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Sam and Dean



Last Updated: 10/22/2008

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 26
Sign: Scorpio

City: LAWRENCE
State: ????
Country: US
Signup Date: 4/10/2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007 
Werewolves



A werewolve (lycanthrope) in modern folklore is said to be a person who shapeshifts into a wolf-like creature at sight of the full moon.  The appearance of the full moon was introduced into werewolf lore by medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury and wasn't widespred until fiction writers used the concept in literature (in the year 60...Gaius Petronius wrote a story about a man who turns into a wolf during the full moon). 

One of the earliest examples of lycanthropic lore is the story of Lycaon in Greek mythology.  Lycaon was said to transform into a wolf-like beast after sacrificing a child to Zeus at the base of a mountain (other legends tell of him consuming human flesh and then becoming a wolf).  According to legend, a man was turned to wolf at every scrifice to Zeus at the alter on Mount Lycaeus.  Roman legend tells of the lake of Arcadia, where a man swam across the lake and became a wolf for nine years.  This legend is thought to have spawned from the earlier Greek legend and related sacrifices of the cult dedicated to Zeus Lycaeus (the god of light).  The legend precipitates that Zeus Lycaeus slayed his son Nyctimous (darkness) in allusion to the concepts of day and night, thus resulting in the notion of the full moon being responsibile to the werewolf state. 

Older American legend tells of mortally sinful women being banished to a wolf-like existance (sometimes being forced to wear wolf-skin) in which she craves human flesh.   Her  werewolf state only takes form at night, where she devours her own children, the offspring of her relatives by succession, and then the children of strangers only to return to her normal human state by morning light. 

Modern lore tells of people becoming werewolves after being bitten by an existing werewolf, but this is rare in legend.  Many other cultures have the werewolf state being brought on by a curse or witchcraft, putting on wolf-skin in any form, drinking water held within animal footprints; and sometimes pledging oneself to Satan.

Ways to combat werewolves vary in culture and include an averion to wolfsbane (a plant thought to be watered by the saliva of Cerberus when he was brought out of hades by Hercules); silver (including a silver bullet);  religious articles including a cross or holy water; and in modern legend, to kill the host werewolf.

Many legends are now thought to be attributed to serial killings in olden times as many of the commonly associated practices of werewolves are concurrent with those of modern serial murderers.  Some also attribute werewolf lore to a variety of illnesses and diseases including: foodbourne illness; rabies; hypertrichosis - a disorder where excessive hair grows over the body; paranoia; lycanthropy - a rare mental disorder where victim believes they have transformed into an animal...although not necesasrily a wolf; and therianthropy - a spiritual concept found in primitive and nature-based cultures to describe a spiritual state where one believe he has been gifted with the spirit or soul, in whole or in part, of an animal.
1:08 PM
 
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