WEREWOLF/ LYCANTHROPE / WOLF MAN / LYCANTHROPY
In this article we will cover:
What is a Werewolf.
A brief history on the existence of the Werewolves.
Real life existence of Werewolves found in modern history.
Explanation by ParaTantra Society/ How to be werewolf.
Famous believes related to Werewolves.
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What is a Werewolf
Werewolves are people who morph into vicious, powerful wolves. Others are a mutant combination of human and wolf. But all are bloodthirsty beasts who cannot control their lust for killing people and animals.
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Brief history on the existence of the Werewolves
The concept of Werewolves was found for the first time in the old Mesopotamian lore poem, "THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH". In this old Sumerian tablet the story of Gilgamesh is found written (engraved on a stone tablet) in the form of a poem. The Goddess Ishtar from the Old Assyrian mythology (as in the epic of Gilgamesh) have been known to turn her former man lover (a shepherd) into a wolf just cause she was bored with him & then the hounds of the shepherd torn him into bits as he was a wolf not a man anymore. Pretty Dark, right?
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Well that's how it begins but I still can't find the connection of how these lore spread all the way from ancient Mesopotamia to the Europe. Werewolf have been known as the legends from the old Europe, but here we will bring to you the actual origin of them and then to the real facts about there existence.
According to the early Greek mythology, the Werewolf was appeared as the LYCAON. He was the son of Pelasgus (often depicted as the first man in the Greek mythology, He was the first person who started the worshiping of Zeus & other major divinities). Lycaon served the Zeus human baby's flesh as an offering and thus angered Zeus into cursing Lycaon to become the first Man wolf.
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Werewolves also emerged in early Nordic folklore. The Saga of the Volsungs tells the story of a father and son who discovered wolf pelt that had the power to turn people into wolves for ten days. The father-son duo donned the pelts, transformed into wolves and went on a killing rampage in the forest. Their rampage ended when the father attacked his son, causing a lethal wound. The son survived eventually by a healer providing the magical healing leaf which heals his wounds.
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The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants, which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying European folklore developed during the medieval period.
From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches.
The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of lycanthropy being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.
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On another account, Cynocephalus having the head of a dog-or of a jackal, is a widely attested mythical phenomenon existing in many different forms and contexts. The literal meaning of "cynocephaly" is "dog-headed".
Such Cynocephalics are known in mythology and legend from many parts of the world, including ancient Egypt, Greece, and China. Further mentions come from the medieval East and Europe.
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In the Eastern Orthodox Church, certain icons covertly identify Saint Christopher with the head of a dog. The background to the dog-headed Christopher is laid in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, when a man named Reprebus, Rebrebus or Reprobus (the "reprobate" or "scoundrel") was captured in combat against tribes dwelling to the west of Egypt in Cyrenaica. To the unit of soldiers, according to the hagiographic narrative, was assigned the name numerus Marmaritarum or "Unit of the Marmaritae", which suggests an otherwise-unidentified "Marmaritae" (perhaps the same as the Marmaricae Berber tribe of Cyrenaica). He was reported to be of enormous size, with the head of a dog instead of a man, apparently a characteristic of the Marmaritae. This Byzantine depiction of St. Christopher as dog-headed resulted from their misinterpretation of the Latin term Cananeus (Canaanite) to read canineus, that is, "canine".
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The German bishop and poet Walter of Speyer portrayed St. Christopher as a giant of a cynocephalic species in the land of the Chananeans (Canaan in the New Testament) who ate human flesh and barked. Eventually, Christopher met the Christ child, regretted his former behavior, and received baptism. He, too, was rewarded with a human appearance, whereupon he devoted his life to Christian service and became an Athleta Christi, one of the military saints. There are some rare icons that depict this martyr with the head of a dog.
Such images may carry echoes of the Egyptian dog-headed god, Anubis. Christopher pictured with a dog's head is not generally supported by the Orthodox Church, as the icon was proscribed in the 18th century by Moscow.
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Anubis or Inpu, Anpu in Ancient Egyptian is the Greek name of the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Archeologists have identified Anubis's sacred animal as an Egyptian canid, the African golden wolf. The African wolf was formerly called the "African golden jackal", until a 2015 genetic analysis updated the taxonomy and the common name for the species. As a result, Anubis is often referred to as having a "jackal" head, but this "jackal" is now more properly called a "wolf".
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The legendary werewolves of Ossory, a kingdom of early medieval Ireland, are the subject of a number of accounts in medieval Irish, English and Norse works. The werewolves were said to have been the descendants of a legendary figure named Laignech Fáelad whose line gave rise to the kings of Ossory. The legends may have derived from the activities of warriors in ancient Ireland who were the subject of frequent literary comparisons to wolves, and who may have adopted lupine hairstyles or worn wolf-skins while they "went wolfing" and carried out raids.
