Werewolf Histories is the first academic book in English to address European werewolf history and folklore from antiquity to the twentieth century. It covers the most important werewolf territories, ranging from Scandinavia to Germany, France and Italy, and from Croatia to Estonia.
Since before recorded history, werewolves have captivated human imagination. Simultaneously, they represent our deepest fears as well as our desire to connect with our primal ancestry. Today, werewolves are portrayed negatively, associated with violence, cruelty, cannibalism, and general malevolence. However, in ages past, legends depicted them not as monsters, but as a range of neutral to benevolent individuals, such as traveling companions, guardians, and knights. The robust legacy of the werewolf spans from prehistory, through ancient Greece and Rome, to the Middle Ages, into the Early Modern period, and finally into present-day popular culture. Over the ages, the view of the werewolf has become distorted. Media treatment of werewolves is associated with inferior writing, lacking in thought, depth, and meaning. Werewolves as characters or creatures are now generally seen as single-minded and one-dimensional, and they want nothing more than to kill, devour, and possibly violate humans. Hollywood depictions have resulted in the destruction of the true meanings behind werewolf legends that fascinated and terrified humans for so many ages. If these negative trends were reversed, perhaps entertainment might not only discover again some of the true meanings behind the werewolf myth, but also take the first steps toward reversing negative portrayals of wolves themselves, which humans have, for eons, wrongfully stigmatized and portrayed as evil, resulting in wolves receiving crueler treatment than virtually any other animal. To revive the many questions posed by lycanthropy, entertainment must show respect to the rich history of so many cultures all around the world - and rediscover the legend of the werewolf.
Wolf is thrilled when he meets a little girl who wants to be his friend, but he has a lot to learn about being nice. Wolf is very big and very bad. But when he meets a delicious-looking girl, she has other ideas. She wants to make Wolf her new friend. But Wolf is going to need more than a makeover to learn to get along with others. Can Wolf learn how to become a good friend—even to tasty humans? This fun and humorous storyline is beautifully reflected in Natalia Moore's charming illustrations.
Transformation of the werewolf in literature made its greatest strides in the 19th century when the shape-shifting monster leapt from poetry to the short story. It happened when this shorter form of literature was morphing into darker shapes thanks in no small part to Edgar Allan Poe, Honore de Balzac, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Prosper Merimee, James Hogg, and so many others in Europe and the United States.The fifty year period between 1800 and 1849 is truly the cradle of all werewolf short stories. For the first time in one anthology, Andrew Barger has compiled the best werewolf stories from this period. The stories are "Hugues the Wer-Wolf: A Kentish Legend of the Middle Ages," "The Man-Wolf," "A Story of a Weir-Wolf," "The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin," and "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains." It is believed that two of these fine stories have never been republished in over one hundred and fifty years since their original printing. Read "The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849" tonight, just make sure it is not by the light of a full moon "
When Darkness Reigns and the Full Moon Glows, Terror Emerges to Stalk the Unsuspecting… From lycanthropic creatures found on television and film such as Teen Wolf, Twilight, and True Blood to the earliest folklore of shape-shifting creatures, The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shapeshifting Beings is an eye-opening, blood-pounding tour through the ages of monsters with the most amazing camouflage capabilities—they hide among us! Along the way, you’ll land at the doorstep of creatures like hirsute mass-murderer Albert Fish, and Fritz Haarman, who slaughtered and ate his victims—selling the leftovers as steaks and roasts in his butcher shop—as well as visits to mythical shamans, sirens, and skin walkers. Covering 140,000 years of legend, mythology, and fact, The Werewolf Book provides hair-raising evidence of strange and obsessional behavior through the centuries. Learn the basics of becoming a werewolf and the intricacies of slaying the beast. A true homage to werewolves and other full moon beasts, it includes topics such as … • Bear, tiger, coyote, and other shape-shifting people • Classic and modern werewolf movies • Gargoyles, totem poles, and Internet depictions • Serial killers and sadistic rulers • Sorcery, spells, and talismans • Television shows, songs, and computer games Werewolf hunters and fans of all ages will appreciate the detailed section on slaying the beast, while potential victims will find the information on detecting and warding away the occasional wayward wolfman more to their immediate liking—if not need. With over 120 illustrations and photos this ultimate lycanthrope compendium is richly illustrated. The Werewolf Book's helpful bibliography and extensive index add to its usefulness.
In a moonlit graveyard somewhere in southern Italy, a soldier removes his clothes in readiness to transform himself into a wolf. He depends upon the clothes to recover his human shape, and so he magically turns them to stone, but his secret is revealed when, back in human form, he is seen to carry a wound identical to that recently dealt to a marauding wolf. In Arcadia a man named Damarchus accidentally tastes the flesh of a human sacrifice and is transformed into a wolf for nine years. At Temesa Polites is stoned to death for raping a local girl, only to return to terrorize the people of the city in the form of a demon in a wolfskin. Tales of the werewolf are by now well established as a rich sub-strand of the popular horror genre; less widely known is just how far back in time their provenance lies. These are just some of the werewolf tales that survive from the Graeco-Roman world, and this is the first book in any language to be devoted to their study. It shows how in antiquity werewolves thrived in a story-world shared by witches, ghosts, demons, and soul-flyers, and argues for the primary role of story-telling-as opposed to rites of passage-in the ancient world's general conceptualization of the werewolf. It also seeks to demonstrate how the comparison of equally intriguing medieval tales can be used to fill in gaps in our knowledge of werewolf stories in the ancient world, thereby shedding new light on the origins of the modern phenomenon. All ancient texts bearing upon the subject have been integrated into the discussion in new English translations, so that the book provides not only an accessible overview for a broad readership of all levels of familiarity with ancient languages, but also a comprehensive sourcebook for the ancient werewolf for the purposes of research and study.
