Origion of Werewolf Legend?

[BloodStar_Moon]

Go here: http://www.allenvarney.com/av_were.html and tell me what you think.It could help some peoples ideas...it could make you hate me forever.But...i'd love to hear comments and opinions!But it basically discusses werewolf legend through the ages and other things.Also some references to other things that you could look into. But if you don't believe any of it...please say so!

[Scott Gardener]

I'd have to say it's pretty well done and well-researched. Good work.

[Cassandra]

i found that quite interesting! thanx!

would u mind if i downloaded it and used it as part of my research -you getting full credit of course?

[dnl]

Yet there is more to it than that.

[Black Shuck]

I liked it It had very good info

[Jamie]

I've read this before, and even though it is well-researched, it is annoying as heck in the many little details it gets wrong, mostly overdone generalizations or quick assumptions. For example:

The ancient legends share only two points: The werewolf is evil, and it has a taste for human flesh. Other than these certainties, nobody got their stories straight.

Even within books like Summers', which went out of their way to dig up evil stuff to prove theological points, at least half of the legends depict werewolves who don't kill people. Yeah, there's about nine famous super-violent legends that get harped on over and over, but most folktales depict a werewolf who is a menace to livestock only, if even that. In fact, many folktales rely on the idea that the werewolf might kill someone in the future for their scare factor. Folktales just don't compare to movies.
So, yes, saying that being evil and having a taste for human flesh are universal characteristics of werewolves is an overgeneralization. It would be better to say that they are part of the stereotypical view of werewolves, and that these ideas prevail in the folklore of certain nations.

[00airknight]

were wolf eh
the origen of werewolves are debateable how it happened is opinionated.
the the name were means "man" and wolf. so man wolf. it is uncertain but whereever they were created and wat time would be in the roman era. because the origen is latin. it would likely be around those times. that however can lead us in the right direction

[dnl]

I must say your rong 00airknight the name werewolf is latin thet is the name they go by now but werewolves have been around since pre history.
Thro one legend from that time is about a araciden werewolf.

[WolfVanZandt]

Awful. I know that the average "officianado" thinks that this represents Werewolf lore throughout the ages but, in fact, it only represents the anti-Were bias shown by authors like Summers.

Take for instance the two points that the writer said were common to ancient Werewolf lore. Actually, just take the first one. Werewolves are evil. Fact is, according to the classical authors, Werewolves ranged from good to evil (just like everyone else). Take the Werewolf in the Satyricon - the story teller reported being terrified of him but there is no indication that he ever actually harmed anyone (well, he was a solder, but other than that). Also consider the "good Werewolves" in Bisclaeret, William of Palerne, Gorlagon, etc.

The problem is that, when people start talking about Werewolf ore, they rarely go back beyond the 15th century and they rarely range outside of Western Europe. Therefore, werewolf lore is always endued with the Late Middle Ages (mostly Catholic) superstition and bias against lycanthropy. The bias didn't exist in the earlier Middle Ages and was not common, for instance, in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. Before the fifteenth century, there are Werewolf heroes and saints. Afterwards, most "Werewolves" were poor, illiterate, and mentally ill.

Frankly, I believe the Werewolf legends sprang from misunderstandings of Therians that were as active back then (or more so) as they are now.

[dnl]

shapeshift is almost mantioned in every culutere up to mordern times.
Edit

The problem is that, when people start talking about Werewolf ore, they rarely go back beyond the 15th century and they rarely range outside of Western Europe. Therefore, werewolf lore is always endued with the Late Middle Ages (mostly Catholic) superstition and bias against lycanthropy. The bias didn't exist in the earlier Middle Ages and was not common, for instance, in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. Before the fifteenth century, there are Werewolf heroes and saints. Afterwards, most "Werewolves" were poor, illiterate, and mentally ill.

ok I know what your talk about this beceuse at this peroid in time wolves were feared. now there is no definate cause but good chance it was caused by a fungis know as ergot fungis used now used to make LSD. It caused people to think there werewolves and such. thousends of people were tride for being werewolf hundreds of thousands were killed. I dont consider them real myths but relate around what rally happend kindy.

