were-wolf (wir'woolf', wur'-,war'-) A person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming the form of a wolf at will; lycanthrope. [Middle English wer(e)wolf, Old English wer(e)wulf: probably wer, a man, wuf, a wolf ].

From Earliest Times Men Have Sought The Power Of The Beast.


In every part of the earth appeared creatures who lived alternately as men or women and as animals, borrowing the shapes of predators that plagued their particular home lands. Thus, from parts of Europe where wild boars, bears and wolves roamed came tales of men who assumed the shapes of boars, bears or wolves and preyed on kin and neighbors. In India, people feared the weretiger. Shadowy werefoxes roamed China and Japan. Some of these creatures were cursed from birth to lose their humanity at intervals. Some, were victims of enchantment. And some deliberately chose the way of animal powers and the freedom of the wild.

It was said, for example, that certain sorcerers and witches learned from Satan how to transform themselves into animal guise. They rubbed themselves with unguents composed of such ingredients as baby's fat and poisioness hemlock, henbane and deadly nightshade. Among Teutonic peoples, it was thought donning special girdles made of the pelt of a wolf or the skin of a hanged man would effect the change. In the Balkins, the magic came from drinking water from a beast's footprint, or from eating a beast's brain.Lycanthrope n. from the Greek lukos, wolf + anthropos, man. Lycantrophy n. the magical ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf. This word comes from a Greek tale. A king of Aradia in western Greece by the name of Lycaon, decided to trick Zeus. He fed Zeus a banquet of meats in which he had included human flesh. Zeus became incensed and turned Lycaon into a wolf, but allowed him to keep his human mind so to be always aware of his doom. Australia-The tribes of the desert outback tell a tale of Irrinja, the devil-dog. He had the shape of a man who at the coming of a sandstorm, would lay down and let the sand cover him. When the storm was over, at the cry of the butcher bird, the dune would part. He would emerge with a bristle muzzle, lolling tongue, and a fanged jaw, hungry for flesh.


Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is pure and bright.

The incidents began in January, when the canals lay locked in ice, the snow-muffled streets glowed blue in the eerie twilight, and good folk stayed close to their warm stoves, shutting their ears against the wind moaned down from the mountains. A child disappeared one night from its nursery; and the the following night, another child from another house; and the next night yet another. No cry was heard ; nothing in the little rooms was disturbed. But the clues to the children's fate were found soon enough. Outside the houses in the snow were tracks with four clawed toes and distinctive, triangular pads-the unmistakable prints of a wolf.
Four cubits in height, and his face was like unto the face of a great dog, and his eyes were like unto lamps of fire which burnt brightly, and his teeth were like unto the tusks of a wild boar, or the teeth of a lion, and the nails of his hands were like unto curved reaping hooks, and the nails of his toes were like unto the claws of a lion, and the hair of his head came down over his arms like unto the mane of a lion, and his whole appearance was awful and terrifying. The Beast Within by Adam Douglas. In the forest deep, it began to creep, snarling its way, through the dark wood, its smell keen, its ears sensitive, its eyes dilated to absorb all the light its beastly brain could grasp, aided only by the ghostly moon. It tasted the air, then its ears stood upright, as it heard the baying of hounds tracking in the distance. It crouched on alert, a deep growl in its throat.

