Mythical Creatures [EDITING]

Werewolf

When the full moon rises, everyone knows to be on high alert. The full moon has long been caused for the strange shifts in human behavior, but is perhaps most associated with the transformation of one exceptionally fearful being – the werewolf.

Werewolves have been part of European folklore for centuries, but they caught on in popularity when citizens were put on trial for 'wolf charming' and lycanthropy in the later end of the Middle Ages.

What is a Werewolf?

A werewolf is a man that has been cursed or charmed into a beast that hunts at night and craves human flesh. The word 'werewolf' literally translates to man-wolf ('were' meaning man). There are many ways in which this transformation could occur.

Many legends claim that a man would transform into a werewolf if he was bitten or scratched by another werewolf in its animal form. There are also accounts of children who were cursed to hunt as werewolves if they grew up in abusive homes.

There are many records of people willingly transforming into werewolves. One of the most common claims for being able to transform into the beast was for a person to remove all of their clothing and wear a belt made of wolf-skin. Similar stories hold the same as being true for individuals that wore the entire wolf-skin. In both of these cases, the werewolf would need to find their clothing again to transform back into a human.

There are also tales of magic salves that could transform a person. Other sources tell of enchanted streams that gave people the ability to transform. Other transformation rituals include drinking rainwater out of the footprint of a wolf and sleeping with the light of a full moon on one's face during a Wednesday or Friday summer night.

Possible Connection to Christianity

Many areas where Christianity was the dominant religion tell of werewolf transformations through an alliance with the Devil. Many historians believe this was a way to explain the violent and cannibalistic impulses of predatory serial killers in the Middle Ages. Religious cultures sometimes explained werewolf transformations as being a divine punishment from God himself. In fact, those who were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church were said to be cursed with werewolfism.

Although werewolf transformation was thought to be a terrible curse, there were remedies that were rumored to cure the afflicted person. Some cultures believed extreme bouts of exercise would be enough to cure an afflicted individual. Others thought that striking a werewolf on the scalp with a knife was enough to stop the transformation. There are also reports of piercing a werewolf's hands with nails to produce a cure.

In Europe, where werewolf lore became most popularized, it was thought that there were three ways to cure werewolf transformation: with wolfsbane (a poisonous plant), surgery, or exorcism. Unfortunately, many of the supposed cures that were supported by Europe's early doctors killed the majority of patients.

German lore proves to be much less violent – to cure an afflicted person, one must simply call the werewolf by its Christian name three times.

CharacteristicsPhysical Description

With the search for werewolves in the Middle Ages as paranoia about witches and other such creatures was heightened by the Church, people began searching for tell-tale signs that an individual could be a potential werewolf.

One of the most common identifiers of a supposed werewolf was a unibrow. Other signs included curved fingernails (similar to claws), lower-than-normal ears, and a swinging stride that resembled that of a wolf.

If an individual was identified as a potential werewolf, they were often subjected to tests to see if the accusations against them could hold up. One of the most common tests was to cut the skin of the accused to see if fur could be found underneath the wound. Russian folklore also claims that werewolves had bristles underneath their tongues that couldn't be found on normal human beings.