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Real life Existence of WEREWOLVES found in modern history
In 1521, Frenchmen Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun allegedly swore allegiance to the devil and claimed to have an ointment that turned them into wolves. After confessing to brutally murdering several children, they were both burned to death at the stake.
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Giles Garnier, known as the “Werewolf of Dole” was another sixteenth-century Frenchman whose claim to fame was also an ointment with wolf-morphing abilities & as a wolf, he viciously killed children and ate them.
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Peter Stubbe, a wealthy, fifteenth-century farmer in Bedburg, Germany. Allegedly, he turned into a wolf-like creature at night and devoured many citizens of Bedburg. He was found by hunters who claimed they saw him shape-shift from wolf to human form. He experienced a grisly execution after confessing under torture to savagely killing animals, men, women and children & eating their remains. He also declared he owned an enchanted belt that gave him the power to transform into a wolf at will.
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Explanation by PARATANTRA Society/ How to be Werewolf
There are actually an ancient magic known only to the advance witches and their covens. This magic is kept hidden for the centuries.
*note: By witches I don't mean Wiccans. They are not the real witches and their magic is not elemental. I mean real witches that lives in the dark and have demonic powers. Who are too dangerous to even try to understand.*
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I. Witchcraft of Metamorphosis:
In Ancient magic there is a ritual that grants the practitioner a power to align their spirits with the spirit of an animal. This magic is old and is very rare. Also, the practitioners of this magic are supposed to be a free spirit bounded completely to the nature and to sever all ties from the human world. The practitioner have to be completely wild and the human element in him/her should be given away to the nature of wild.
The practitioner have to leave the society and family to go live in the wild forest or on the mountains to achieve this power.
The practitioner have to acquire the mastery over the nature by worshipping to the God of Wild and nature. (for Mayans Yum Kaax, for Roman or Greek Gaea or Artemis, for Christianity & Islam Fhelyai or Ariel, For Demonists Humbaba or Ronove, for Hindu Aranyani, for Celtic or Norse Cernunnos)
Until the practitioner acquire mastery over any of these deities, They have to keep participating in the Dark rituals associated with these deities. By Dark we means the rituals that requires blood sacrifices and the murder of many animals & birds which we strongly oppose as it might end up killing you as well.
These rituals are known to be so brutal & vicious that by the end of these rituals the practitioner's human nature will turn into that of a wild beast.
Now, when the Practitioner is ready he/she can eat certain parts of an animal and could channel their spirits aligned to themselves. Such as, they could smell the prey and have venom in their body if they feed on snake, if they eat the eyes of the owl then they could see at night also the past, present & future, if they eat the heart of a predator then they will transform into a predator.
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Now, How do they become a Werewolf; They will hunt down any predator and keep their certain body parts as a loom or a pelt that won't decay as the other organs. Then they enchant those Pelts or looms to the deities of the wild especially Opiyel Guabironand (an old native American God of tribe Taino) then you put on that Pelt or hold that loom to transform into a Wolf God.
In order to perform that successfully, you have to complete the procedures mentioned above.
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Famous Believes related to Werewolves
Werewolves shape-shifted at will due to a curse.
Some believe that, they transformed with the help of an enchanted sash or a cloak made of wolf pelt.
Widely known claim is that, people became wolves after being scratched or bit by a werewolf.
It's also believed that; a person only turns into a wolf when there’s a full moon.
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According to a study conducted at Australia’s Calvary Mater Newcastle hospital, a full moon brings out the “beast” in many humans.
While the study of behavioral changes in psychotic patients especially during a full moon turn out to be pretty preposterous.
During a full moon 23% of the patients with a history of aggressive impulses have found to be activated.
Patients attacked staff and displayed wolf-like behaviors such as biting, spitting and scratching. Although many were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time, it’s unclear why they became intensely violent when the moon was full.
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Characteristics of Werewolf
The beliefs classed together under lycanthropy are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied. The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whomever it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.
Werewolves were said in European folklore to bear tell-tale physical traits even in their human form. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low-set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the pretense that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognized by bristles under the tongue. The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though it is most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that it has no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), is often larger, and retains human eyes and a voice. According to some Swedish accounts, the werewolf could be distinguished from a regular wolf by the fact that it would run on three legs, stretching the fourth one backwards to look like a tail. After returning to their human forms, werewolves are usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated and undergoing painful nervous depression. One universally reviled trait in medieval Europe was the werewolf's habit of devouring recently buried corpses, a trait that is documented extensively, particularly in the Annales Medico-psychologiques in the 19th century. Fennoscandian werewolves were usually old women who possessed poison-coated claws and had the ability to paralyze cattle and children with their gaze.
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Becoming a werewolf
Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described). In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. Drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. The 16th-century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia. In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his or her face.
In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writer Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628),
are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures.
