Post by Silver on Apr 23, 2008 22:31:10 GMT -5
Introduction[/u]
[shadow=red,left,300]Lycanthropy:
The term used to describe the affliction/state of being a werewolf. Originally used in description of the belief that it is more a mental disorder often accompanied by hallucinations and fits, of both the sufferers and their victims, a manifestation of an unstable mind, rather than a real condition.[/shadow]
Lycanthropy is an old belief that has been severely modernized through film and literature. Once believed to be a serious offense and crime, it is now reduced to a laughable Halloween topic. Forgotten are the times when it could have been seriously considered as the ability of a person to change guises, into the form of a wolf, or even merely another person, with which they could trick someone. Now it may merely be a cheesy romance novel, or a horribly written horror movie.
People tend to forget the recorded occurrences of people seeing or being attacked by werewolves. The stories like the one Sabine Baring-Gould opens his book The Book of Werewolves with. Europe is ripe with stories of the loup-garoux, how they maim and kill for the pure satisfaction of eating human flesh, and how they have terrorized the country side for decades. It is believed by these people that lycanthropy is brought on either through mysticism or curses -- be it from witches or the Gods one can not clearly say. in this day and age one could also plausibly plead that it is a genetic creation, a case of the wrong genome in the wrong gamete. Perhaps it may even be the product of a long line of hereditary breeding; people have been found to have the genetic tendency for superfluous hair growth -- mayhap this is the residual effect of being related to a historical werewolf.
Tales of werewolves come from as far bak as the Greeks and Romans of ancient times. There is a story repeated many times over and in many forms (including Latin textbooks in schools!) of the encounter one man had with a werwolf. He was out for a walk with a guest in his master's house when as they travelled along at dawn, beneath the remaining moon and stars, the soldier stripped off his clothes and transformed himself into a wolf! Now, most people believe that this story is recorded through madness and hallucination, but one has to wonder; why open yourself to such ridicule? Even in the time of the Romans a man could be thought mad for such ravings, so if there was not a touch of truth, why share the tale? It could be supposed that this was the result of a daydream, but where would it stem from? And the details, such as his clothing was turned to stone upon examination, until he heard tell that a wolf had been run through with a pike, and returning to the clothes finding instead only a pool of blood; the soldiers being found at home in bed attended by a surgeon. There are the stories passed on by Ovid and Virgil, but they too must have their trusted sources. [See Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Eighth Eclogue]
The belief of lycanthropy is so far spread that it cannot truly be discounted. Many of the old Roman/Greek gods have been able to transform themselves into various animals, and the belief in werewolves could be blamed on Arcadia and their pastoral sacrifices (a certain Lycaon instituted the sacrifice of children to appease the local wolf population -- the myth could have stemmed from there), but how does that account for its place in Eastern lore or the northern regions of Russian and Norway?
There are stories from every part of the world that can be related to lycanthropy, each indigenous to the area it originates in. There is no one source for the werewolf myth, and therefore it can neither be proved, nor disproved. It is a mystery that until someone devotes their life to it, shall never be solved; a mystery made all the harder by the lack of character witnesses and recent reports outside of The National Enquirer. All we have left to study are the remnants of forgotten stories.[/font]
[shadow=red,left,300]Lycanthropy:
The term used to describe the affliction/state of being a werewolf. Originally used in description of the belief that it is more a mental disorder often accompanied by hallucinations and fits, of both the sufferers and their victims, a manifestation of an unstable mind, rather than a real condition.[/shadow]
Lycanthropy is an old belief that has been severely modernized through film and literature. Once believed to be a serious offense and crime, it is now reduced to a laughable Halloween topic. Forgotten are the times when it could have been seriously considered as the ability of a person to change guises, into the form of a wolf, or even merely another person, with which they could trick someone. Now it may merely be a cheesy romance novel, or a horribly written horror movie.
People tend to forget the recorded occurrences of people seeing or being attacked by werewolves. The stories like the one Sabine Baring-Gould opens his book The Book of Werewolves with. Europe is ripe with stories of the loup-garoux, how they maim and kill for the pure satisfaction of eating human flesh, and how they have terrorized the country side for decades. It is believed by these people that lycanthropy is brought on either through mysticism or curses -- be it from witches or the Gods one can not clearly say. in this day and age one could also plausibly plead that it is a genetic creation, a case of the wrong genome in the wrong gamete. Perhaps it may even be the product of a long line of hereditary breeding; people have been found to have the genetic tendency for superfluous hair growth -- mayhap this is the residual effect of being related to a historical werewolf.
Tales of werewolves come from as far bak as the Greeks and Romans of ancient times. There is a story repeated many times over and in many forms (including Latin textbooks in schools!) of the encounter one man had with a werwolf. He was out for a walk with a guest in his master's house when as they travelled along at dawn, beneath the remaining moon and stars, the soldier stripped off his clothes and transformed himself into a wolf! Now, most people believe that this story is recorded through madness and hallucination, but one has to wonder; why open yourself to such ridicule? Even in the time of the Romans a man could be thought mad for such ravings, so if there was not a touch of truth, why share the tale? It could be supposed that this was the result of a daydream, but where would it stem from? And the details, such as his clothing was turned to stone upon examination, until he heard tell that a wolf had been run through with a pike, and returning to the clothes finding instead only a pool of blood; the soldiers being found at home in bed attended by a surgeon. There are the stories passed on by Ovid and Virgil, but they too must have their trusted sources. [See Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Eighth Eclogue]
The belief of lycanthropy is so far spread that it cannot truly be discounted. Many of the old Roman/Greek gods have been able to transform themselves into various animals, and the belief in werewolves could be blamed on Arcadia and their pastoral sacrifices (a certain Lycaon instituted the sacrifice of children to appease the local wolf population -- the myth could have stemmed from there), but how does that account for its place in Eastern lore or the northern regions of Russian and Norway?
There are stories from every part of the world that can be related to lycanthropy, each indigenous to the area it originates in. There is no one source for the werewolf myth, and therefore it can neither be proved, nor disproved. It is a mystery that until someone devotes their life to it, shall never be solved; a mystery made all the harder by the lack of character witnesses and recent reports outside of The National Enquirer. All we have left to study are the remnants of forgotten stories.[/font]