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I have always been confused with the term Lycans and Lycanthropy referring to werewolves.
It seems like the technical term for it, but, its also a real diesease.

Clinical lycanthropy is defined as a rare psychiatric syndrome which involves a delusion that the affected person can or has transformed into an animal, or that he or she is an animal

Now, also, I cant find the topic, but, on another forum (not werewolf related), a person posted up about how they knew someone with Lycanthropy. Whoever this person was, she supposedly always walked on tip toes, and hid it by wearing high heels. At night she would go into her "wolf" stage and she would walk on the floor and try ripping things up. She also said that she would change into a wolf. Her parents had to keep her in her room at those stages. Ok, I know this is one of those things that are like "I know a guy and his brothers sisters cousin who had this friend said..." but still. If its a real disease, then where did the word come from?

I guess what im asking is the origin of the word Lycan, being used as a term for a real disease and also what werewolves are called...

Probably an oversimplification, but Lycanthrope is basically the Greek word for werewolf, when Clinical Lycanthropy was first identified and diagnosed the Doctor who discovered/named it probably wanted to sound cute or ironic and named the disease for the legend.

Slightly OT: As of Rise of the Lycans, in the Underworld canon the term Lycan refers to a human/werewolf hybrid, hopefully this revelation will take some steam out of the "erroneously calling werewolves Lycans" fad.

Does anyone here remember when everyone started calling werewolves Garou after WTA was released?

I always just thought of "lycan" as being short for "lycanthrope." Like saying "white" instead of "Anglo-Saxon," if you will.

Clinical lycanthropy is a very very rare disease with only a small number of cases in the history of clinical psychology. Furthermore, the disorder is categorized by a delusion of acting like many different animals, and not just wolves, who are actually a minority.

There are more lottery winners than lycanthropes.

I consider Lycanthropy as animals' spirits possessing humans for a long time, so those animal spirits can be half-human.

As scientists called it a strange disorder...

Lycos is the Greek word for wolf, hence the name connections.

My problem (which I've stated before) is that "Lycan" sounds exactly like "Lichen".
A Lycan is a Werewolf-thingie.
A Lichen is a combination of plant and animal and grows under wet rocks.

In Underworld, there is a rather strong similarity between the two...

In Second Life, I may color my Lycan avatar that color as a bit of a joke...

RedEye wrote:Lycos is the Greek word for wolf, hence the name connections.

My problem (which I've stated before) is that "Lycan" sounds exactly like "Lichen".
A Lycan is a Werewolf-thingie.
A Lichen is a combination of plant and animal and grows under wet rocks.

In Underworld, there is a rather strong similarity between the two...

In Second Life, I may color my Lycan avatar that color as a bit of a joke...

I may like Lycans, but I don't like lichen. I've taken a lichen to this Lycan thread though, cause I'm a fungi to have around.

The term I believe does come from a greek myth. If I remember correctly Then it's based on an old king who sacrificed two children to the god Zeus. Zeus, in rage at what the king had done, turned him into a wolf to wander around wild. The name of that greek king was
"King Lycaon."

The version of that story that I read is that Zeus was on one of his jaunts where he randomly got human women pregnant( as a wolf no less....) and one of them was the wife of King Lycaon. Now the child that she had from Zeus was treated pretty badly by the king (sort of like Cinderella.) and Zeus found out.

So Zeus decided to pay a visit to the king disguised as another king and Lycaon offered Zeus a meal( forget whether Lycaon knew that it was Zeus or not.). King Lycaon decided to kill his son and serve him up to Zeus; Which Zeus knew right away what the king had done. The King was turned into a wolf as punishment.

There were slight variations in this version of the story.
one I read said that the kings descendants were cursed to become wolves for a certain number of years ( like 7 or something) and they had to go back to a certain spot to become human again......

At least we can agree on the fact that zeus was involved in both the stories we heard.

Oh dear sweet jesus I hate that term.

Lycan is a word that only the werewolf weaboos on here use, those people with distractingly bad grammar and spelling and the annoying tendency to think they're actually werewolves (Not talking about the therians though) when in reality they are just stupid teenagers who's only frame of reference is Van Helsing or Underworld and wouldn't know a good werewolf story if it bit them on the rear end.

Of course, I can't really say that much, being a stupid teenager myself and having loved Van Helsing when I was younger (Although I now know how wrong I was).

Now look, if a kid comes on here and Underworld is his only frame of reference for werewolves, and he calls them "Lycans," he just needs some education is all. It's our job to show him new and different werewolf stories, and if he's claiming to be a werewolf, gently suggest that we have a roleplaying forum. These tactics have worked, recently too.

Gevaudan wrote:

RedEye wrote:Lycos is the Greek word for wolf, hence the name connections.

My problem (which I've stated before) is that "Lycan" sounds exactly like "Lichen".
A Lycan is a Werewolf-thingie.
A Lichen is a combination of plant and animal and grows under wet rocks.

In Underworld, there is a rather strong similarity between the two...

In Second Life, I may color my Lycan avatar that color as a bit of a joke...

I may like Lycans, but I don't like lichen. I've taken a lichen to this Lycan thread though, cause I'm a fungi to have around.

There's not mushroom for Fig in this thread, is there?
({facepaw} Oy... that was a crappy joke...)
Like your reference to the fact they grow mushrooms in manure?
(Yeah... oh boy... someone needs to stop us. This pun thing is starting to grow on me.)
Mmmph... they do... these jokes are getting rotten...
(Okay... time out... done...)
Must not say another pun...

I always assumed that Lycan was a short slang for Lycanthropy/Lycanthrope.

