen to agree with you on that reply... But i swear we have member's here that for some reason believe they are WW's ....Don't ask i have no idea why they believe it......

Who know's, It's a DOGon crazy world out there!

Some berserker cults among the Germanic and Finno-Urgic people also took the totem of a wolf instead of a bear. The is one possible origin. I always started a thread about the Algonquian speaking Adena moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley who also had a wolf cult and pulled out their teeth and ground their jaw so that they could fit the muzzle of a wolf on the front of their face and portray the creature. Having this coming at you in the middle of the night would start an interesting story.

Lapiche

There's also some WW story in Asia, but most of them are folklores, and people are WELL AWARE about it being a folklore. No one really bothers about proving them exists.

I noticed you said that werewolves were called berserkers, I must correct you as I am a teacher of Nordic history and culture- berserkers (spelled " berserkir")literally translates to " bear-shirts"- not into werewolves. The viking warriors would dress in the skins of bears and go on a rampage after inducing powerful agaric / hallucinigenic mushrooms (yes- mushrooms!!!) - maybe a Nordic version of peyote- they would take on the charecteristics of the bear. The wolf warriors were called ulfhednar (wolfskins),they did this to bring out the wolfs prowness while hunting .They would both go into battle without shields (they disdained them) and would howl eeriely and growl a very hidieous growl and fight empty handed - and would usually win! They went into a sort of "holy rage". If you would like to read about them , read "the Well of Remembrance" by Ralph Metzner or read the Ynglinga Saga ,written down by Snorri Sturrellesson.The Saga tells of Odins warriors who went without armor or sheilds ,and were as mad as wolves or bears.They would bite the enemies shields and would out muscle the enemy warrior. Fire or iron had no effect on them.Similiar to the Fian warriors of Cu Chulainn and of Finn in old Irish tales!

your post was very interesting and I enjoyed reading it~!

John
valor23


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hmmm....im not so sure if berserkers and werewolves are the same thing, berserkers were ancient Viking warriors who dressed in wolf pelts, but I do put the Berserkergang and the Werewolves in the same boat, to me a person who considers themself a werewolf is one of a few things.

1. A very deluded person who thinks they can actually physically transform into a large, bipedal wolf
2. A person who believes they have the soul of a wolf in them (I believe Therian would be the correct term, but correct me if im wrong)
3. One who through ritual, drugs, will, or anyother means has gained the ability to go into an altered state of conciousness where, mentally, they take on the atributes of the wolves, which is what IMO, the berserkers did.

A true werewolf to me is just someone who can control their rage and fury and unleash it whenever they want to, becoming a sort of juggernaut that just keeps on fighting until its over, no matter what happens to them. So i guess you could be right in saying that the berserkers and werewolves are the same thing, if you think of it in the same way I do, but if you are looking for info on lycanthropes, physical transformations, giant wolf-human hybrids, i dont believe that they exist.

The name most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer and Old Norse var, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras and Welsh gŵr, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast". An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the bearlike berserkr who were said to wear a bear skin into battle. They are also very common in Omeath and Sligo.

Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf [citation needed], where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw" or, euphemistically, "wolf". A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd, but ate only a little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the individual wolf that had run mad before it destroyed their entire flock or herd. They would then often hang the wolf's hide in the bedroom of a young infant, believing it to give the baby supernatural powers. Warg by itself was used in Old English for this specific kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit) and for what would now be called a serial killer. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, outlaws (who could be killed at will with no legal repercussions and were forbidden to receive aid) were often referred to as vargr; that is, wolf.

The Greek term Lycanthropy (a compound of which the first part derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root for "wolf", *wlkwo-, as the English word) is also commonly used for the "wolf - man" transformation. The term for the metamorphosis of people into animals in general, rather than wolves specifically, is therianthropy (therianthrope means beast-man). The term turnskin or turncoat (Latin: versipellis,[2] Russian : oboroten, O. Norse: hamrammr) is sometimes also used. The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf.[3] The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning 'werewolf.' This in turn is most likely from Frankish *wer-wulf meaning man-wolf.[4]
wikipedia.org
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There is also a strange creature that haunts Derbyshire in England - this creature is reported to resemble a normal wolf, but moving at fantastic speeds and covering great distances in a single bound

Let's face it werewolves as far as the mythological creatures that seem to haunt our minds do not exist. However there are mental abnormalities that can bring on the likefulness of a wolf. I have something similar to D.I.D.. It's considered a mental problem. But it is similar to the states that shamans enter when channeling spirits. And in the past was considered a symptom of demonic possession and still is by some. The thing about my case is that I never had a traumatic event to trigger it. It only happens at night, so I joke it's like a werewolf. In reality I don't know why it happens at night, and not every night. I don't know what triggers it. It doesn't like enhance my senses, in fact it dulls them. It makes me more impulsive. It's really annoying. It's hard to remember things after the state. The only benefit is my anger becomes intense and gives off an adrenaline state I assume (again like those myths of superhuman demonic strength). I can hold back a group of grown people, which had to be done on one occasion.

Just my 2 cents.

The Werewolf legend was inspired by the human disease called Porphyria. Porphyria patients' skin becomes greyish and would grow heavy hair allover the body, they would not tolerate sun light (so comes the full-moon theory), and their eyes would be so red because of blood congestion. Moreover, they would have sessions of hallucinations and convulsions. So it's just a medical condition that has been severely misunderstood.

Yeah, they did. It was called a skinwalker, and was a shaman who could transform into different animals, most commonly a wolf.


Holy... Crap...
Piney posted!

The stories of Werewolves began in Eastern and Northern Europe, where the once great wolf packs contained individuals as big as men, every hear Little Red Riding Hood (old German Folktale) these very wolves were known and shown in wood cut reliefs to stand on their hind legs, even the Grey wolves of Europe and the North American continent have been known to stand on their hind legs so it is not so hard to imagine seeing a wolf standing on its hind legs as a hybrid being.

I once saw a Werewolf drinking a pina colda at Trader Vicks.


His hair was perfect.

Still alive!!! I often wondered if those Adena* Wolf shaman were the origins of the Wolf Clans among the Nanticoke and the Shawnee because we are the only clan among the Lenape who practice the "Dead Ceremony" and use similar burial practices. ( We clean the bones and bundle them keeping them for 5 years than hold a feast before burying the bones in a community mound). The skeletons of all the wolf warriors were cleaned and bundled.


* The Adena were a Algonquian speaking mound builder group and Adena "heirloom" artifacts have been found in Shawnee, Nanticoke, Kanawa (Conoy) and Powhatan ( Rappahannock) graves


Lapiche n'wel

Werewolves are fake for reasons already stated.

Was he also eating a big dish of beef chow mein?

This is true! The Vikings had a form of Beserker called the Ulfheoiin (plur. Ulfheonar) who would wear the pelt of a wolf rather than that of a bear! They wore the skinned wolf head over their own like a mask. If memory serves me correctly, they would osmetimes act as scouts or vangard, scouting ahead in small groups. I dare say to a soon-to-be-pillaged villager, these men in wolfskins lurking around in the woods would look very much like a bipedal wolf! This is where I believe the legend started although the legend is found in other places at the time, like in Rome etc.