Werewolf
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The Werewolf, illustration of Lucas Cranach the Old one about 1512The werewolf or lycanthrope is a character of legend, vagrant and malfaisant, who passed to have the capacity to transform themselves into wolf.
Synopsis [masquer]
1 Terminology
2 the legend
2.1 Characteristics and attributes
2.2 The fight counters the werewolf
3 the myth
3.1 The tradition greco-Roman
3.2 The Germanic tradition
4 the wolf garou of the Middle Ages
5 the contemporary wolf garou
6 Etiology
6.1 Voyages of the heart
6.2 A disorder of the imaginary one
6.3 A psychiatric disease
7 Catalogue of films
8 Notes
9 Bibliography
10 See too
Terminology [to modify]
The term "garou" comes from francic the werwolf which means "man-wolf already" ("wer" represents the same root as Latin "to vir", the man). Originally, Wolf wanted to also say "robber"[1]. The Latin term are equivalent is versipelles.[2]
The term "lycanthrope" comes him from the Greek lycos ("wolf") and anthropos ("man"). It is thus a human being which believes itself transformed into wolf. The thérianthropie term tends today to replace.
According to Ernest Jones[3] the Russian name is volkodlak, of volk=loup and dlak=poil, whereas the Slavic term vukodlak, which also designates the werewolf, is used in Bulgaria and Serbia to indicate the vampire. In the same way in Czech: vilkodlak and in Greek: vrykolakas is used to indicate the vampire, which means that there is a close relationship between the werewolf and the vampire.
[to modify] the legend
The three essential elements of the belief in the werewolf are the ideas of animal metamorphosis, cannibalism and night voyage[3].
[to modify] Characteristic and attributes
According to the legend, at the time of the nights of Full moon,the human werewolf, transforms themselves into an enormous wolf with highly developed directions and acquires the characters allotted to this animal: muscular power, agility, trick and ferocity. It drives out and attacks without mercy its victims to devour them, not controlling its actions more, and being able to kill out of many victims in only one night. People started to drive out the wolves, protecting themselves some withholy water and killing them with a silver ball or money piles.
The man reached of lycanthropie must generally remove his clothing before taking the shape of the werewolf. This belief appears already in Satyricon de Pétrone (Ier century). In the same way, in the "Lay one of Bisclavret" of Marie de France (XIIe S.), a knight must strip himself entirely before metamorphosing himself and dissimulates his clothing under a hollow stone because, if it did not find them, it would be condemned to wander indefinitely in the shape of a wolf.
According to the tradition, the wolf-garous suffer from the same repulsion as the vampires for the things crowned and, of the same, were regarded as creatures of the Devil. Their condition can hereditary or be acquired. It can occur by a curse pronounced by a wizard or a priest, or while clinking glasses (without the knowledge) with a werewolf who pronounces then a formula of transmission (Lithuanian belief).
The transmission by bite is an invention of the American cinema, by contamination of the myth of the Vampire.
In the same way, according to the legend, human the wolf-garous could preserve some characteristics, a such modification of their voice and their eyes, eyebrows meeting above the nose, of the slightly reddish nails, the major one and the of the same index length (like a leg of wolf), the ears established a little low and behind of the head, and a general way a little more hairs on the hands, the feet and in the back.
The werewolf can thus be a metamorphosed alive man, but it can also be a body which leaves the tomb in the shape of a wolf, variety known under the name of phantom werewolf. One believed by there that the metamorphosed body was that of a damnée heart which did not find the rest in its tomb[3].
The legend of the werewolf also evokes that of the night voyage. Indeed, the belief that a given person could be in two places at the same time is attested in the multiple accounts where the wounds of the wolf were found on the human body which remained with the hearth[3].
From the XVEcentury, the legends, in Scandinavia, in Western Russia and Central Europe, make state of the existence of magic philtres which can help human the wolf-garous to find all their human aspect.
[to modify] the fight counters the werewolf
Lycanthrope changing only with full moon, it is enough to lock up it during this period in a cage or a cell firmly closed and padlocked.
Once the transformation carried out, the lycanthrope sees his multiplied by ten forces, the only effective weapon to kill it is a gun or better a rifle with money balls, if possible bénites.
Exorcism remains another way of driving out the démoniaque spirit which took possession of the body of unhappy which cursed and to thus perhaps save its life.
To undoubtedly survive, it should be touched into full c?ur and the ball must remain there. If you can reach that point with a lance or a pile (its c?ur should be transpierced), it is necessary that the blade entirely silver and is blessed in the name of the saint of the hunters. To keep it without danger, one needs a silver cage (blessed it also). The blessed money causes burns to him which it hates and which it does not support; it will not touch the bars of its cage well a long time, if it resists to him, it becomes more furious, which gives him even more force.
