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The Book of Were-Wolves
by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865
This full length classic werewolf reference
book is presented courtesy of MythologyWeb.
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CHAPTER II
LYCANTHROPY AMONG THE ANCIENTS
What is Lycanthropy? The change of a man or woman into
the form of a wolf, either through magical means, so as to enable
him or her to gratify the taste for human flesh, or through judgment
of the gods in punishment for some great offence.
This is the popular definition. truly it consists in a form
of madness, such as may be found in most asylums.
Among the ancients this kind of insanity went by the names
Lycanthropy, Kuanthropy, or Boanthropy, because those afflicted
with it believed themselves to be turned into wolves, dogs, or
cows. But in the North of Europe, as we shall see, the shape
of a bear, and in Africa that of a hyena, were often selected
in preference. A mere matter of taste!
According to Marcellus Sidetes, of whose poem ![[name in Greek]](gr/w/werewolfbook2greek.gif) a fragment exists, men are attacked with
this madness chiefly in the beginning of the year, and become
most furious in February; retiring for the night to lone cemeteries,
and living precisely in the manner of dogs and wolves.
Virgil writes in his eighth Eclogue:
Has herbas, atque haec Ponto mihi lecta venena
Ipse dedit Moeris; nascuntur plurima Ponto.
His ego saepe lupum fieri, et se conducere sylvis
Moerim, saepe animas imis excire sepulchris,
Atque sata alio vidi traducere messes.
And Herodotus: "It seems that the Neuri are sorcerers,
if one is to believe the Scythians and the Greeks established
in Scythia; for each Neurian changes himself, once in the year,
into the form of a wolf, and he continues in that form for several
days, after which he resumes his former shape." (Lib. iv.
c. 105.)
See also Pomponius Mela (lib. ii. c. 1): "There is a
fixed time for each Neurian, at which they change, if they like,
into wolves, and back again into their former condition."
But the most remarkable story among the ancients is that related
by Ovid in his "Metamorphoses," of Lycaon, king of
Arcadia, who, entertaining Jupiter one day, set before him a
hash of human flesh, to test his omniscience, whereupon the god
transferred him into a wolf:
In vain he attempted to speak; from that very instant
His jaws were bespluttered with foam, and only he thirsted
For blood, as he raged amongst flocks and panted for slaughter.
His vesture was changed into hair, his limbs became crooked;
A wolf, -- he retains yet large trace of his ancient expression,
Hoary he is as afore, his countenance rabid,
His eyes glitter savagely still, the picture of fury.
[OVID. Met. i. 237; PAUSANIAS, viii. 2, 1; TZETZE ad
Lycoph. 481; ERATOSTH. Catas. i. 8.]
Pliny relates from Evanthes, that on the festival of Jupiter
Lycaeus, one of the family of Antaeus was selected by lot and
conducted to the brink of the Arcadian lake. He then hung his
clothes on a tree and plunged into the water, whereupon he was
transformed into a wolf. Nine years after, if he had not tasted
human flesh, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former
shape, which had in the meantime become aged, as though he had
worn it for nine years.
Agriopas relates, that Demaenetus, having assisted at an Arcadian
human sacrifice to Jupiter Lycaeus, ate of the flesh and was
at once transformed into a wolf, in which shape he prowled about
for ten years, after which he recovered his human form and took
part in the Olympic games.
The following story is from Petronius:
My master had gone to Capua to sell some old clothes. I seized
the opportunity, and persuaded our guest to bear me company about
five miles out of town; for he was a soldier, and as bold as
death. We set out about cockcrow, and the moon shone bright as
day, when, coming among some monuments, my man began to converse
with the stars, whilst I jogged along singing and counting them.
Presently I looked back after him, and saw him strip and lay
his clothes by the side of the road. My heart was in my mouth
in an instant, I stood like a corpse; when, in a crack, he was
turned into a wolf. Don't think I'm joking: I would not tell
you a lie for the finest fortune in the world.
But to continue: after he was turned into a wolf, he set up
a howl and made straight for the woods. At first I did not know
whether I was on my head or my heels; but at last going to take
up his clothes, I found them turned into stone. The sweat streamed
from me, and I never expected to get over it. Melissa began to
wonder why I walked so late. "Had you come a little sooner,"
she said, "you might at least have lent us a hand; for a
wolf broke into the farm and has butchered all of our cattle;
but though he got off, it was no laughing matter for him, for
a servant of ours ran him through with a pike."
Hearing this I could not close an eye; but as soon as it was
daylight, I ran home like a pedlar that has been eased of his
pack. Coming to the place where the clothes had been turned into
stone, I saw nothing but a pool of blood; and when I got home,
I found my soldier lying in bed, like an ox in a stall, and a
surgeon dressing his neck. I saw at once that he was a fellow
who could change his skin (versipellis), and never after
could I eat bread with him, no, not if you would have killed
me. Those who would have taken a different view of the case are
welcome to their opinion; if I tell you a lie, may your genii
confound me!
As everyone knows, Jupiter changed himself into a bull; Hecuba
became a bitch dog; Actaeon a
stag; the comrades of Ulysees were transformed into Swine; and
the daughters of Proetus fled through the fields believing themselves
to be cows, and would not allow anyone near them, lest they should
be caught and yoked.
S. Augustine declared, in his De Civitate Dei, that
he knew an old woman who was said to turn men into asses by her
enchantments.
Apuleius has left us his charming romance of the Golden
Ass, in which the hero, through injudicious use of a magical
salve, is transformed into that long-eared animal.
It is to be observed that the chief seat of Lycanthropy was
Arcadia, and it has been very plausibly suggested that the cause
might be traced to the following circumstance: The natives were
a pastoral people, and would consequently suffer very severely
from the attacks and depredations of wolves. They would naturally
institute a sacrifice to obtain deliverance from this pest, and
security for their flocks. This sacrifice consisted in the offering
of a child, and it was instituted by Lycaon. From the circumstance
of the sacrifice being human, and from the peculiarity of the
name of its originator, rose the myth.
But, on the other hand, the story is far too widely spread
for us to attribute it to an accidental origin, or to trace it
to a local source.
Half the world believes, or believed in, were-wolves, and
they were supposed to haunt the Norwegian forests by those who
had never remotely been connected with Arcadia: and the superstition
had probably struck deep its roots into the Scandinavian and
Teutonic minds, ages before Lycaon existed; and we have only
to glance at Oriental literature to see it as firmly engrafted
in the imagination of the Easterns.
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