THE WEREWOLF
The lore and tradition of the werewolf are ancient and complex. A werewolf is a human shapeshifter who, traditionally under a full moon, turns into a wolf. From the popular Wolfman movies of the '50s to the more special-effects laden films like An American Werewolf in London, the werewolf has been a standard character in horror culture and Halloween costumes. But the werewolf legend goes back thousands of years.
"In European folklore," says the Encyclopedia Britannica, "a man who turns into a wolf at night and devours animals, people or corpses, but returns to human form by day. Some werewolves change shape at will; others, in whom the condition is hereditary or acquired by having been bitten by a werewolf, change shape involuntarily, under the influence of a full moon. If he is wounded in wolf form, the wounds will show in his human form and may lead to his detection. Belief in werewolves is found throughout the world. The psychiatric condition in which a person believes he is a wolf is called lycanthropy."
How does one become a werewolf? According to "Werewolf Facts," you can become infected if you:
- Eat the brain of a werewolf.
- Drink from a place where werewolves have drank from.
- Wear or smell the plant wolfbane.
- Are bitten by a Werewolf.
- Were born on Christmas Eve.
And how do you tell if someone is a werewolf? They have:
- Hairy or rough palms.
- Tattoos of the crescent moon.
- Slanted eye brows which meet in the middle.
- A much longer third finger on each hand.
All superstition and folklore, of course. But the reality inspiring the myth, as the encyclopedia states, is most likely the medical condition of lycanthropy, a delusion that "has been most likely to occur among people who believe in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls."
Another rare medical condition that has undoubtedly contributed to the belief in werewolves is hypertrichosis in which a person has excessive hair covering his or her entire body. Very often, people afflicted with hypertrichosis joined circuses and carnival sideshows, with such names as wolfboy, apewoman or missing link. They are otherwise normal people, and certainly don't compulsively howl at the moon.
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