Didn't know there was so many different versions of King Lycaon story. The closest one that I heard of was the one heartlessfang posted. (Minus the first part.)

Silverclaw wrote:I always assumed that Lycan was a short slang for Lycanthropy/Lycanthrope.

Didn't know there was so many different versions of King Lycaon story. The closest one that I heard of was the one heartlessfang posted. (Minus the first part.)

Same here actually, on both...
As for the lycan... i was confused when i first heard that... i'm like "The stuff that grows on trees?"

[quote="WerewolfKeeper3" Same here actually, on both...
As for the lycan... i was confused when i first heard that... i'm like "The stuff that grows on trees?"[/quote]

Oh my goodness! Werewolves are growing on trees now? Is that why the bark is so ruff?

To expand slightly:
Lycos is the greek for wolf.
Anthropos is the greek for human.
I would have to go looking it up, but I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that "lycanthrope" was never originally a word in greek, and that it was invented much later (perhaps as late as the 19th century), by Europeans. Why they didn't go to Latin instead of Greek, I don't know (they did so with practically everything else, after all). My understanding is that the earliest word in any language (that we know of) for a werewolf was from the Saxon words "were" for "man", and "wulf" for (you guessed it) wolf. Yeah, that's right, the first iteration for werewolf was... "werewolf". It supposedly predates the French "Loup-Garou" by a bit, even.
I also seem to remember hearing that the original usage of "lycanthrope" was to refer to the "disease" that we now suspect was actually psychotropic effects of Ergot poisoning, and that Clinical Lycanthropy as a psychological disorder wasn't recognized until well into the 20th century. Until Underworld came out, I don't think I'd ever heard anyone use the term "Lycan".
As always, I eagerly await Scott Gardener (our resident expert on all things medical) to weigh in and explain everything I just got embarassingly wrong.

The version of that story that I read is that Zeus was on one of his jaunts where he randomly got human women pregnant( as a wolf no less....) and one of them was the wife of King Lycaon. Now the child that she had from Zeus was treated pretty badly by the king (sort of like Cinderella.) and Zeus found out.

So Zeus decided to pay a visit to the king disguised as another king and Lycaon offered Zeus a meal( forget whether Lycaon knew that it was Zeus or not.). King Lycaon decided to kill his son and serve him up to Zeus; Which Zeus knew right away what the king had done. The King was turned into a wolf as punishment.

Hmm, I’ve never heard that version of the story. Though knowing Zeus I wouldn’t put it past him. Better a wolf than a swan at any rate.

RedEye wrote:

WerewolfKeeper3 wrote: Same here actually, on both...
As for the lycan... i was confused when i first heard that... i'm like "The stuff that grows on trees?"

Oh my goodness! Werewolves are growing on trees now? Is that why the bark is so ruff?

(THe puns have it... )

RedEye wrote:[quote="WerewolfKeeper3" Same here actually, on both...
As for the lycan... i was confused when i first heard that... i'm like "The stuff that grows on trees?"

Oh my goodness! Werewolves are growing on trees now? Is that why the bark is so ruff?
[/quote]

Bean there... done that. Took my truck, made like a banana, and peeled out.

Of course, if you want to Squash the competition, it's no good comparing Apples to Oranges... Otherwise you'll have a bunch of smartasses Sprouting right up on you. And all they do is give you the Rasberry. Keep it up and soon you'll realize you're working for Peanuts. And the only thing left to do is Beet them senseless with bad puns.

I've Plum forgotten... what are we talking about again?

Dreamer wrote:Of course, I can't really say that much, being a stupid teenager myself and having loved Van Helsing when I was younger (Although I now know how wrong I was).

Now I'm freaking out, 'cause I still love that movie. What's wrong with the movie? I don't want to be a weaboo! D= Educate me, please.

--

Anyways, I've seen many people use "Lycan" a lot, though I would never use it myself. I like the french word, "loup-garou," that I read from a book.

... dang, now I feel like I'm going to say something that will make me sound stupid.

Hi, I'm new to this site-go ahead and laugh at the name I chose, and figured you all would get a good laugh out of it. I'm not a weaboo who saw the movie and decided....so that's the real story of werewolves. I have been a werewolf fanatic since I can remember. I would give anything to be one. ANYWAY....the term lycan, obviously taken from lycanthrope to mean wolf. The only time I have heard it used recently was from the underworld movies. I hope because of the films we don't use this term for them from now on. I have been reading the comments back and forth about differant things and I just want to be part of that. Not many people are as obsessed about werewolves as me. Accept for my wife however, since she too is a huge fan. Both of us are looking for answers to many questions, and I can answer many questions any of you might have. Also....if anyone here is from Maine please write me. My wife use to live there and has questions needing to be answered.

WerewolfKeeper3 wrote:
There's not mushroom for Fig in this thread, is there?
({facepaw} Oy... that was a crappy joke...)
Like your reference to the fact they grow mushrooms in manure?
(Yeah... oh boy... someone needs to stop us. This pun thing is starting to grow on me.)
Mmmph... they do... these jokes are getting rotten...
(Okay... time out... done...)
Must not say another pun...

That's what you think!!!

Figarou wrote:

WerewolfKeeper3 wrote:
There's not mushroom for Fig in this thread, is there?
({facepaw} Oy... that was a crappy joke...)
Like your reference to the fact they grow mushrooms in manure?
(Yeah... oh boy... someone needs to stop us. This pun thing is starting to grow on me.)
Mmmph... they do... these jokes are getting rotten...
(Okay... time out... done...)
Must not say another pun...

That's what you think!!!

(It worked... i knew he couldn't keep away. )
Yep... ha ha...