The Tradition of Werewolf Origins

Celebrating our Origins

"Why do we have to go?" my young son whined.

"Because it's tradition, and helps define who we are, beyond being werewolves," I answered.

It would be the first, formal time for this tradition that my wolves had insisted upon ten years ago. "You also need to know you aren't alone," they had told me. "We will gather in her memory every ten years, so each generation will know the importance of what she did for us! We will forever keep her alive as part of our Wolfpack."

I could tell by the way my son fiercely shoved his clothes in his bag that he resented being pulled from his friends for the summer. Last year was the first year he was in public school instead of being homeschooled. His mother and I had decided he had learned enough control and understanding that he would not be an inadvertent threat to his classmates. He was desperate to spend the summer with his new friends. I sat down on his bed, pulling the clothes from his hand.

"Come here, let me tell you a story."

It was strange, watching him resent me. I remembered too well the attitude I once had with my own father. "In a way, it's about your grandfather," I told him with a little teasing grin and twinkle in my eye.

He sighed, but stopped trying to pack and climbed up next to me. I put my arm around him, remembering the gathering of my tribe where Sister first told this story. I still felt her absence, despite the howls I hear and the glimpses I get of her from the other side of the River of Life. The connection we shared in life continued past her death.

"Long ago," I began in the time-honored tradition of storytelling, "in the most ancient of forests, lived a pack of wolves. They had neighbors, a group of monks who built a small stone monastery deep in the forest to live isolated from their fellow man."

My son cuddled into me, as ready to enjoy a good story as I had always been.

"One monk in particular would often go outside and read from collective writings from the great philosophers and scientists of those days, for the monks' goal was to preserve the learnings of man. He gained an audience in the local wolf pack, so he would read out loud to them. One wolf in particular seemed to focus on him intently while he read, often bringing something from his hunt to share with the monk."

"That was nice of the wolf, wasn't it Dad, to share his dinner?" my son interjected. I nodded but saved my words for the story.

"Now, the Spirit of the Wolf walks the whole breadth of the world, and he watched the brotherhood develop between man and wolf. One day he couldn't tell the difference between the two, because they had drawn so close together their spirits merged together! Spirit Wolf decided to finish what the two had started on their own. He merged their bodies, the wolf and the man becoming one."

"The first werewolf!" my son exclaimed as he wiggled around to look at me.

I nodded, grinning at my son's enthusiasm as I went on with the story.

"The man gained a new appreciation for the world, how all of life is connected together. He saw the flaw in the monk's thinking, how separating themselves from the world did not enhance the world.

The wolf gained an appreciation for man's innovative thinking. He admired the way men could shape the world for their own wants and desires, using creation to provide for and protect themselves, compensating for their lack of fur and fang.

The two lived in harmony all their days, the spirit bond between them true. While the man still lived with the monks, he took time for the wolf to run with his pack. Eventually the wolf sired pups, pups that could become men."