[Renorei]

ok I know what your talk about this beceuse at this peroid in time wolves were feared. now there is no definate cause but good chance it was caused by a fungis know as ergot fungis used now used to make LSD. It caused people to think there werewolves and such. thousends of people were tride for being werewolf hundreds of thousands were killed. I dont consider them real myths but relate around what rally happend kindy.

I posted something similar to this in another thread, and I'd like to elaborate on this point a bit.

Ergot poisoning (or at least, as it was taught to me) occurs in crops under certain weather conditions. Specifically, cold and damp. When crops would get ergot, and people would eat them over several months, mild hallucinations and extreme paranoia would occur, throughout an entire village (because everyone was usually eating the same stored crops). This is why many supernatural 'sightings' occured. It has been found that, in areas with climates more likely to have weather that would have caused ergot poisoning to grow, there were a higher incidence of sightings of supernatural beings.

[Jamie]

Awful. I know that the average "officianado" thinks that this represents Werewolf lore throughout the ages but, in fact, it only represents the anti-Were bias shown by authors like Summers.

Take for instance the two points that the writer said were common to ancient Werewolf lore. Actually, just take the first one. Werewolves are evil. Fact is, according to the classical authors, Werewolves ranged from good to evil (just like everyone else). Take the Werewolf in the Satyricon - the story teller reported being terrified of him but there is no indication that he ever actually harmed anyone (well, he was a solder, but other than that). Also consider the "good Werewolves" in Bisclaeret, William of Palerne, Gorlagon, etc.

The problem is that, when people start talking about Werewolf ore, they rarely go back beyond the 15th century and they rarely range outside of Western Europe. Therefore, werewolf lore is always endued with the Late Middle Ages (mostly Catholic) superstition and bias against lycanthropy. The bias didn't exist in the earlier Middle Ages and was not common, for instance, in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. Before the fifteenth century, there are Werewolf heroes and saints. Afterwards, most "Werewolves" were poor, illiterate, and mentally ill.

Frankly, I believe the Werewolf legends sprang from misunderstandings of Therians that were as active back then (or more so) as they are now.

I very much agree.
Summers is very anti-werewolf, and admittedly so. His selection of werewolf lore and the conclusions he personally draws should not be taken as a good statistical sample of werewolf lore and beliefs in the general population (a mistake many later werewolf authors make). Futhermore, Summers admits that he threw out what he considered to be "fairy tales" in order to concentrate on lore that represented his idea of werewolves (that is, his idea of werewolf/witches of a very evil nature who got their powers from demons). Considering that Summers himself admits his bias, it has always been confusing to me how later writers almost universally considered Summer's work unbiased.

[Scott Gardener]

Summers was very intelligent and educated, but he still believed that devils and demons were real in the most literal sense, and he believed very much, in the twentieth century, that vampires and werewolves were both a physical and literal threat in the world. He most likely suffered from some form of paranoia.

As for my paranoia, I don't suffer from it; I enjoy it very much, thank you.

[WolfVanZandt]

The ergot theory, as popular as it is, doesn't make much sense. Fact is, the lethal dose and the "therapeutic dose" of ergot is so similar that it would be extremely rare for a person to survive to report hallucinations - certainly not enough people to be described as "mass hallucinations".

In other words, the situation would not be "Eat ergot. See strange man as a Werewolf. Tell local constable. Get better or get worse and die." It would be "Eat ergot. Act really weird. Die."

Well, Scott, I believe in demons in a very real sense, but I don't tend to regard anyone that's different from me as demonic. Summers seems to have a very potent slash of xenophobia in his make-up.

Werewolves were demonized by the church in the 15th century despite the fact that there is a good bit of evidence that they were accepted before that time. The Inquisition was an econo-political response to the fact that the Catholic church was beginning to lose holdings and constituents during that time period and was feeling very threatened. Werewolves seemed to be part of the early Protestant faction, so they were early on seen as the enemy - along with "heretics", gypsies, and Jews. Once the label of "demon" was attached by the church, the stigma stuck - history was effectively changed. Fortunately enough of earlier times excaped "alteraion" by the Catholic church in Eastern Europe and other outlying areas (such as the Celtic monestaries) that it's possible to get an idea of what might have actually happened. Certainly there's enough to place strong suspicion on the "official histories".

