Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Werewolf |
WerewolfNoun1. A monster able to change appearance from human to wolf. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "werewolf" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1867. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Satire | WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh. Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran.". Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The name has been thought to derive from either Latin vir (German: we(h)r, we(h)ren (Abwehr, Feuerwehr, Bundeswehr: defense group of men), Old Prussian: wirs: meaning men and Old English wer) meaning man, man-wolf or weri (to wear), wearer of the wolf skin. Other sources believe it is derived from warg-wolf, where "warg" (or later "werg" and "wero") is cognate with norse "varg" meaning murderer or predator and as "vargulf" means the kind of wolf that slaughters many of a flock or herd but eats only a bit. This was a serious problem for herders as they had to somehow destroy the individual wolf that had run mad before it destroyed their entire flock or herd. "Warg" by itself was used in Old English for that specific kind of wolf (see the Hobbit by Tolkien) and it was used as well for what would now be called a serial killer. The Greek term lycanthrope (wolf-man) is also commonly used.
The general term for the metamorphosis of people into animals is therianthropy (therianthrope means animal-man). The term turnskin or turncoat (Latin: versipellis, Russian :
oboroten, O. Norse : hamrammr) is sometimes also used.
Many European countries and cultures have stories of werewolves, including
Greece (lycanthropos), Russia (volkodlak), Poland (wilkołak) England
(werwolf), Germany (Werwolf), and France (loup-garou). In
northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into bears. In Norse mythology, the legends of berserkerss may be a source of the werewolf myths. Berserks were vicious fighters, dressed in wolf or bear hides; they were immune to pain and killed viciously in battle, like a wild animal. In Latvian mythology, the Vilkacis was a person changed into a wolf-like monster, though the Vilkacis was occasionally beneficial.
Shapeshifters similar to werewolves are common in myths from all over the
world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves. See
lycanthropy for a more general treatment of this phenomenon.
In Greek mythology the story of Lycaon supplies one of the earliest
examples of a werewolf legend. According to one form of it Lycaon was transformed
into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at
periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycaon was said to suffer a similar fate. The Roman Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says (Hist. Nat. viii. 22) that a man of the Antaeus family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia,
where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his
being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then,
if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his
former shape. Probably the two stories are identical, though we hear nothing of
participation in the Lycaean sacrifice by the descendant of Antaeus. Herodotus
(iv. 105) tells us that the Neuri, a tribe of eastern Europe, were annually
transformed for a few days, and Virgil (Ecl. viii. 98) is familiar with
transformation of human beings into wolves. In the novel Satyricon, written about year 60 by Gaius Petronius, one of the characters recites a story about a man who turns into a wolf.
There are women, so the Armenian belief runs, who in consequence of deadly
sins are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. A spirit comes to
such a woman and brings her a wolf's skin. He orders her to put it on, and no
sooner has she done this than the most frightful wolfish cravings make their
appearance and soon get the upper hand. Her better nature conquered, she makes a
meal of her own children, one by one, then of her relatives' children according
to the degree of relationship, and finally the children of strangers begin to
fall a prey to her. She wanders forth only at night, and doors and locks spring
open at her approach. When morning draws near she returns to human form and
removes her wolf skin. In these cases the transformation was involuntary or
virtually so. But side by side with this belief in involuntary metamorphosis, we
find the belief that human beings can change themselves into animals at will and
then resume their own form.
France in particular seems to have been infested with werwolves during the
16th century, and the consequent trials were very numerous. In some of the
cases -- e.g. those of the Gandillon family in the Jura, the tailor of
Chalons and Roulet in Angers, all occurring in the year 1598, -- there was
clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of
association with wolves; in other cases, as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in
1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf, but none against the
accused; in all the cases, with hardly an exception, there was that
extraordinary readiness in the accused to confess and even to give
circumstantial details of the metamorphosis, which is one of the most
inexplicable concomitants of medieval witchcraft. Yet while this lycanthropy
fever, both of suspectors and of suspected, was at its height, it was decided in
the case of Jean Grenier at Bordeaux in 1603 that lycanthropy was nothing
more than an insane delusion.
