By The Light Of The Full Moon.

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the full moon blooms and the moon is full and bright!” When it comes to horror movies I’m not the kind of guy who likes slasher flicks. You know the kind, where the sexually repressed maniac grabs the nearest butcher knife and starts carving up big tittied coeds like a Thanksgiving turkey. Nope, for me I’ll take my horror film with a supernatural edge. Ghosts, demons, vampires and werewolves. However when it comes down to the two favorite monsters of the genre my money is on the werewolf. I really don’t care for watching morally corrupt, undead pretty boys who have a flare for evening clothes and a cheesey eurotrash accent. My money is on the damned soul forced to change into a ravenous beast by the light of full moon and although he hates what he becomes and the horrible crimes he committs he is completely powerless to do anything about it.

Over the last sixty plus years Hollywood has offered up a plethora of werewolf movies where some are good and others, well, not so good. “Silver Bullett”, a 80s horror flick starring Corey Haim is one of the best in the genre. The story details the struggle of a wheel chaired bound boy against a seemingly unstoppable foe, a priest who becomes a wolf. Gary Busey is great as the alcohlic uncle who eventually forgets about his own demons to save his nephew from becoming a midnight snack. And no one can forget the truly awesome, “An American Werewolf in London.” This is by far my favorite probably due to the fact that I have a streak of evil a mile long that absolutely loves dark comedy. And of course the Classic, “The Wolfman” Starring the immortal Lon Chaney Jr, who portrays an American visiting his cousin in Europe when he comes across a gypsy werewolf that sinks his teeth into the American turning him into one of the children of the night.

Although I love these movies and they are great entertainment when you have nothing else better to do, like anything else that Hollywood sinks it’s teeth into (pun intended) concerning the paranormal they only get it half right and this is something H-wood is famous for. The legend of the Werewolf does not just go back to the misty slopes of the Carpathian mountains nor is it reserved for the wind swept moors of the British countryside. The legend of the cursed soul forced to become a ravenous beast has it’s shadowy beginnings much further back in the cold mists of prehistoric man and believe me when I say this, Truth is much more terrifying than Fiction.

Anthropologists tell us that the legend of the werewolf may have gotten it’s start with the magical and religious beliefs of prehistoric man. According to these researchers, ancient man believed that by dressing themselves up in the skins of the animals they hunted for food they would gain that animals cunning and physical prowess and make it easier for the hunter to track his prey and make a kill so his little family unit would have a something to eat and wear in the frigid European winters. This Sympethic Magic, as it was called was a great technique and was used by practically every ancient society known to man. Since bears and the ravenous wolf was the most readily available animal in many parts of prehistoric Europe, and the most feared, they were the animals most used. The wolf was a cunning hunter who almost rivaled the prehistoric human for supremecy in the hunt.

These tales of ancient hunters, reserarchers say, is the primary source behind the werewolf legend however many ancient sources from classical Greece have something much different to say concerning the idea of a seemingly normal human being transforming into a blood thirsty creature of the night.

The modern, Lycanthropy, which is used to describe the transformation was first coined by the Roman poet, Ovid who tells a tale of an Athenian King named Lycaon, who was said to have the ability to turn into a wolf at night. Ovid describes the condition, “In Vain he (Lycaon) attempted to speak…he thristed for blood…he raged among the flocks and panted for slaughter…his vesture turned to hair…his countance turned rabid…his eyes glittered savagely.” The transformation of King Lycaon sounds pretty much like any werewolf movie we have ever seen. Of course upon reading this the skeptics, or player haters as I prefer to call them, Feel that Ovid is not describing the transformation of King Lycaon into a ravenous beast rather they say that Ovid is describing a man in the throes of rabies. This explanation really is very absurd, my cousin got bit by a squirrell when we were kids and contracted rabies from the little bastard and I can tell you this my cousins vesture(Flesh) did not grow hair.

If the first hand account of Ovid’s does not convince you of the possibility of making the transformation from man to wolf consider the words of Gaius Petronius who in 60 CE gave us the Satyricon. Gaius speaks of an acquitance he met at a wedding and showed him something the historian would not soon forget. Gaius and his friend left the wedding as the moon came up, the friend began to remove his clothes and piled them into a bundle in the middle of the woods. Gaius tells us that the friend urinated in a circle around his clothes and Presto Changeo turned into a wolf before his eyes. The friend let out a haunting howl and trotted off into the woods. One other story from the classical world tells us that during one of the first Olympics a race of werewolves called the Neuri participated and walked away with all the rewards and accolades. Mike Phelps, ain’t got nothing on these hairy dudes.

