#wolfmen

October is a great month to revise another Werewolf Fact. This one got a great makeover!

I've heard some people claim that werewolves in folklore have no relation to the full moon or to the moon at all. Some even say they have no relation to night as opposed to daylight, and they pin all these concepts squarely on Hollywood and modern media. I say those people need to do more research.

The revised Werewolf Facts will be shared with my patrons first as I prepare to polish them and publish them in book form. However, I want to make sure everyone knows I'm still doing nonfiction work (especially since I hope to keep everyone excited for my upcoming folklore collection), that Werewolf Facts will return in a big way, and that they will be so much better than they were before - so I wanted to share this one publicly very early!

This is very much a ROUGH DRAFT. This is not yet ready for wide publication (such as in my official Werewolf Facts masterlist and in the upcoming book), and it'll undergo further revisions before I do that. Please remember this is rough and DOES NOT REFLECT EXACTLY WHAT WILL BE FOUND IN THE WEREWOLF FACTS BOOK COMING SOMETIME IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS.

But this is my starting point!

Expect many more updates ahead. And before you ask, yes, I am technically supposed to cite myself if I pull anything from my own works - I'm not being egotistical. Weird, right?

Enjoy!

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The full moon and the werewolf are inseparable. Today, some media tragically shies away from it, ashamed of holding to tradition, yet the iconic imagery of a werewolf howling at the baleful visage of the full moon will always persist in the subconscious mind, as it has for so many ages. So, what is the connection, how old is it really, and where did it come from?

Werewolves being associated with the moon, and specifically the full moon, is an old association indeed. Although perhaps best known for an early appearance in film with the movie Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), the idea of a werewolf turning beneath the light of the moon appeared in stories long before.

One could naturally discuss in depth the age-old concept of moon-induced madness - "lunacy" - and studies and arguments on how the moon phases affect human and animal behavior and aggression levels, not too unlike how they affect the tides. However, I'm not here to dive into those matters; I'm here to talk about werewolves specifically.

Examples abound in folklore and are well-documented by the two foremost werewolf scholars, Sabine Baring-Gould and Montague Summers, as well as assorted folklore stories besides. Associations with the full moon and moonlight existed among, and were not limited to, the Gauls, legends from France, and Italy; an association with moonlight is also alluded to in tales from Russia and ancient Rome. The following is by no means an exhaustive list, but the aforementioned examples will be detailed, as follows...

Beginning with several examples found in Summers' work on werewolves, he states point-blank when discussing several werewolf legends, "In the first place, the transformation is effected in the moonlight" (Summers 155). He goes on to discuss, in particular, a set of tales around Palermo, which is located in Italy...

"In Palermo they say that as the moon waxes to her round the werewolf begins to feel the craving; his eyes sink deep and are glazed (si cci'nvitrianu), he falls to the earth wallowing in the dust or mud, and is seized with fearful writhings and pangs, after which his limbs quiver and contract horribly, he howls and rushes off on all fours, shunning the light, especially (they say in Menfi) torches, candles or lanthorns [sic]. The lycanthrope dashes to and fro, and he will bite anyone whom he may meet in his wild courses. His hideous cries may, however, be heard from afar and all hasten to avoid the wolf-man" (Summers 163-164)

Quite the graphic description of a man turning into a "wolf-man" (interesting quote, as well) under the light of the full moon. And yes, I personally love this quote. This represents, perhaps, one of the most directly classical werewolf descriptions that has survived to this day. We really have to thank both Baring-Gould and Summers immensely for protecting tales such as these from being utterly lost to time.

Not yet done discussing the legends from Palermo, Summers also says, "A certain wealthy man, the scion of a noble house, at the full of the moon was seized with lycanthropy [...] [they] wondered who this dread werewolf might be, seeing that my lord's face and features were so convulsed and hideous lupine as to be unrecognized even by those of his intimacy and own household" (164-165).

These are certainly not every single example Summers gives of a relation between werewolves and the full moon, nor is it every example of a relation between werewolves and the moon, or moonlight itself, in general. Indeed, Summers gives quite a few cases in which werewolves are connected to the moon in more ways than one - but most often by a full moon inducing their beastly transformation, after which they utterly lose control.

