L YC A N T H R O P Y

By The Dark Wolf
CHAPTER ONE,
FIRST STEPS

Welcome to my lycanthropy page . Since a day that I can't even remember, I searched all the infos I could get my hands on about lycanthropy , more known as "werewolvery". My researches required me to travel the world for clues. From my home subarctic forest to the City of Lights. But there was not much to be found. I found most of my infos on the internet. It took me two years to compile the sayings and beliefs of many folks. But here is, at last, a small part of my researches. This isn't really part of my researches, this is a gathering of infos I found now and then on the net. If you want to know about lycanthropes for a school project you'll have what you need in the first pages. But if what you seek is deeper, you'll have to go from the beginning to the end, where things get more strange and troubling. Well, let's start... shall we?

DEFINITIONS OF LYCANTHROPY
Lycanthrope \'li-ken-throp\ n (NL lycanthropus, fr. GK lykanthropos werewolf, fr. lykos wolf + anthropos man) 1:a person displaying lycanthropy 2:a werewolf

Lycanthropy \'li-kan(t)-thra-pe\ n 1: a delusion that one has become a wolf. 2: the assumption of the form and characteristics of a wolf held to be possible by witchcraft or magic - lycanthropic adj.

Theriomorphic \'thir-e-o-'mor-fik\ adj (GK theriomorphos, fr. therion beast + morphe form - more at treacle): having an animal form <~gods>

-- Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

THE LEGEND OF THE BEGINING

'Belief in the werewolf, or "spirit-wolf," probably began with early medieval wolf clans who worshipped their totemic gods in wolf form, as did some people of the Greco-Roman world centuries earlier. Zeus Lycaeus, or Lycaeon, was a Pelasgian wolf-king who reigned in a nine-year cycle as spouse of the Ninefold Goddess, Nonacris. Virgil said the first werewolf was Moires, spouse of the Trinitarian Fate- goddess (Moera), from whom he learned secrets of magic, including the necromantic knack of calling up the dead from their tombs.

Lycanthropy (werewolfism) was named for Apollo Lycaeus, "Wolfish Apollo," who used to be worshipped in the famous Lyceum or "Wolf-temple" where Socrates taught. Apollo was mated to Artemis as a divine Wolf Bitch at Troezen, where she purified Orestes with the blood of nine sacrificial victims. Pausanias said Apollo was originally an Egyptian deity, deriving his name from Up-Uat (Ap-ol), a very ancient name of Anubis.

Another Roman version of the wolf god was Dis Pater, Soranus, or Feronius, consort of the Sabine underground Goddess Feronia, "Mother of Wolves." A certain Roman family claimed descent from her Sabine priestesses, and annually demonstrated her power by walking barefoot over glowing coals during the festival of the Feronia. She was also identified with Lupa the She-Wolf, whose spirit purified Palatine towns through the agency of young men in wolf skins, consecrated by participating in the Lupercalia or Festival of the She-Wolf.

The She-Wolf was another aspect of the Triple Goddess, as shown by her triadic motherhood. She gave three souls to her son, the legendary King Erulus or Herulus, so that when he was overthrown by Evander, he had to be killed three times. The Amazons, who worshipped the Triple Goddess, incorporated a tribe called the Neuri, who "turned themselves into wolves" for a few days each year during their main religious festival, presumably by wearing wolf skins and masks. The same story was told of a certain Irish tribe in Ossory, who became wolf-people when attending their yuletide feast, devouring the flesh of cattle as wolves, and afterward regaining their human shape. "Giraldus Cambrensis relates this great wonder in detail, as in operation in his own time, and believed every word of it."

The heathens' devotion to ancestral wolf gods in Teutonic Europe is evinced by the popularity of such names as Wolf, Wulf, Wolfram, Wolfburg, Aethelwulf, Wolfstein, etc. "Beowulf son of Beowulf," hero of the Anglo-Saxon epic, was called Scyld by the Danes, who said he came from the waters in a basket like Romulus and Remus, foster-sons of the She-Wolf.

Irish tribes said their spiritual fathers were wolves, and for that reason they wore wolf skins and used wolves' teeth for healing amulets. Celtic folk songs tell of children or wives transformed into wolves. One whole tribe was said to assume wolf shape (every) seventh year. As Germanic "berserkers" could become bears by donning bearskins, so it was thought that people could become wolves by donning wolf pelts.