"From one of the very first werewolf stories appearing in Britain to a tale published after the First World War, this collection brings together the greatest werewolf fiction from a period stretching to nearly a century"--
Beware the Full Moon! Take a hair-raising tour of werewolf legends. Meet shape-shifters, dogmen, and all variety of human and lupine mixes in this blood curling story collection from two distinguished paranormal researchers! From today's lycanthropic creatures found in pop culture such as Dracula, Twilight and An American Werewolf in London to the earliest mentions in folklore of the shape-shifting legend, Werewolf Stories: Shape-Shifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts is an eye-opening tour through the ages of all things werewolf. Along the way, readers land at the doorstep of creatures like serial killer Fritz Haarmann, tiger people and their thirst for human blood, Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, shapeshifters of all kinds and sizes, and even a spell to repel werewolves. This fascinating tome provides 140,000 years of blood-pounding evidence of strange and obsessional behavior. It tells of stories of becoming a werewolf and the intricacies of slaying the beast. A true homage to the creature, it includes full moon of topics such as … Fenrir, the wolf child of the giantess Angrboda and the god Loki, from the Old Norse myth of Ragnarok Notorious serial killers, including Peter Stumpp and Michael Lupo, who thought themselves to be—and modeled their crimes on—werewolves Coyote people, tricksters, and were-animals of Navajo legend The Basque butchers of Louisiana and the loup-garou Diana, the goddess of the wilderness and the hunt, and her pack of hunting dogs, who once ruled all the dark forests of Europe Leopard creature-men and the deadly cult whose members expressed their were-leopard lust for human blood and flesh that has been in existence in West Africa for several hundred years The “werewolf of the Dordogne,” Francis Leroy, and his uncontrollable bloodlust during the full moon The secret terrorist group Organization Werewolf, established in 1923, and its possible allegiance to Adolf Hitler Ghouls from Arabic folklore, the demonic Djinns that hover near burial grounds and sustain themselves on human flesh stolen from graves Tasmania’s thylacine and sightings of the “probably extinct” creature and its remarkable—and frightening—jaw capacity Alaska’s Kushtaka and other stories of the Bigfoot man-beast Puerto Rico’s chupacabra and its powerful goat-like legs, three-clawed feet, and penchant for sucking blood The Doñas de Fuera of Sicily, small fairies who looked human, aside from their paw-like feet, and were cruel and dangerous when crossed Enkidu, perhaps our earliest written record of a man-beast that appears on a Babylonian fragment circa 2000 BCE and tells the story of King Gilgamesh and his werewolf-like friend in The Epic of Gilgamesh And many more stories and histories of werewolves, night-stalkers, lycanthropes, and man-beasts Noted cryptozoologists and paranormal researchers Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger share personal stories and encounters with werewolves in Werewolf Stories. They take a deep dive into the legends, the history, the pop-culture take on the man-beast. It's a wild and weird road-trip into the mystery-filled domain of the disturbingly real world of shape-shifters and werewolves!
Examines the cultural significance of the werewolf filmProvides the first academic monograph dedicated to developing a cultural understanding of the werewolf filmReconsiders the psychoanalytic paradigms that have dominated scholarly discussion of werewolves in pop cultureIncludes over 40 individual case studies to illustrate how werewolf films can be understood as products of their cultural momentIdentifies the cinematic werewolf's most common metaphorical dimensionsHorror monsters such as the vampire, the zombie and Frankenstein's creature have long been the subjects of in-depth cultural studies, but the cinematic werewolf has often been considered little more than the 'beast within': a psychoanalytic analogue for the bestial side of man. This book, the first scholarly study of the werewolf in cinema, redresses the balance by exploring over 100 years of werewolf films, from The Werewolf (1913) to Wildling (2018) via The Wolf Man (1941), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Howling (1981) and WolfCop (2014). Revealing the significance of she-wolves and wolf-men as evolving metaphors for the cultural fears and anxieties of their times, Phases of the Moon serves as a companion and a counterpoint to existing scholarship on the werewolf in popular culture, and illustrates how we can begin to understand one of our oldest mythical monsters as a rich and diverse cultural metaphor.
Dear haiku journal, I think I killed some people. That was no dog bite. This journal contains the poetic musings of a mailman who, after being bitten by what he thinks is a dog, discovers that he is actually now a werewolf. Wreaking havoc wherever he goes, he details his new life and transformations in the 5-7-5 syllable structure of haiku—his poetry of choice. Follow along as our werewolf poet slowly turns from a mostly normal man into the hairy beast that he cannot keep trapped inside. And watch out for carnage when he changes and becomes hungry. No toenail, no entrail, no pigtail will be left behind. And talk about wreaking havoc: His newfound claws and teeth have sent his clothing budget through the roof! He is in love with a woman on his route, but he has never had the courage to tell her. As he fights against his urges during each full moon, he discovers that succumbing to his primal instincts will not only bag him a good meal—it just might help him in his quest for love…Or maybe not.