From this time the loup-garou gradually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous
heretic, and fell back into his pre-Christianic position of being simply a
"man-wolf-fiend." In Province of Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania, according to
the bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werwolves were in the 16th
century far more destructive than "true and natural wolves," and their
heterodoxy appears from the assertion that they formed "an accursed college" of
those "desirous of innovations contrary to the divine law." In England, however,
where at the beginning of the 17th century the punishment of witchcraft
was still zealously prosecuted by James I of England, the wolf had been so long extinct that that pious monarch was himself able (Demonologie, lib. iii.) to
regard "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a naturall superabundance
of melancholic." Only small creatures such as the cat, the hare and the weasel
remained for the malignant sorcerer to transform himself into, but he was firmly
believed to avail himself of these agencies.
The werewolves of the Christian dispensation were not, however, all considered to be heretics or viciously disposed towards mankind. "According to Baronius, in
the year 617, a number of wolves presented themselves at a monastery, and tore in pieces several friars who entertained heretical opinions. The wolves sent by God tore the sacrilegious thieves of the army of Francesco Maria, duke of
Urbino, who had come to sack the treasure of the holy house of Loreto, A wolf
guarded and defended from the wild beasts the head of St. Edmund the martyr,
king of England. St. Odo, abbot of Cluny, assailed in a pilgrimage by foxes,
was delivered and escorted by a wolf" (A. de Gubernatis, ''Zoological
Mythology'', 1872, vol. ii. p. 145). Many of the werwolves were most innocent
and God-fearing persons, who suffered through the witchcraft of others, or
simply from an unhappy fate, and who as wolves behaved in a truly touching
fashion, fawning upon and protecting their benefactors. Of this sort were the
"Bisclaveret" in Marie de France's poem (c. 1200), the hero of
"William and the Werewolf" (translated from French into English about
1350), and the numerous princes and princesses, knights and ladies, who
appear temporarily in beast form in the Marchen of the Aryan nations
generally. Indeed, the power of transforming others into wild beasts was
attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but also to Christian saints.
''Omnes angeli, boni et mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi
corpora nostra,'' was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick
transformed Vereticus, king of Wales, into a wolf; and St. Natalis
cursed an illustrious Irish family with the result that each member of it was
doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is still
more direct, while in Russia, again, men are supposed to become werewolves
through incurring the wrath of the devil.
Historical legends describe a wide variety of methods for becoming a werewolf.
One of the simplest was the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of
wolf skin, probably 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. To drink water out of the footprint of the animal in question or to
drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of
accomplishing metamorphosis. Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werwolves 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. Various methods also existed for removing
the beast-shape. The simplest was the act of the enchanter (operating either on
himself or on a victim), and another was the removal of the animal belt or skin.
To kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to be reproached with being a werwolf,
to be saluted with the sign of the cross, or addressed thrice by baptismal name,
to be struck three blows on the forehead with a knife, or to have at least three
drops of blood drawn have also been mentioned as possible cures.
In other cases the transformation was supposed to be accomplished by Satanic
agency voluntarily submitted to, and that for the most loathsome ends, in
particular for the gratification of a craving for human flesh. "The werwolves,"
writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence,
1628), "are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an
oyntment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a
certayne inchaunted girdle, doe not onely unto the view of others seeme as
wolves, but to their owne thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so
long as they weare the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very
wolves, in wourrying and killing, and most of humane creatures." Such were the
views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when
Verstegan wrote.