[Scott Gardener]

Summers kind of went beyond simply believing in them. He considered them an eminant threat. And, while that alone can't make a diagnosis of paranoia, what I've read by him and about him do tend to favor it. It is true, however, that belief alone doesn't make one paranoid; paranoia is an irrational belief that persists no matter how much evidence to the contrary is given. Whether or not Saddam had WMDs is a political stance; believing that Saddam is in your closet with a bag of grenades is a bit more.

[WolfVanZandt]

O.o

You mean, he's not?

[dnl]

effect's of ergot alkaloids is vasoconstriction, therefore ergotism may lead to gangrene and loss of the limbs due to limited blood circulation. This may also cause insanity, convulsions, or death, due to limited circulation to the brain. it dous not always kill.

thro even if ergot poisoning is found to be an accurate explanation in some cases, it cannot be applied to all instances. An over-reliance on any one theory denies the diversity and complexity of such occurrences.

[WolfVanZandt]

My point is that, whether it kills or not, an ergot poinsoned individual doesn't look anything like a Werewolf and, although there's a distant chance that some ignorant peasant might have seen an insane egot poisoned person from a distance at night and mistook them for a Werewolf (but why?!), it's a pretty huge stretch and why would that be a priority hypothesis when there are much more likely possibilities to consider?

[Renorei]

My point is that, whether it kills or not, an ergot poinsoned individual doesn't look anything like a Werewolf and, although there's a distant chance that some ignorant peasant might have seen an insane egot poisoned person from a distance at night and mistook them for a Werewolf (but why?!), it's a pretty huge stretch and why would that be a priority hypothesis when there are much more likely possibilities to consider?

....Ergot wouldn't make people act like werewolves, I don't think. What it would do is cause extreme paranoia and mild hallucinations. Thus, if one guy happened to hallucinate a werewolfy creature, he would tell everyone. And, everyone would believe him, since they are all paranoid. They would start to see things that weren't there (ever saw a snake and then for like the next two hours every garden hose and rope looks like a snake? You even see snakes in your peripherals, but when you turn there is nothing there that even looks snaky. It'd be like that, only way worse and more difficult to shrug off because you're on a mind-altering substance).

[WolfVanZandt]

I can't even imagine it....but if nothing else, it simply doesn't fit history. You're talking about a late medieval origin of Werewolves. Werewolves existed (conceptually) 500 years before the birth of Christ. As a theory, ergot doesn't fit anything at all. At best, it's manufacture out of thin air. There's no reason at all to think that it has anything to do with the advent of lycanthropy.

Let me put it another way. Let's say that it is possible that ergot could cause a mass hysteria that would account for Werewolves (and i seriously doubt that). Is there any reason for saying that it did? Saying that it could and saying that it did are two very different things. You really need some reason to think that that is actually what happened.

Look at it another way. To actually suspect a person of murder you need oportunity, motive, and presence. Opportunity is the potential of ergot of cause lycanthropic hallucinations. Even granting that distant possibility you do not have motive (evidence that it actually happened) or presence (connection is time (Werewolves existed thousand sof years earlier) and place (the Scythians were nomads, not farmers, where would they have gotten ergot poisoning to create they're Werewolf delusions?).

Ergot simply doesn't fit anything. It's a popular theory that gained a little scholarly support for a time (why? I can't imagine) but it simply has little or no validity.

[dnl]

Well for one reson is entire villiges have sufferd from ergot..So that I belive gives us presence and it did account for some of the incidents. With out drugs in 1966 fox made a hotline for werewolve reports it got 10,000 replices and some where cheked out and athencted.

[dnl]

also dud your right werewolves dint come from this parode of time but a lot of people think of 16Century becouse a lot of people were convicted and killed mostly becouse of the church.

2,000 BC
Epic of Gilamesh written down (first literary evidence of werewolves)

[WolfVanZandt]

THat's another thing I don't understand. I've been all over Gilgamesh and I have yet to find a Werewolf. Inkidu is the closest I've been able to find but the Epic doesn't indicate that he's in anyway related to wolves. In fact, old pictures make him look like he might be related to those winged bulls on the Ishtar gates.

[dnl]

I've read it to i think i know what part. It's wired they would not call it a werewolf during that time.

[dnl]

also think you meant Enkidu