LYCANTHROPES 16:57 Aug 24 2013
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A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος: λύκος, lykos, "wolf", and ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "man"), is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). Early sources for belief in lycanthropy are Petronius and Gervase of Tilbury.
The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying Indo-European mythology which developed during the medieval period. From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolf develops parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of supposed werewolves emerges in what is now Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) in the early 15th century and spreads throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the 17th and subsiding by the 18th century. The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of werewolfery being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.[1] During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until well after 1650, the final cases taking place in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.[2]
After the end of the witch-trials, the werewolf became of interest in folklore studies and in the emerging Gothic horror genre; werewolf fiction as a genre has pre-modern precedents in medieval romances (e.g. Bisclavret and Guillaume de Palerme) and develops in the 18th century out of the "semi-fictional" chap book tradition. The trappings of horror literature in the 20th century became part of the horror and fantasy genre of modern pop culture.
The word werewolf continues a late Old English wer(e)wulf, a compound of were "adult male human" and wulf "wolf". The only Old High German testimony is in the form of a given name, Weriuuolf, although an early Middle High German werwolf is found in Burchard of Worms and Berthold of Regensburg. The word or concept does not occur in medieval German poetry or fiction, gaining popularity only from the 15th century. Middle Latin gerulphus Anglo-Norman garwalf, Old Frankish *wariwulf.[3] [4] Old Norse had the cognate varúlfur, but because of the high importance of werewulves in Norse mythology, there were alternative terms such as ulfhéðinn ("one in wolf-skin", referring still to the totemistic/cultic adoption of wolf-nature rather than the superstitious belief in actual shape-shifting). In modern Scandinavian also kveldulf "evening-wolf", presumably after the name of Kveldulf Bjalfason, a historical berserker of the 9th century who figures in the Icelandic sagas.
The term lycanthropy, referring both to the ability to transform oneself into a wolf and to the act of so doing, comes from Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος lukánthropos (from λύκος lúkos "wolf" and άνθρωπος, ánthrōpos "human".[5] The word does occur in ancient Greek sources, but only in Late Antiquity, only rarely, and only in the context of clinical lycanthropy described by Galen, where the patient had the ravenous appetite and other qualities of a wolf; the Greek word attains some currency only in Byzantine Greek, featuring in the 10th-century encyclopedia Suda.[6] Use of the Greek-derived lycanthropy in English occurs in learned writing beginning in the later 16th century (first recorded 1584 in Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot, who argued against the reality of werewolves; "Lycanthropia is a disease, and not a transformation." v. i. 92), at first explicitly for clinical lycanthropy, i.e. the type of insanity where the patient imagines to have transformed into a wolf, and not in reference to supposedly real shape-shifting. Use of lycanthropy for supposed shape-shifting is much later, introduced ca. 1830.
Slavic uses the term vlko-dlak, literally "wolf-skin", paralleling the Old Norse ulfhéðinn. However, the word is not attested in the medieval period (Polish wilkołak, Czech vlkodlak, Slovak vlkolak, Serbo-Croatian вукодлак - vukodlak, [7] Slovenian volkodlak, Bulgarian/Macedonian върколак vrkolak, Belarusian ваўкалак vaukalak, Ukrainian вовкулака vovkulaka), loaned into modern Greek as Vrykolakas. Baltic has related terms, Lithuanian vilkolakis and vilkatas, Latvianvilkatis and vilkacis. The name vurdalak (вурдалак) for the Slavic vampire ("ghoul, revenant") is a corruption due to Alexander Pushkin, which was later widely spread by A.K. Tolstoy in his novella The Family of the Vourdalak (composed in French, but first published in Russian translation in 1884).
Greek λυκανθρωπος and Germanic werewulf are parallel inasmuch as the concept of a shapeshifter becoming a wolf is expressed by means of a compound "wolf-man" or "man-wolf". Latin and the Romance languages do not appear to have a native term for the concept but loaned terms from Greek, Germanic or Slavic; In French loup-garou, the garou is in origin a loan of Frankish *wariwulf, recharacterized with the French word for "wolf". Spanish and Portuguese have the modern loan-translations hombre lobo and lobisomem, respectively (also Galician lobishome). Italian has the Greek licantropo in learned or literary context (as English uses lycanthrope besides the native werewolf), while Italian folklore uses the term lupo mannaro.[8] This latter Italian term however does not necessarily denote a werewolf, but more often concerns stories of enormous and man-eating, but not supernatural, wolves. Romanian loaned the Slavic term as vârcolac.
COMMENTS
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HK47
02:00 Aug 26 2013
Cool journal post.