Further examples connecting the full moon, and moonlight itself, to werewolves can be found in the single best source for werewolf folklore that still exists: Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves...

Baring-Gould details on page 115, citing the writings of Gervaise of Tilbury in his work Otia Imperalia, “Vidimus frequenter in Anglia, per lunationes, homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulfos Galli vocant, Angli vero wer-wlf, dicunt: wer enim Anglice virum sonat, wlf, lupum."

In my own edition of Baring-Gould's work, I translated this passage as, roughly, “We have frequently seen in England, through means of the moons, men are changed into wolves, a race of men the Gauls call gerulfos, but the English specifically say wer-wlf: for in English wer sounds like man, wlf, a wolf" (115n45).

Similarly, Baring-Gould gives a mention of legends in France: "In the south of France, it is still believed that fate has destined certain men to be lycanthropists—that they are transformed into wolves at full moon. The desire to run comes upon them at night" (119-120). Here, we see specificity about the full moon yet again, and this time from an entirely different region than previous examples.

Also coming from France, Baring-Gould mentions "the Périgord," wherein "[c]ertain men, especially bastards, are obliged at each full moon to transforms themselves into these diabolic beasts" (120).

Though less specific regarding the full moon, Baring-Gould also mentions tales from Russia, saying that one who wishes to become a werewolf (here called an "oborot," meaning "one transformed" [132]), will need to recite an incantation that includes the lines, "On the empty pasture gleams the moon, on an ashstock lying," and, prominently, "Moon, moon, gold-horned moon" (133), as though addressing the moon itself when reciting the spell, asking it for protection and transformation.

In terms of popular culture, the previously mentioned Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) helped bring the full moon and werewolf connection to the forefront with the alteration of the curse from the film's predecessor, The Wolf Man (1941), in which the werewolf rhyme specifies...

Even a man who is pure at heart And says his prayers by night May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms And the autumn moon is bright

However, the werewolf transformation's specific timing was altered in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), in which the rhyme instead says...

Even a man who is pure at heart And says his prayers by night May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms And the moon is full and bright

However, much earlier, in 1935, the film Werewolf of London had werewolves that transformed beneath the full moon, but it is much lesser-known.

Thus, it is quite obvious that a connection has long existed between the werewolf and the full moon. This is not some newfangled concept, and there's a reason they are so endlessly iconic. Indeed, even in the mind of those who do not turn their thoughts often to werewolves, the sight of the full moon may inspire them to recall these sundry legends - as it should be.

Works Cited:

Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves. 1865. Justin & Maegan Stebbins, 2023.

Stebbins, Maegan. The Werewolf: Past and Future - Lycanthropy's Lost History and Modern Devolution. Justin & Maegan Stebbins, 2017.

Summers, Montague. Werewolf. 1933. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino, 2012.

And as always...

Happy Howl-o-ween!

Back during artfight I had drawn one of your wolfman characters but I had messed up their face shape without realizing. I wanted to try drawing the face more accurate.

Favorite popular werefolk Ice Cream flavors:

Cotton Candy

Peanut Butter Buffoon

Bacon Lovers

Blueberry Forever

Sweet Potato

Caramel-Cream

Goji-Mochi

Nightly Nightshade

Bloody Pudding

Monkshood-Munch

Bell Pepper Chill Pepper

Paprika Pepper w sweetened Buffalo Chips (dried dung)

Tamarillo-Twist

Pepino-Goji Sherbet

Vanilla

((A daily reminder that werefolk in Oddities can not eat chocolate, beans, most nuts, coffee or anything with grapes. Unless maybe you're a werebear but don't show off.))