The phenomenon of repercussion, the power of animal metamorphosis, or of sending out a familiar, real or spiritual, as a messenger, and the supernormal powers conferred by association with such a familiar, are also attributed to the magician, male and female, all the world over; and witch superstitions are closely parallel to, if not identical with, lycanthropic beliefs, the occasional involuntary character of lycanthropy being almost the sole distinguishing feature. In another direction the phenomenon of repercussion is asserted to manifest itself in connection with the bush-soul of the West African and the nagual of Central America; but though there is no line of demarcation to be drawn on logical grounds, the assumed power of the magician and the intimate association of the bush-soul or the nagual with a human being are not termed lycanthropy.
The curse of lycanthropy was also considered by some scholars as being a divine punishment. Werewolf literature shows many examples of God or saints allegedly cursing those who invoked their wrath with lycanthropy. Such is the case of Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf by Zeus as punishment for slaughtering one of his own sons and serving his remains to the gods as a dinner. Those who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church were also said to become werewolves.
The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh King Vereticus into a wolf; Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men supposedly became werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.
A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jürgensburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for idolatry and superstitious belief.
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Remedies
Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. In antiquity, the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the power of exhaustion in curing people of lycanthropy. The victim would be subjected to long periods of physical activity in the hope of being purged of the malady. This practice stemmed from the fact that many alleged werewolves would be left feeling weak and debilitated after committing depredations.
In medieval Europe, traditionally, there are three methods one can use to cure a victim of lycanthropy; medicinally (usually via the use of wolfsbane), surgically, or by exorcism. However, many of the cures advocated by medieval medical practitioners proved fatal to the patients. A Sicilian belief of Arabic origin holds that a werewolf can be cured of its ailment by striking it on the forehead or scalp with a knife. Another belief from the same culture involves the piercing of the werewolf's hands with nails. Sometimes, less extreme methods were used. In the German lowland of Schleswig-Holstein, a werewolf could be cured if one were to simply address it three times by its Christian name, while one Danish belief holds that merely scolding a werewolf will cure it. Conversion to Christianity is also a common method of removing lycanthropy in the medieval period; a devotion to St. Hubert has also been cited as both cure for and protection from lycanthropes.
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Connection to revenants
Before the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the corpses of werewolves, if not destroyed, would return to life in the form of wolves or hyenas which prowled battlefields, drinking the blood of dying soldiers. In the same vein, in some rural areas of Germany, Poland and Northern France, it was once believed that people who died in mortal sin came back to life as blood-drinking wolves. These "undead" werewolves would return to their human corpse form at daylight. They were dealt with by decapitation with a spade and exorcism by the parish priest. The head would then be thrown into a stream, where the weight of its sins was thought to weigh it down. Sometimes, the same methods used to dispose of ordinary vampires would be used. The vampire was also linked to the werewolf in East European countries, particularly Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. In Serbia, the werewolf and vampire are known collectively as vulkodlak.
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Hungary and Balkans
In Hungarian folklore, the werewolves used to live specially in the region of Transdanubia, and it was thought that the ability to change into a wolf was obtained in the infant age, after the suffering of abuse by the parents or by a curse. At the age of seven the boy or the girl leaves the house, goes hunting by night and can change to a person or wolf whenever he wants. The curse can also be obtained when in the adulthood the person passed three times through an arch made of a Birch with the help of a wild rose's spine.
The werewolves were known to exterminate all kind of farm animals, especially sheep. The transformation usually occurred during the winter solstice, Easter and a full moon. Later in the 17th and 18th century, the trials in Hungary not only were conducted against witches, but against werewolves too, and many records exist creating connections between both kinds. Also the vampires and werewolves are closely related in Hungary, being both feared in the antiquity.
Among the South Slavs, and also among the Kashubs of what is now northern Poland, there was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shapeshifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf.
Serbian vukodlaks traditionally had the habit of congregating annually in the winter months, when they would strip off their wolf skins and hang them from trees. They would then get a hold of another vulkodlak's skin and burn it, releasing from its curse the vukodlak from whom the skin came.
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Caucasus
According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form. In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.
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Americas and Caribbean
The Naskapis believed that the caribou afterlife is guarded by giant wolves which kill careless hunters venturing too near. The Navajo people feared witches in wolf's clothing called "Mai-cob".
Belief in the loup-garou present in Canada, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan and upstate New York, originates from French folklore influenced by Native American stories on the Wendigo. In Mexico, there is a belief in a creature called the nahual, which traditionally limits itself to stealing cheese and raping women rather than murder. In Haiti, there is a superstition that werewolf spirits known locally as Jé-rouge (red eyes) can possess the bodies of unwitting persons and nightly transform them into cannibalistic lupine creatures. The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no. The Haitian jé-rouges differ from traditional European werewolves by their habit of actively trying to spread their lycanthropic condition to others, much like vampires.
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