A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in
the 18th and 19th centuries. Ergot, which
causes a form of food poisoning, is a fungus that grows in place of
rye grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning
usually affects whole towns or at least poor areas of towns and results in
hallucinations, mass hysteria and paranoia, as well as
convulsions and sometimes death. (LSD is derived from ergot.) Ergot
poisoning has been proposed as both a cause of an individual believing that he
or she is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had seen a
werewolf. Ergot has also been suggested as a cause for the "bewitchings" and
mass hysteria leading to the Salem witch trials.
Like most attempts to use modern science explain away religious beliefs and folklore, this theory is controversial. For example, it does not explain why outbreaks of witchcraft hysteria and legends of animal transformations exist around the world, including in places where there is no ergot. Hysteria and superstition have existed across the world for all of recorded history, and, generally speaking, fungus poisoning is not to blame.
Similarly, some modern researchers have tried to use conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth over the entire body) or porphyria as an explanation for werewolf beliefs, although the symptoms of those ailments don't match up well with the folklore or the evidence of the episodes of hysteria either.
There is also a rare mental disorder called Lycanthropy, in which the
afflicted person believes him- or herself to be a werewolf. The general name for the delusionary belief that one is an animal is called zoanthropy, although lycanthropy is often used in its place even if the animal in question is not a wolf.
The process of transmogrification is widely supposed in both film and
literature to be painful. The resulting wolf is typically cunning but
merciless, and prone to killing and eating people without compunction regardless
of the moral character of the person when human. The form a werewolf takes is
not always an ordinary wolf, but is often anthropomorphic
or may be otherwise larger and more powerful than an ordinary wolf. Many modern
werewolves are also supposedly immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons,
being vulnerable only to silver objects (usually a bullet or blade). This
negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the
metal on a werewolf's skin will cause burns. Current-day werewolf legends almost
exclusively involve lycanthropy being either a hereditary condition or being
transmitted like a disease by the bite of another werewolf.
Werewolves have been dealt with in many movies, short stories, and novels, with
varying degrees of success. The genre was made popular in recent times by the
classic Universal Studios movie The Wolf Man (1941), starring
Lon Chaney Jr as the werewolf Larry Talbot. This movie contained the
now-famous rhyme: "Even a man who is pure in heart / And says his prayers at
night / May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms / And the autumn moon is
bright."
More recently, the portrayal of werewolves has taken a significantly positive
turn in some circles. With the rise of environmentalism and other back-to-nature
ideals, the werewolf has come to be seen as a representation of humanity allied
more closely with nature. A prime example of this outlook can be seen in the
role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse in
which players roleplay various werewolf characters who work on behalf of
Gaia against the destructive supernatural spirit named Wyrm, who represents
the forces of destructive industrialization and pollution. Author Whitley Strieber previously explored these themes in his novels The Wild (in which the werewolf is portrayed as a medium through which to bring human intelligence and spirit back into nature) and The Wolven (in which werewolves are shown to act as predators of humanity, acting as a "natural" control on their population now that it has been removed from the traditional limits of nature).
Werewolves still continue to be popular as monsters in movies and literature,
however. The recent film Ginger Snaps made use of lycanthropy as an
analogue to puberty, portraying the unsettling physical and emotional
changes of human adolescence through the device of lycanthropic transformation.
The novel Howling Mad by Peter David takes the novel approach of
featuring a wolf who has been bitten by a werewolf, becoming a "were-human" as a
result. The werehuman provides the reader with a unique perspective on human
civilization.
Select films featuring werewolves:
See also : vampire, lycanthropy, werewolf novels, werewolf filmsOrigins and variations of the word
History of the Werewolf
Scientific background
Werewolves in Modern Fiction
Select novels featuring werewolves:
Other uses of the term "werewolf"
External link
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Werewolf."
