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If the legends are to be believed, lycanthropy has been with us since King Lycaon was transformed into a wolf, in retribution for serving human flesh to Zeus during a dinner party in ancient Greece. Ever since, the werewolf has followed the human race through whispered tales and popular myth, stalking towns and villages from the Caucasus to Colorado.
The popularity and seeming irrationality of these stories has been a traditional target for debunkers of the supernatural. Rationalisations of the werewolf myth have stretched from theories of rabies infection to ergot poisoning. More difficult to dispel has been the delusional convictions of people with clinical lycanthropy. Often submerged in intense psychosis, affected individuals report the feeling of transformation into various forms of animal, some experienced as so unusual, the animal has yet to be identified.
From THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVESby SABINE BARING-GOULDSmith, Elder & Co., London1865 Again in 1598, a year memorable in the annals of lycanthropy, a trial took place in Angers, the details of which are very terrible. In a wild and unfrequented spot near Caude, some countrymen came one day upon the corpse of a boy … Read more
From THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVESby SABINE BARING-GOULDSmith, Elder & Co., London1865 On the 14th of December, in the same year as the execution of the Gandillon family (1598), a tailor of Chalons was sentenced to the flames by the Parliament of Paris for lycanthropy. This wretched man had decoyed children into his shop, or attacked … Read more
From THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVESby SABINE BARING-GOULDSmith, Elder & Co., London1865 We come now to a more remarkable circumstance, the affliction of a whole family with the same form of insanity. Our information is derived from Boguet’s Discours de Sorciers, 1603-1610. Pernette Gandillon was a poor girl in the Jura, who in 1598 ran about … Read more
From THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVESby SABINE BARING-GOULDSmith, Elder & Co., London1865 These events happened in 1603 in the south-west of France in the region of Landes. One fine afternoon in the spring, some village girls were tending their sheep on the sand-dunes which intervene between the vast forests of pine covering the greater portion of … Read more
St Christopher is the patron saint of travelers and seafarers. In Christian popular tradition, he was a giant who carried travellers across a river. The story is well known, and does not need to be repeated here. But Old English traditions of the saint are rather unusual. According to the Old English Passion of St … Read more
At the edges of the known world of the medieval mappaemundi were supposed to live monstrous races described by travelers and soldiers that dared to adventure so far away. At the times, authors like Pliny with his book Natural History included illustrations and descriptions of these races culled from descriptions and classical writings (Natural History … Read more
There are numerous wolves in Norse mythology. First, we have Geri and Freki, accompanying god Odin. Fenrir is a monstrous giant wolf, son of the demoniac god Loki and a giantess, Angerboda. In both the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, Fenrir is a son of Loki and is foretold to kill the god Odin during … Read more
Dis Pater, Soranus, or Feronius was the consort of the Sabine underground Goddess Feronia, “Mother of Wolves. She was 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. She was also identified with Dīs … Read more