In Mercia during the 10th century A.D. there was a revival of pagan learning under two druidic priests, one of whom was named Werwulf. This name of "spirit-wolf" seems to have been applied to opponents of Christianity in general. About 1000 A.D., the wolf "werewolf" was taken to mean an outlaw.

South Slavs used to pass a newborn child through a wolf skin, saying that it was thus born of the She-Wolf. After their conversion to Christianity, the people claimed this ceremony would protect the child from witches. But its real purpose, obviously, was to assimilate the child to the wolf totem via a second birth from the wolf.

Livonians said witches routinely transformed themselves into wolves by passing through a certain magic pool, another instance of baptismal rebirth in animal form. Polish legend said a witch could transform a bride and groom into wolves by laying a girdle of human skin across the threshold at their wedding feast. Later they would receive dresses of fur and would regain their human shape at will. Against such totemic ceremonies the 7th-century Council of Toledo issued severe denunciations of people who put on the heads of beasts or "make themselves into wild animals."

Italian peasants still say a man who sleeps outdoors on Friday under a full moon will be attacked by a werewolf, or will become one himself. Friday was the night of the Goddess, and the warning against her lunar influence probably dated back to the myth of Endymion ("Seduced Moon-Man"), who fell asleep on her holy moon-mountain and became her enchanted bridegroom, never to wake up again, so that the Goddess could shower her kisses on him each night.

Another story traceable to wolf-clan traditions was "Little Red Riding Hood." The giveaway details are the red garment, the offering of food to a "grandmother" in the deep woods - a grandmother who wore a wolf skin - and the cannibalistic motif of devouring and resurrection. In Britain, "a red woven hood" was the distinguishing mark of a prophetess or priestess. The story's original victim would not have been the red-clad Virgin but the hunter, as Lord of the Hunt. Like Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood was part of a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity, wearing the same red garment that Virgin Kali wore; as the red moon of a lunar eclipse she prophesied catastrophe and inspired much fear. Romanian churchmen declared that the eclipsed moon was reddened by her own blood, shed when her wolves attacked her, to "make men repent and turn from evil."

The Gaulish Diana had numerous wolf-cultists among her votaries, in both ancient and medieval times. Under her totemic name of Lupa she was a mother of wild animals, and certain women seem to have impersonated her in southern France. A Provencal troubadour named Pierre Vidal wrote a love poem to a lady of Carcassonne, whose name was Loba, "She-Wolf":

"When loup-garou the rabble call me,
When vagrant shepherds hoot,
Pursue, and buffet me to boot,
It doth not for a moment gall me,
I seek not palaces nor halls,
Or refuge when the winter falls;
Exposed to winds and frosts at night,
My soul is ravaged with delight.
Me claims my she-wolf so divine;
And justly she that claim prefers,
For, by my troth, my life is hers
More than another's, more than mine."

Lovers of the She-Wolf sometimes found her on a holy mountain, which the gypsies called Monte Lupo, Wolf-Mountain. Young men could learn the secrets of magic by celebrating the sacred marriage: masturbating over the Goddess's statue and ejecting semen on it. She would guide and protect them, provided they never again set foot in a Christian church. Her votaries' shape-shifting followed the phases of the moon, which was another form of the Goddess herself. In the 12th century, Gervais of Tilbury noted: "In England we often see men changed into wolves at the changes of the moon."

Sacharow quoted an old Russian charm, to be spoken by one who wished to invoke the Moon-goddess and become a werewolf:

"On the sea, on the ocean, on the island, on Bujan, on the empty pasture gleams the moon, on an ashstock lying in a green wood, in a gloomy vale. Toward the stock wandereth a shaggy wolf, horned cattle seeking for his sharp white fangs; but the wolf enters not the forest, but the wolf dives not into the shadowy vale. Moon, moon, gold-horned moon, check the flights of bullets, blunt the hunters' knifes, break the shepherds' cudgels, cast wild fear upon all cattle, on men, on all creeping things, that they may not catch the gray wolf, that they may not rend his warm skin! My word is binding, more binding than sleep, more binding than the promise of a hero."

This charm has a ring of peasant magic, suggesting a hungry poacher hoping to steal some fresh meat from the baron's herds, under the protection of a wolf skin. Poaching the overlord's cattle or game was punishable by death, which may account for the cruelty meted out to those accused of lycanthropy. One captured "werewolf" in France was so mauled that, a witness said, "he bore hardly any resemblance to a man, and struck with horror those who looked at him." The inquisitor, Pierre Boguet, explained that terrible injuries were common among werewolves, due to the many lacerations they suffered while running through bramble bushes.