Synonyms: WerewolfSynonyms: lycanthrope (n), wolfman (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Werewolf |
| English words defined with "werewolf": Wehrwolf, Werewolves. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "werewolf": Werewolf. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "werewolf": Loup-garou ♦ Virile. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Oz is a werewolf. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) How much kinkier can you get than turning into a werewolf once a month? (She-Wolf of London; writing credit: Hans Beimler) Fangface! Every 400 years, a baby werewolf is born into the Fangsworth family. (Fangface; writing credit: John Alan Schwartz) We were attacked by a werewolf. (American Werewolf in London, An; writing credit: John Landis) What, are you gonna turn into a werewolf or something like that? (SpaceCamp; writing credit: Patrick Bailey; Larry B. Williams) | |
Lyrics | I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's (Werewolves of London; performing artist: Warren Zevon; writing credit: LeRoy P. Marinell, Waddy Wachtel and Warren Zevon) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Werewolf of Washington (1973) Nympho Werewolf (1970) Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964) The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Werewolf" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 88.46% of the time. "Werewolf" is used about 104 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 88.46% | 92 | 34,282 |
| Noun (singular) | 11.54% | 12 | 101,599 |
| Total | 100.00% | 104 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "werewolf": werewolf-whistled. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
werewolf | 1,527 | london lyrics werewolf | 17 |
werewolf picture | 147 | character werewolf | 17 |
american werewolf in london | 120 | real werewolf | 14 |
werewolf pic | 108 | night werewolf ywolf | 14 |
art werewolf | 81 | sex werewolf | 14 |
werewolf the apocalypse | 78 | sighting werewolf | 13 |
an american werewolf in paris | 59 | gallery werewolf | 13 |
werewolf movie | 54 | art werewolf work | 13 |
werewolf of london | 46 | werewolf mask | 13 |
drawing werewolf | 28 | coked up werewolf | 12 |
an american werewolf | 24 | photo werewolf | 12 |
gallery picture werewolf | 22 | image werewolf | 12 |
the story of werewolf | 21 | tribe werewolf | 10 |
werewolf by night | 21 | american london werewolf | 10 |
werewolf in london | 21 | american werewolf in london picture | 10 |
become werewolf | 20 | anime werewolf | 10 |
female werewolf | 20 | vampire werewolf | 10 |
werewolf costume | 19 | picture transformation werewolf | 9 |
legend of the werewolf | 18 | curse of the werewolf | 9 |
transformation werewolf | 17 | registry werewolf | 9 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "werewolf"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | njeri-ujk (werwolf). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مستذئب, إنسان ذئبي, شبيه بالذئب. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | Върколак, Вампир. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 狼人 (Werewolves). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | Vlkodlak. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | Loup-garou. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Werwolf. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | Λύκοσ (Pike), Λυκάνθρωποσ, Βρυκολακιασμένοσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ְדם ֶאב. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | Farkasember (werwolf). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | Mannaro. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | conreeaght. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | erewolfway Lobisomem (werwolf). (various references) Vârcolac (ghost, spoon, vampire, werwolf), Pricolici. (various references) Оборотень. (various references) vukodlak (werwolf). (various references) Hombre-lobo. (various references) Varulv (werwolf). (various references) Kurt Adam. (various references) Перевертень. (various references) bleidd-ddyn. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Werewolf" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: warewolf, werevolf, werwolf, wierwolf, Wyrwoll. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-f-l-o-r-w-w" | |
-1 letter: werwolf. | |
-2 letters: flower, fowler, reflew, reflow, wolfer. | |
-3 letters: fewer, fleer, lower, refel, rowel. | |
-4 letters: ewer, feel, fere, flee, flew, floe, flow, fore, fowl, free, froe, frow, leer, lore, lowe, orle, reef, reel, role, rolf, weel, weer, were, wolf, wore. | |
-5 letters: eel, elf, ere, ewe, fee, fer, few, foe, for, fro, lee, low, ole, ore, owe. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-f-l-o-r-w-w" | |
+3 letters: waterfowler. | |
+4 letters: waterfowlers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)57 65 72 65 77 6F 6C 66 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
|
Morse Code (1836) (references).--. . .-. . .--. --- .-.. ..-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
|
| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "werewolf" |