If there is a specific trifecta of truly classic monsters - a Terrible Trio as iconic together as they are separate - it would undoubtedly be Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Werewolf. The interesting thing there is that, while “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” are specific creations, the werewolf is more woolgathering. (Ha-Ha! Sheep puns for the win!) There is no Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley novel for the werewolf that everyone looks to for inspiration and remakes, reimagines, or re-adapts over and over again. Yet, at the same time, the idea of the werewolf is older than either Dracula or Frankenstein and his progeny: werewolf myths can be traced back all the way to Ancient Greece. That’s older than even most vampire legends! And that, dear readers, is probably why this list proved…challenging. I could go on and on about the symbolism of the werewolf, the themes present in most werewolf tales, the appeal and evolution of the concept, and so on…but I’m not going to right here in this introduction, for two reasons. First of all, because I will have ample room to bring those things up throughout the countdown…and second of all, because I just want to state OH MY FREAKING GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS TRYING TO MAKE THIS LIST. This was sincerely one of the most frustratingly tricky lists for me to sort out that I’ve ever made. There are multiple reasons why, but it ultimately comes down to two major ones: first, much like with vampires, I haven’t seen every single werewolf-related thing under the Sun. So I knew there were a lot of really popular werewolves that I couldn’t rightfully include simply because I don’t know anything about them. Second, for the ones I DID know, it was hard to figure out what would make certain characters count, and what would help determine who ranked higher than others. There were just a lot of different factors to consider. Just as there were two major issues that made this difficult, I ultimately made my choices based on two points. First, I decided to exclude characters who were anthropomorphic wolves, but weren’t necessarily werewolves: to qualify, the characters in question had to either shapeshift from a more human form to a more wolf-like form, or - if they were in the same form all the time - the human side had to be more the focus. Second, I simply asked myself one question: “What characters do I think of most when I think of werewolves?” That was really the plain and simple point, and I tried to approach my rankings based on that: this is not a list of the “hottest” or the “coolest” werewolves, and it is not a list of the most sympathetic or the scariest werewolves, nor is it - for a change - a list about which ones I’d rather play or write for the most. I’m still not sure the ranking here is in any way definitive. If there are wolf characters you don’t see here that you really love (I KNOW there WILL be, frankly), the chances are high that I either just don’t know them, or they just didn’t make the cut because, again, this was a very difficult list to sort out in general. If you don’t like it, make your own. :P With that said…in honor of Halloween, here are My Top 15 Favorite Werewolves!

15. Grimm, Caesar, and Douglas Wolf.

From the games “A Villain’s Twisted Heart,” “Ozmafia,” and “Lost Alice,” respectively. I decided to include all three of these characters in the same spot because a.) I like all three of them roughly the same, and b.) all three of them have a lot in common. Grimm, Caesar, and Douglas are all “anime boi” type characters, all of them originate from fairy-tale themed romance games from Japan, and all three of them are their universe’s version of the Big Bad Wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood.” All three also start off the stories they appear in as villainous characters: brutal, vicious, murderous monsters, who will gobble you up as soon as look at you. However, in all three cases, as their stories in the games go on, you do see more sympathetic sides to them; in the cases of Grimm and Caesar, you even have the option and ability to fall in love with them. Douglas remains a villain to the end, but that’s about the only EXTREMELY major difference within the trio, at least that’s worth noting for this countdown. While I love all three characters, and the obvious eye candy cannot be ignored, I frankly don’t tend to think of “sexy anime guys” first when I think of the word “werewolf,” so I decided to place them very low on the list. Sorry, for any (if any) who were hoping they’d be higher.

14. Keaton, from Fire Emblem.

Yet another “anime boi” character. (Don’t worry, if you’re not a fan; they won’t be in great abundance from this point on.) I’m not SUPER familiar with the Fire Emblem universe as a whole, but I AM fairly well-versed with at least one character, and that is Keaton. He is the leader of a pack of lycanthropes referred to as “Wolfskins”: a tribe of barbaric, man-eating hunters living in the mountains of Nohr. They are able to shapeshift from an appearance that looks basically human, but with some wolf-like traits, to huge, hulking, grotesque monsters that are even more wolfish in form. At first, Keaton is an enemy of the main characters, but he ultimately becomes an ally and a friend and joins forces with the heroes on their journey. Keaton is one of those characters I love who effectively has two different sides to his personality: on the one hand, he’s a bloodthirsty sadist who makes no secret of the fact he enjoys tormenting his prey, and even collects the bones of some of his victims. On the other hand, however, once he comes to trust you and care about you - which is absolutely possible - he suddenly becomes flat out adorable: just a scruffy, silly puppy dog who likes to act all big and scary, but really is a softy. The funny part about this is that neither side is a facade for the other: Keaton is both a savage beast and a sweetheart, and that dichotomy is just so interesting to see at work.

