A speculative overview of the werewolf phenomenon

The concept of the werewolf , or rather were-something is found in almost all societies and cultures. (The Inuit apparently consider werewolves the ancestors of the white races, but that is another story). Almost always some people are alleged to be able to transform themselves into a dangerous local animal – sometimes an unknown animal - and then prey on the human population, feeding on the flesh of its victims and then reverting to its human form. Sometimes this is conscious and sometimes this process is more like sleepwalking, the unknowing performance of actions covering a wide range of behaviours. Modern Science regards the werewolf as a mentally disordered person who believes they are a wolf and have called the syndrome lycanthropy. Despite the Western bias this involves the term Werewolf will be used here for all were animals, whether wolves, apes, rats or anything else.

There could be a number of origins of the werewolf concept. The idea of becoming an animal could be an archetypal experience, with a Jungian explanation, it could be related to shamanic practices with the werewolf being a rogue shaman, it could be a mental disorder and delusion, it could be something else, it could be werewolves are a manifestation of a collective thought form, or it could be a tradition describing a subspecies of humanity able to turn into animals, or, perhaps more scarily, some animals may occasionally turn human.

In Japan it was believed fox spirits( kitsune ) could turn human and there are tales of men being seduced by these spirits, though there are also tales showing the fox spirit in a positive light. It was believed the fox had difficulty hiding its tail and was often discovered only when its tail was spotted. There is a british folk tale of a woman who nearly married a fox, and the tail was again the tell-tail sign. This tale was used by now defunct folk rock group Mr Fox in an impressive but depressing album of that name (there seems to be no relation between this tale and the medieval legend that Englishmen were all born with tails). The relatively benevolent were-humans of Japan are an exception since generally the were-animal is regarded as dangerous and malevolent. There are also anecdotes suggesting that some humans returned to earth after death as foxes, if only temporarily.

The fox is seen in legend fable and folklore as a tricky figure, street smart and cunning, often, as in the tales of Brer Rabbit, only beaten by a superior trickster. Farmers know the fox as a wily and determined adversary able to seek out the holes in the defences erected against Old Foxy and city dwellers know the fox has adapted to town life more readily than most country species. The folklore picture of the kitsune and Mr Fox as a deceiver is therefore in line with the habits of the real life animal, as is the case with the Wolf

The wolf is much better represented in folklore than the fox and the legend of Lycaon, turned into a wolf for the crime of offering Zeus the flesh of a child as a sacrifice, may be the origin of the western werewolf, though it seems unlikely this myth could account for all the were animals and humans that have ambled howled and strolled forest jungle and plain throughout history.

The medieval church considered the wolf as a personification of evil and servant of Satan. In Norse Mythology the wolf was linked to Odin, chief of the gods, while Trickster Loki was father of Fenris Wolf, and when Loki was finally bound the gods turned his son into a wolf and bound Loki with his son's intestines. The Ulfhednar were an elite fighting force in the Viking era, dressing in wolfskins and drawing on the energy of the wolf (The better known Berserkers drew on the energy of the bear, and dressed in bearskins, whnece they got their name, and a third elite force drew on the essence of the wild boar).

The wolf is a more numinous and baleful figure than the fox, and has burned itself deeper into the collective unconscious of humanity than the fox. Naturally in the west the preferred were-animal would be the wolf, though others are known.

The idea of taking over an animal's nature by wearing its skin is very old and widespread: The mesolithic site of Star Carr in Yorkshire, England, dated to around 8500 BC shows a man dressed in deerskin and this has been interpreted as a shaman performing a ritual. Berserkers and Ulfhednar dressed in bear and wolf skins and one way of becoming a werewolf was to wear a belt of wolfskin, if not a whole skin. A strange variant on this belief may be the report in Fortean Times 48 citing the Jakarta Post of 7^th August 1986 describing a female monkey wearing a gold necklace and earrings that was roaming round a west Java town. Residents believed her the reincarnation of a 16 year old girl. Her parents offered a reward to anyone who could catch the monkey and turn it back into their daughter. They said she had died and become a monkey after donning the family's “magic robe” without permission.

Contemporary accounts stated that berserkers were immune to fire and to edged weapons but not to blunt instruments. Traditionally Werewolves could only be killed by a silver bullet, a blunt instrument travelling at high speed. This “invulnerability” may simply have been an immunity to pain caused by adrenalin and possibly some form of drug, though there are reports of some Eastern Martial Arts masters who could make their skin invulnerable to a sword cut, and in Sorcery J Finley Hurley describes a man with the remarkable ability to prevent himself feeling pain who, after preparing himself will stick a sailmaker's needle through his hand without feeling pain or even bleeding, and the Berserkers and others may have known the technique he used, so the verdict on this claim must remain open.

Some norse warriors and magicians claimed to be able to take over the bodies of animals. In this state any injury to the animal would be reflected in the body of the magician/warrior, something common in werewolf and witchcraft folklore. Such a takeover MAY be mentioned in the Celtic Riddle of Taliesin though this could also refer to reincarnation. Again the mirroring of injuries could simply be a result of adrenalin and/or drugs.

While writing this it became clear that it was a vast topic and that researching and writing it up thoroughly would take more time than was available. As a result many topics and theories had to be left for future notes and a possible book.

With reference to were-animals in general an ability to create a thought form capable of almost superhuman feats could explain some of the transformations reported by witnesses. If the were-animal was a glamour wrapped round a human the mirroring of wounds inflicted on the animal in the human would be explained. Some cases could be explained as release of unconscious aggression accompanied by the kinds of changes seen in spiritualist trances when the medium is taken over by a control. However there is currently not enough data to exclude theories, not even the theory that it is all nonsense.