[to modify] the myth
The Werewolf, stamps German of 1722The myth of the werewolf is very old and commun run with many European people. From the point of view of mythology, the werewolf was indissociable a long time of the vampire, with which it shares many common points, however, the myth of the werewolf is much older than that of the vampire.
One finds the myth of the man transforming himself into wild animal in other cultures.
In the Pantheon ofold Egypt, many gods were represented in the form of an hybrid, half animal man and half.
In an old woman and heroic saga Tartar, Bürûh Kahn which reigned on six hundred wolves, passed a part of its time under the appearance of a resplendent wolf like gold[3].
In Africa, one notes the presence ofthe man-leopard (Congo),the man-jackal andthe man-hyena (Abyssinie).
One also announces the presence ofthe man-tiger in Asia andthe man-shark in Oceania.
These traditions perhaps inspired the two versions of film "the cat-like one" (1942 and 1982), where a young woman metamorphoses herself in panther. This topic is very present besides in the literature and the cinema of the fantastic. In "the island of Doctor Moreau" of H.G. Wells (1896), an insane scientist tries to transform the men into animals, but it manages to create only monsters, semi-men, semi-animals. In film "the black fly" of Kurt Neumann (1958), it is a biologist who changes accidentally into a hybrid being, semi-man, light flyweight. Lastly, in the film "Sssnake" of Bernard Kowalski (1973), another insane scientist manages to transform a young man into cobra, but this one is immediately made devour by a mongoose...
the tradition greco-Roman [to modify]
With the O Cfront century. J.-C., Hérodote[4] speaks about a race of men living the regions of the edges of the Black Sea and able as skilful magicians to metamorphose itself at will in wolves, then to take again their human appearance.
As of this time there was a belief in the fact that anthropophagous human beings, by the practice of the magic, took the appearance of a wolf to satisfy their monstrous appetites more easily.
Greek mythology tells that Latona, the mother ofApollo, was protected from the anger ofHéra while being transformed into she-wolf.
Ovide (-43 - 17), also reports that Lycaon, king d'Arcadie and his fifty sons which famous for their were impiété, were used among many dishes for Zeus which had come to visit them under the appearance of a poor wretch, a dish containing human flesh which will avèra the being that of youngest wire. Thus it could uncover God of the Gods. But this last, made indignant, pushed back with far the table from the feast, struck down all wire of the king, except Nyctimos, which went up on the throne and changed Lycaon into wolf:
Its clothing changes into hairs, its arms in legs
become a wolf it still preserves vestiges of its old form.
It always has the same gray hair, the same savage air, the same burning eyes;
it is always the image of ferocity.
Ovide, the Metamorphoses (I, 209)
Virgile (-70 -19) also speaks about it in its eighth eclogue, where it makes say to Alphésibée: "I saw Moeris being made wolf and being inserted in wood".
Pline the Old one (23 - 79) speaks about a Greek writer, Évanthes, quoting itself the books of Arcadiens, in which an individual of a certain family transformed himself into wolf after having suspended his clothing with a oak and having crossed a pond with the stroke. It regained its human shape at the end of nine years and found even its clothing. It also speaks about certain Déménète de Parrhasie which was metamorphosed in wolf after having tasted entrails of a child, immolé in the sacrifice of human victims that Arcadiens still made in this time with Jupiter Lycéen[5].
To Iercentury, Arétée de Cappadoce explains why certain men who feel transformed into wolf are worked by the appetites and the pangs of this wild animal, are thrown on the herds and the men to devour them, leave during the night preferably, haunt the cemeteries and the monuments, howling with death, with a perpetual deterioration, the inserted eyes and hagards, not seeing that obscurely as if it were surrounded of darkness, the ravaged legs by the scratches and the bites of dogs.
[to modify] the Germanic tradition
Many other legends in Scandinavia, Western Russia and Central Europe, refer to the wolves-garous. The Scandinavian garous by are struck same ostracism only elsewhere and, without being ordinary, the garou is more or less accepted in the company.
The Scandinavian equivalent of the wolf garou is the vargúlfr[6] [7].
In Saga d' Egill wire of Grímr the bald person, the Úlfr grandfather was called Kveld-Úlfr, the wolf of the evening, because each evening it became savage and wanted to sleep. Egill inherited this property.