75,000 BC	Earliest human altars, including evidence of prehistoric bear-cult.
10,000 BC	Domestication of dog
6,000 BC	Catal Huyuk cave-drawings depict leopard men hunting
2,000 BC	Epic of Gilamesh written down (first literary evidence of werewolves)
850 BC	Odyssey written down (includes many traces of werewolf beliefs)
500 BC	Scythians recorded as believing the Neuri to be werewolves
400 BC	Damarchus, Arcadian werewolf, said to have won boxing medal at Olympics
100 - 75 BC	Virgil's eighth ecologue (first voluntary transformation of werewolf)
55 AD	Petronius, Satyricon
150 AD	Apuleius, Metamorphosis composed
170 AD	Pausanias visits Arcadia and hears of Lykanian werewolf rites
432 AD	Saint Patrick arrives in Ireland
600 AD	Saint Albeus (Irish) said to have been suckled by wolves
617 AD	Wolves said to have attacked heretical monks
650 AD	Paulus Aegineta describes "melancholic lycanthropia"
900 AD	Hrafnsmal mentions "wolf coats" among the Norwegian Army, Canon Episcopi condems the belief in reality of witches as heretical
1020	First use of the word "werewulf" recorded in English
1101	Death of Prince Vseslav of Polock, alleged Ukrainian werewolf
1182 - 1183	Giraldus claims to have discovered Irish werewolf couple
1194 - 1197	Guillaume de Palerne composed
1198	Marie de France composes Bisclavret
1250	Lai de Melion composed
1275 - 1300	Volsungasaga, Germanic werewolf saga, written down
1344	Wolf child of Hesse discovered
1347 - 1351	First major outbreak of the Black Death
1407	Werewolves mentioned during witchcraft trial at Basel
1450	Else of Meerburg accused of riding a wolf
1486	Malleus Maleficarum published
1494	Swiss woman tried for riding a wolf
1495	Woman tried for riding a wolf at Lucerne
1521	Werewolves of Poligny burnt
1541	Paduan werewolf dies after having arms and legs cut off
1550	Witekind interviews self-confessed werewolf at Riga, Johann Weyer takes up post of doctor at Cleve
1552	Modern French version of Guillaume published at Lyon
1555	Olaus Magnus records strange behavior of Baltic werewolves
1560	First publication of Della Porta, Magiae naturalis
1563	First publication of Weyer, De praestigus daemonum
1572	St. Bartholomew's Day of Massacre, intensification of French civil war
1573	Gilles Garrier burnt as werewolf
1575	Trials of the benandanti begin in the Friuili (and will continue for a century)
1580	Rebellion at Romans with cannibalistic overtones
1584	Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft published
1588	Alleged date of Auvergne female werewolf (Bouget)
1589	Peter Stubb executed as werewolf at Cologne
1598	Roulet tried as werewolf, his sentence commuted "Werewolf of Chalons" executed at Paris, Gandillonfamily burnt as werewolves in the Jura
1602	2nd edition of Bouget, Discours des sorciers
1603	Jean Grenier tried as werewolf and is sentenced to life imprisonment
1610	Two women condemned as werewolves at Liege, Jean Grenier dies
1614	Webster's Duchess of Malfi published
1637	Famine in Franche-Comte: cannibalism reported
1652	Cromwellian law forbids export of Irish wolfhounds
1692	The Livonian werewolf Theiss interrogated
1697	Perrault's Contes includes "Little Red Riding Hood"
1701	De Tournefort sees vampire exhumation
1764	Bete de Gevaudon starts werewolf scare in Auvergne
1796 - 1799	Widespread fear of wolves reported in France
1797	Victor of Aveyron first seen
1812	Grimm Brothers publish their version of "Little Red Riding Hood"
1824	Antoine Leger tried for werewolf crimes and sentenced to lunatic asylum
1828	Death of Victor of Averyon
1830	Souix warriors reported hunting in wolfskins
1857	Accusation of being "wolf leader" ends in court in St. Gervais, G. W. M. Reynolds, Wagner the Wehr-Wolf published
1880	Folklorist collects Werewolf tale in Picardy
1885	Johann Weyer's book reprinted at Paris
1886	Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde published
1906	Freud lists Weyer's book as among ten most significant ever published
1913	The Werewolf using real wolf in transformation scene
1914	Freud publishes "wolf man" paper
1920	Kamala and Amala - the Orissa wolf children - discovered, Right-wing terror group "Operation Werewolf" established in Germany
1932	Jekyll & Hyde starring Frederic March
1935	Werewolf of London
1941	Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr.
1943 - 1944	Childhood autism first described, LSD discovered
1944	House of Frankenstein includes mention of silver bullet
1951	Outbreak of ergotism at Pont-Saint-Esprit
1952	Ogburn & Bose, On the trail of the Wolf-Children published
1957	I Was a Teenage Werewolf
1972	Shamdeo discovered living among wolves in India
1975	Surawicz & Banta publish first two modern cases of lycanthopy
1979	"An American Werewolf in London" includes first four-footed werewolf
1985	"Death of Shamdeo" "Teen Wolf"
1988	Monsieur X arrested, "McLean Hospital" survey published
1990	"Werewolf rapist" jailed, McLean Case 8 full report published
1991	"The Wolfman" escapes from Broadmoor