Although the modern legend of the werewolf got it’s start with the ancient Greeks our final image of the werewolf comes to us from medieval Europe. The modern term werewolf, was first coined in 1212, by the historian Gervase of Tilbury. In his work, “Otia Imperialia”, Gervase gives many descriptions of men and women who had the ability to turn from human to wolf. The term Werwulf was not just reserved for this horrific man-beast but was also ascribed to outlaws.

During the period of what many historians called the, “Burning Times”, many alleged werewolves were caught in the frenzied belief that satan and his evil minions were lurking behind every corner seeking a good christian soul that they could corrupt. A person who could transform from man to wolf did not do it by the the classic method of being bitten by a werewolf, instead much darker methods were used. In 1573, a tale of greed, evil and cannibilism came out of France that shocked the entire nation and cemented the belief that werewolves were a product of collusion between mortal man and the Prince of Darkness. Gilles Garnier, was, by all appearances a seemingly normal peasant farmer until he was arrested and put on trial for heresy and cannibilsm. At his trial Garnier, told the judges that one day as he was hunting in the forest he was met by a black clad stranger who told Garnier that if he fell down and worshipped him, the stranger would give him a magical salve and a wolfskinned belt that would turn him into a wolf. Of course, Gilles, could not turn the stranger down and ultimately paid the price for being in league with this obviously satanic spirit, Gilles, admitted he was guilty of killing numerous children and eating their flesh while in his preternatural wolf state. Gilles Garnier, was found guilty of these hideous crimes and burned at the stake.

In Europe being a werewolf was considered to be a curse handed down by God to a family or a single person. Many believed that a potential werewolf could be identified early in life and and certain precautions could be taken to save that person from a life lived in hell. A uni-brow was considered to be a dead giveaway that a person was a werewolf or a child born with a caul, a thin membrane that some children were born with. In the event of this ocurring the child was pierced through the hands with silver nails or the caul was immediately removed from the child’s face and burned in a fire made of Mountain Ash. It was also said that if a person was suspected of werewolfery they could be identified by cutting a strip of flesh from the suspect if hair was discovered growing under the person’s skin they were immediately arrested and burned at the stake.

The legend of the werewolf or shapeshifter, was not just believed in by nervous Europeans looking for a sinister flesh eating boogeyman it would appear that certain Native American tribes here in the US believed in some form of a shapeshifter. The tribes of the American southwest believe in and greatly fear an evil being called a “Skinwalker.” The Skinwalker is said to be an evil sorceror who gains the ability to change into a beast by giving his soul to wicked primordial forces of the earth. A tale says that the Dineh or Navajo once wiped out an entire village of suspected Skinwalkers when they believed that the wicked sorcerors were stealing their children and making meals of them. The legend of the Skinwalker is so feared by the Navajo that they refuse to speak of the beings in polite settings especially to whitey. It is believed to speak of the Skinwalker is to invite it’s wrath.

Today modern science accepts the possibility that a human can turn into a ravenous beast although the transformation is far from physical but rather wholly psychological. Lycanthropy is a condition of the mind where a human being believes that they actually make a physical transformation from man to beast. One famous case of actual Lycanthropy comes to us from France when a young man was arrested by the cops for having blood on his shirt and around his mouth the police also reported that the insane man attacked them and tried to bite their faces as he growled like a wolf. When the man came to himself he was visited by a doctor who discovered that the night the strange man was arrested he murdered his friend in his apartment and ripped out his buddy’s throat. The man was sent to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane for his crime. While in the hospital the man was witnessed by many employees to run around on all fours and howl at the moon one male nurse said that as he looked in on the mentally Ill man he had to take a double take because at first glance he thought he saw a giant wolf in the patient’s room.

The legend of the werewolf is perhaps the greatest monster known to mankind in our short but illustrious history. Like the vampire, the werewolf is the subject of many myths going back not just centuries but millenia and shows no sign of going away anytime soon. Is it possible that a seemingly normal human being has the ability to transform from a man to a blood thirsty creature of the night? Maybe thats for you to decide, me, I’m like the Fox news of the paranormal (without all the republicans) I report you decide.

Rick E. Hale
t_seeker@hotmail.com