In Völsunga saga Sigmundr and Sinfjötli discover two deadened men. Skins of wolves were suspended above them in the house; every ten days, it was possible for them to leave these skins. Sigmundr and Sinfjötli passed the skins of wolves to them and then, they could not at all leave there, though in truth, they had preserved same nature as before: they howled like wolves, each one of them knowing the significance of this howl.
The women can also transform themselves into she-wolf: inpoetic Edda (Hárbardhsljódh), vargynjur is the woman-she-wolf that Thórr molesté[7].
The wolf and the bear are the reasons for the warrior-deer, them to berserkir (which wears a shirt of bear) or úlfhedhnar (which carries a fur-lined coat of wolf), which in the engagements entered a warlike fury. This fury was a crowned frenzy[8], these warriors of the combatants of elite[7].
[to modify] the wolf garou the Middle Ages
To the XIIEcentury, Guillaume of Palermo speaks about Leu-Garou. Many wizards at the time had taken the practice to run in the fields, the nights of full moon, provided with skins of wolf, in order to frighten the populations. Marie de France composes lay (Bisclavret) in whom a knight must strip herself entirely before changing into wolf and dissimulates her clothing under a hollow stone, because it could not find its human form if they were concealed to him.
End of the Middle Ages and during the Rebirth, in a little more than one hundred years, one recorded, in France, nearly 30 000 lawsuits of wolf-garous. The rural populations strongly believed in the existence of these "men wolves" who devastated the campaigns and tackled the animals as with the being human. In Europe, of XVe to the XVIIIEcentury, nearly 100 000 people were recognized like werewolf and were condemned to be burned sharp. According to Collin de Plancy, tens of thousands of others perished, without another form of lawsuit, when a villager was suspected of being a werewolf, it were caught and skinned sharp, because the legend wanted that the hairs hid under the skin.
[to modify] the contemporary wolf garou
At the time of the XXEcentury, several businesses were related to the myth of the werewolf:
the business of the "animal of Sarlat", in Sarlat in the Dordogne, ever elucidated;
the business of the "animal of Senonges" in the Vosges which in 1994 égorgea more than 80 animals;
the business of the "animal of Were worth", in Switzerland, ever elucidated;
the business of the "animal of Noth", in Switzerland, ever elucidated;
Very recently, the newspaper international Mail of November 6, 2003 - n° 679, brings back these strange testimonys held in front of the criminal court of Lausanne (Swiss) where a man is continued to have massacred his wife with blows of knife: "I saw his canines pushing. They released a strange odor. Like that of a werewolf". The defendant preserved "a contact with reality", indicated on his side the psychiatric expert.
[to modify] Etiology
The Latin doctors knew a disease which they named insania lupina (madness louvière or rage lupine).
[to modify] voyages of the heart
According to Claude Lecouteux[9] the belief in the wolves-garous is related to that of the voyages of the heart, whose it represents only one particular case. In Scandinavian mythology, hamr, "the skin", is one of the forms which "the heart can take", the man who can have several of them. It is précisemment the internal format which marries the body envelope closely. The manifestation of the hamr is accompanied by an increase in force, can take the aspect of an animal, and be played of the distances and obstacles[10]. The change in form, "while the individual falls in lethargy", is "a point which points out fright exactly during which the spirit of the Shaman visits the other world and enters in communication with the spirits that it questions"[11].
According to Governed Boyer, Hugr, in the Scandinavian tradition, is a universal active ingredient which can sometimes be collected by malevolent people to produce harmful effects. Thus in Saga de Thórdr hredha, a man sees in dream eighteen wolves which are in fact the "hugr of wolves" of its enemies, makes the "bad hugr of it".
[to modify] a disorder of the imaginary one
Johann Weyer, doctor of the Netherlands (1515-1588), explains the lycanthropie like an imaginary and morbid phenomenon[12]. It thus describes the patients who are reached by it: they are pale, have the inserted eyes and the extremely dry language.
It is the same for Jean de Nynauld who publish in 1615 Of the lycanthropie, transformation and extase of the wizards:
"mélancholie or madness louvière because of those which estoient some reached thinks of being transformed into wolf or dog."
Collin de Plancy, in its infernal Dictionary, published in 1818, defines the lycanthropie as one
"disease which, in the centuries when one saw everywhere only demons, sorceries and evil spells, disturbed the imagination of the weak brains, so much so that they were believed metamorphosed in wolves-garous, and acted consequently. The melancholic persons more than the others were laid out with becoming lycanthropes, i.e. men wolves.".
[to modify] a psychiatric disease
The belief that its own body can be transformed into wolf is a zoopathy, namely a symptom of a psychiatric disease in progress. The structure of this is delirious is of paraphrenic type.