13. Eddie Munster, from The Munsters.

From Japanese gaming guys, to suburban USA; what a segue. “The Munsters” was a 1960s sitcom series, inspired by the popularity of “The Addams Family,” which was going on around the same time. Though it only lasted two seasons, the show made a big impact, largely due to its interesting premise: it featured a family of Universal Monsters, interacting with the normal folks of the American town around them. While the original Wolfman - here called “Uncle Lester” - did appear in a couple of episodes, the most prominent werewolf character of the series was Eddie Munster: the daughter of Herman Munster (Frankenstein’s Monster) and his lovely bride, Lily (Dracula’s Daughter). How they gave birth to Eddie is beyond me, but regardless, Eddie is probably the friendliest and most adorable werewolf you could ever meet. The character didn’t start off that way, though: in earlier ideas for the show, including an unaired pilot, Eddie was a vicious, bratty little gremlin. However, by the time the show officially aired, the character had changed into a loving, happy young fellow who simply enjoyed spending time with his dad and was never seen without his beloved werewolf plushy, Woof-Woof. The character was originally played by Butch Patrick on the TV show; like other Munsters characters, Eddie has been reimagined and reinterpreted a few times over the years, but not a single version has really had the success that the original had.

12. Jiro, from Kamen Rider Kiva.

And now we return to Japan, though this time in the world of live-action media. I’ve mentioned “Kamen Rider Kiva” a couple times this month, and on other past occasions, but for those who don’t already know: the long and the short of “Kamen Rider Kiva” is a Japanese superhero show themed around Universal Monsters. One of the main characters of the series is our resident anti-hero, Jiro - a.k.a. Garuru - the last of the Wolfen Race. Most of his most prominent appearances take place in the past scenes of the series, set in 1986. For much of that section of the series, Jiro is an antagonistic presence; unlike Universal’s Wolfman, he isn’t a tortured soul tormented by his animal nature, but instead a cynic who sees the world of humans as corrupt and filled with folly. He enjoys devouring people whole, especially young women, and is as seductive as he is dangerous. However, as the series goes on, he shows more and more of a noble side to his character. By the time of the present day in the show, Jiro has changed his ways, and now works alongside Riki (the Frankenstein Monster character) and Ramon (the Creature From the Black Lagoon) to assist the main protagonist, Wataru, on his quest to defeat the vampiric Fangires. In his human form, Jiro was played by Kenji Matsuda. As Garuru, he was played by Seiji Takaiwa.

11. Man-Wolf AND Werewolf By Night, from Marvel.

Just as Marvel has had many wizards and vampires, it is also home to multiple werewolves. And just as I credited two vampires from the comic company in the past, I’m going to credit two werewolves. First, there’s Man-Wolf; a recurring foe of Spider-Man. The Man-Wolf is actually John Jameson, the son of J. Jonah Jameson. John is an astronaut, who was transformed into the monstrous Man-Wolf thanks to a mysterious ruby he found while exploring the Moon. (As you do.) The jewel was grafted to his skin, and though it was eventually removed safely, John has returned to his Man-Wolf form off-and-on throughout comics history. Next, there’s the Werewolf By Night. A couple of people have held this title, the first and most famous being Jack Russell: a man whose entire bloodline is plagued by the curse of the werewolf. Initially a drifting beast of ambiguous alignment, the Werewolf By Night now uses his lycanthropic abilities to battle other supernatural terrors and criminal powers. While neither character is a household name, both have shown up in other media multiple times; Werewolf By Night, for instance, recently got a very interesting short film adaptation in the MCU, where Jack Russell was played by Gael Garcia Bernal. As for Man-Wolf, while John has appeared multiple times, his werewolf alter-ego isn’t QUITE as common. His most popular appearances have been in cartoon shows like “Spider-Man Unlimited” and “Ultimate Spider-Man.”

Paul Hyett's Howl (2015) utilized both prosthetic makeups and VFX for its 'feral people' style werewolves. VFX was used for some facial closeups and distance shots for their triple-jointed legs.