  Night Creatures were-wolf (wir'woolf', wur'-,war'-) A person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming the form of a wolf at will; lycanthrope. [Middle English wer(e)wolf, Old English wer(e)wulf: probably wer, a man, wuf, a wolf ]. |
| In every part of the earth appeared creatures who lived alternately as men or women and as animals, borrowing the shapes of predators that plagued their particular home lands. Thus, from parts of Europe where wild boars, bears and wolves roamed came tales of men who assumed the shapes of boars, bears or wolves and preyed on kin and neighbors. In India, people feared the weretiger. Shadowy werefoxes roamed China and Japan. Some of these creatures were cursed from birth to lose their humanity at intervals. Some, were victims of enchantment. And some deliberately chose the way of animal powers and the freedom of the wild. It was said, for example, that certain sorcerers and witches learned from Satan how to transform themselves into animal guise. They rubbed themselves with unguents composed of such ingredients as baby's fat and poisioness hemlock, henbane and deadly nightshade. Among Teutonic peoples, it was thought donning special girdles made of the pelt of a wolf or the skin of a hanged man would effect the change. In the Balkins, the magic came from drinking water from a beast's footprint, or from eating a beast's brain.Lycanthrope n. from the Greek lukos, wolf + anthropos, man. Lycantrophy n. the magical ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf. This word comes from a Greek tale. A king of Aradia in western Greece by the name of Lycaon, decided to trick Zeus. He fed Zeus a banquet of meats in which he had included human flesh. Zeus became incensed and turned Lycaon into a wolf, but allowed him to keep his human mind so to be always aware of his doom. Australia-The tribes of the desert outback tell a tale of Irrinja, the devil-dog. He had the shape of a man who at the coming of a sandstorm, would lay down and let the sand cover him. When the storm was over, at the cry of the butcher bird, the dune would part. He would emerge with a bristle muzzle, lolling tongue, and a fanged jaw, hungry for flesh. Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is pure and bright. The incidents began in January, when the canals lay locked in ice, the snow-muffled streets glowed blue in the eerie twilight, and good folk stayed close to their warm stoves, shutting their ears against the wind moaned down from the mountains. A child disappeared one night from its nursery; and the the following night, another child from another house; and the next night yet another. No cry was heard ; nothing in the little rooms was disturbed. But the clues to the children's fate were found soon enough. Outside the houses in the snow were tracks with four clawed toes and distinctive, triangular pads-the unmistakable prints of a wolf.  Four cubits in height, and his face was like unto the face of a great dog, and his eyes were like unto lamps of fire which burnt brightly, and his teeth were like unto the tusks of a wild boar, or the teeth of a lion, and the nails of his hands were like unto curved reaping hooks, and the nails of his toes were like unto the claws of a lion, and the hair of his head came down over his arms like unto the mane of a lion, and his whole appearance was awful and terrifying. The Beast Within by Adam Douglas  In the forest deep, it began to creep, snarling its way, through the dark wood, its smell keen, its ears sensitive, its eyes dilated to absorb all the light its beastly brain could grasp, aided only by the ghostly moon. It tasted the air, then its ears stood upright, as it heard the baying of hounds tracking in the distance. It crouched on alert, a deep growl in its throat. |