The myth of the werewolf (sometimes also known as a lycanthrope, but you have to see them as two different terms since lycanthropy is considered a real psychological disease) is one of the oldest myths concerning supernatural creatures, told from a long time, and with a huge presence in literature, and more recently popularized in cinema or television. This myth is as old and as widely spread as the vampire myth, since it has spread throughout the world for many centuries, with small differences depending on the country or the historical moment in which it is told, but always with the common factor of producing terrible anecdotes of violence and/or destruction, and always on full moon nights. Pretty much in all mythologies there are legends related to this figure. They all have in common the transitory appearance of characteristics from this or other beasts in man. An example is the tiger man from northwestern Argentina and Paraguay, or the African leopard man. In fact, many people still believe in the existence of wolfmen, werewolves or other kinds of supernatural creatures.
According to European folklore, a werewolf is, roughly, a man who turned into a wolf at night (during full moon nights) and devoured animals (mainly sheep), and people or corpses, but who could return to human form during the day. Some werewolves change shape at will; others, in whom the condition is hereditary or acquired by having been bitten by a werewolf (or wolfman), change involuntarily, under the influence of the full moon. The typical characteristics of the animal are ferocity, strength, cunning, speed, violence and resistance. According to popular beliefs, this wolfman can remain with his animal appearance only for a few hours, during night time.
Despite the terms werewolf and wolfman describe usually the same creature (being werewolf the most common in popular use), they are often used as different terms in popular culture (literature, cinema, television, etc). The fictional depiction of such creatures has varied a great deal over the years. Depending on the author, the stablished difference between the terms is that the wolfman is a man with beastily features: excessive hair, fangs, etc, with the ability to turn into a relatively normal-looking wolf; while the werewolf derive from myths and legends, and transform into a bepedal wolf-human hybrid creature.
Belief in werewolves is found throughout the world and there is a psychiatric condition in which a person believes that he/she is a wolf, which is known as lycanthropy. According to this condition, the patient suffering from lycanthropy, called lycanthrope, is in itself a normal human being but the psychological imbalance makes him/her think to be an animal (in this case a wolf) and act accordingly, committing violent crimes such as murder and cannibalism. Already in the 2nd century cases of lycanthropy were detected, which Marcellus of Sidonia described as "a kind of melancholy." The werewolf legend was propagated since then, once the effects that the full moon had on people's behavior were "proved". And of course, just as there were trials of women accused of being witches, there were also trials of people accused of being werewolves. They were not as uncommon as most sources attempt to make believe, and they extended until the 18th century.
The werewolf legend goes back to antiquity. In the year 1 B.C.E. the Roman poet Ovid wrote The Metamorphosis (poem composed of 15 books), in the first book he told us the story of King Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in the Peloponnese, whose name gave rise to the term lycanthrope, derived from the Greek words lýkos ( wolf) and ánthropos (man); a religious and cultured man, who took his devotion to the extreme, after having sacrificed all his children (who exceeded fifty) as an offering to Zeus to, then, practice anthropophagy, by eating the entrails of the little ones. Those strangers who came to their kingdom were not freed from their wild hostility. However, Zeus punished him for his actions by turning him into a werewolf.
There are several stories about Lycaon, one of them being the one written by Pliny the Elder, although at no time in his writing does he mention the name of the king of Arcadia. In his story Lycaon offended the gods by serving them human flesh for dinner. He was punished for it by becoming a werewolf, in this way he continued with his cruel murders without his human form. Every 10 years, if he had not eaten human flesh at that time, he could return to his human form, but every time that moment came, he took advantage of it to resume his rites and sacrifices. With each full moon Lycaon went out into the forest clearing, and howled at Zeus to be forgiven.
Northern Europe gave a relevant role to the wolf in its ancient mythologies. Odin, the highest divinity of the Nordic pantheon, has two wolves at his service, and according to the mythology, a gigantic wolf named Fenrir will devour him at the end of time. For centuries the Scandinavian "berserker" were feared, warriors dedicated to Odin who supposedly acquired the strength and attributes of the wolf by dressing in their skin to enter combat.
But it was not until the Middle Ages when the phenomenon of werewolves becomes part of popular legends, its main focus was the center and north of Europe, and the causes that made this phenomenon spread so quickly was mainly the great illiteracy rate and the transmission of history person to person. As poverty, famine and unhealthiness were very common at this time, cattle were a source of great wealth among the population, the presence of the wolf was then cause for fear, because it was not only dangerous for livestock but it also used to attack women and children who ventured in the woods alone (in fact, most of the attacks attributed to werewolves were made to women and children) and it is in these circumstances, in this climate of terror, where the legend of the werewolf emerged, motivated perhaps by the cunning of the wolves, by the fear to an animal that hunts in packs and with great precision, and above all, to certain crimes committed by men, murders of women and children who were defenseless in the forest . From the Middle Ages and the triumph of christianity with all its absurd paranoia, the association of the wolf with Satan, darkness and sins such as anger or gluttony, was consolidated, which meant a relentless persecution against those accused of transforming into this cursed animal. The church and its inquisition in its "crusade" against all sources of evil, established horrible and inhuman sentences on people accused of being a werewolf, unleashing a climate of fear and terror much worse than that caused by the myth per se.
Between the end of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th, when an authentic epidemic of lycanthropy, especially strong in France, caused that nearly thirty thousand people were prosecuted, tortured and executed under the accusation of becoming wolves and committing terrible crimes of murder and cannibalism at the service of the devil. In 1764, the so-called "Beast of Gevaudan" appeared in the district of Gevaudan, in the south of France, where between 1764 and 1767 it devoured 121 people. The crisis reached such a point that King Louis XV got involved and offered a substantial reward for the creature. Most thought it was a werewolf, and even the army and a group of hunters were asked to take care of the beast. The horror came to an end on June 19, 1767, when farmer Jean Chastel killed with three silver bullets an animal described as broad-headed, snout and pointed ears, reddish hair and with a black stripe on the spine. The issue of silver bullets is due to the belief that it was the way to eliminate werewolves, although there is no evidence that silver bullets do more harm than commons, nor the origin of this method; perhaps silver was attributed mystical properties due to its shortage in its natural state, or because it was frequently related to the moon. However, the corpse of the beast rotted before it could be embalmed and studied, so the true species of the "Beast of Gévaudan" could not be confirmed, but it is very likely to has been a wolf, a hybrid between wolf and dog, or even a hyena or a panther.
There is a real disease, which may also have contributed to the creation of the myth: Hypertrichosis (or werewolf syndrome).
Hypertrichosis is the presence of excessive and abnormal hair in places of the body or face that do not usually present it. Hypertrichosis is a rare disease and an aesthetic problem that is usually hereditary (it is linked to the X chromosome, in this case the hair is thick, especially in the face), although it does not constitute a health risk. It can also appear due to acquired causes or be a cutaneous manifestation of a systemic disease. It can be located, but in its most extreme forms it is generalized, except in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. The only possible treatment for hypertrichosis is shaving or hair removal, although this implies that the hair will grow back again and again. However, in order to not letting the hair grow again, are recommended laser hair removal techniques (permanent hair removal). The aspect of the disease is really like the figurative werewolves, as can be seen in images taken of some of the very few people who have been affected throughout history by this pathology (there are hardly any hundreds of cases).
It should be noted that those who have suffered from such decease have not had any psychotic outbreak in which they have attacked or killed anyone. In other words, the wolverine appearance that hypertrichosis causes has absolutely nothing to do with the savagery of the mythological werewolves.
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