Judika Illes - The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

The Pawnee nation, Plains Indians from presentday Kansas and Nebraska, identified so profoundly with wolves that the Plains hand-signal for wolf is the same as the one for Pawnee. Others referred to them as the Wolf People.

Odin’s warriors behaved like wolves, hence the name “wolf-warriors.” Sixth- to eighth-century CE helmets and scabbards found widely through Western and Central Europe were decorated with figures that may be werewolves or berserkers.

The earliest written report of werewolves derives from Herodotus, the fifth-century BCE Greek writer. According to him, a tribe known as the Neuri, living north of the Black Sea, had members who turned into wolves for several days each year. Today, this is thought to refer to Scythian shamans.

Werewolf transformation manifests in two distinct ways:

those who shift back and forth between human and werewolf manifestations

those who assume the form of a wolf full-time

People become werewolves voluntarily and involuntarily. People become werewolves accidentally or intentionally. People transform themselves into werewolves or others do it for them. The second manifestation, the full-time wolf, is virtually always an involuntary transformation and is frequently the result of a curse.

How else do you become a werewolf?

Ancestry may be blamed. Someone from a family full of werewolves may be more likely to be one.

Simply sleeping in the moonlight may do the trick.

Taking off one’s clothes and howling in the moonlight is considered effective, too.

The notion that being a werewolf is contagious is popular nowadays but derives more from movie traditions than from any folk wisdom. It may derive from confusion between vampires and werewolves.

In Ojibwa tradition, eating meat that was previously tasted by a real wolf leaves you prone to transformation.

In the Harz Mountains, the witches’ playground, there is a “werewolf stream.” All one must do is find it and drink the water.

In the Balkans, there’s a special werewolf flower. Pick it and transform.

Various spells refer to magical belts which when worn help one transform.

European werewolves allegedly concoct salves similar to witches’ flying ointments to effect transformation.

Order of birth: being born the seventh son of a seventh son or the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter is good.

Someone born with teeth and/or a caul may indicate a potential werewolf (see DICTIONARY: Taltos).

Curses cause transformation, as do evil spells: Polish witches can transform you into a werewolf via methods of “spoiling.” The witches form a belt from human flesh. This is secretly placed over the threshold of a room where a wedding reception is expected. Should someone step over the girdle, they’re doomed to roam as werewolves. (Doom isn’t expected to be permanent; the witches’ goal isn’t malice, it’s extortion: you can pay them to remove the spell.)

A fairly international tradition recommends that you drink rainwater collected from a wolf’s footprint.

In Brazil, the notion of becoming a werewolf involves the acquisition of an animal alter-ego. Accomplishment takes some long-term planning: for three years in a row, intensely petition San Cipriano and roll in the ashes of St John’s Eve bonfires.

According to the witch-hunt era Roman Catholic Church, one can only become a werewolf by making a pact with the devil or by being a child born outside church-sanctioned marriage. No other methods exist. (So much for being the innocent victim of a werewolf attack!) However, according to various unofficial traditions Christian transgressions may be punished by involuntary transformation into a werewolf, including:

being born on Christmas Day, a day also associated with the winter solstice and the power of the sun. Prior to Christianity, this day was understood as falling within a time period when Earth’s innate anarchistic forces were at their most powerful. Another, possibly related superstition, suggests that those born on Christmas Day possess the ability to talk with animals.

illegitimacy

being born a Roman Catholic priest’s son

Breton folklore suggests that anyone who doesn’t go to confession for ten years is vulnerable to transformation to a “bisclavret,” the Breton werewolf.

Lest one think that only male werewolves exist, there are tales of fierce, female werewolves too:

A Welsh prince allegedly had his werewolf daughter eliminate his enemies.

In the Russian tale Ivan of Shiganska, a female werewolf kills the abusive husband her parents forced her to marry.

The loups-garoux of Haiti and the French Caribbean are a fusion of Breton werewolf traditions and African secret sorcerers’ societies. These island loups-garoux tend to be female. Typically the ability to transform is passed from mother to daughter. Loups-garoux can be violent; attacks tend to be random although children of enemies are particularly vulnerable.

This may be lore or legend but werewolves are no laughing matter. Many people died because of werewolves: not because werewolves killed them but because they were suspected or accused of being werewolves. As with witches, despite all the talk of harm, malevolence and bestiality, it’s the werewolves who have historically been victims, not victimizers.

Concurrent to the European Witchcraze, there was a werewolf-panic, most famously in France but also elsewhere. (Werewolf-panic did not strike the British Isles, perhaps because wolves were already extinct.)

Like witchcraft, it’s extremely hard to prove you’re not a werewolf, especially a diabolical one. The human being is allegedly taken over by the spirit of a wolf, thus transforming into a werewolf. The alleged werewolf may be sleeping in bed or locked up in jail while his soul roams free. Using this kind of definition of werewolf, anyone might be convicted as a werewolf even if far from the place where the “crimes” were committed. (And they’re may have been crimes; just because the werewolf didn’t commit the murder doesn’t mean that the murder didn’t exist. One wonders how many accusations of witchcraft were used to deflect attention from true perpetrators.)

As with witch-trial transcripts it’s very difficult to know which part, if any of the testimony is genuine. Confessions were obtained via torture, terror, and duress and aren’t reliable. At the same time, hidden within some of the transcripts are interesting tales that suggest real, true witchcraft may not have been eradicated in Europe.