Werewolves

A werewolf (Old English: werwulf, "man-wolf"), wolfman, or occasionally lycanthrope, is a creature found in folklore, a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a wolflike creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or scratch from another werewolf) with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon.

German woodcut 1722

Quotes

• WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy.
  • John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise (2005), p. 76.

• A domesticated girl that's all you ask of me
  Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy
  Moon's awake now, with eyes wide open
  My body is craving, so feed the hungry.
  • Shakira, "She Wolf", She Wolf (2009).

• I'm going to repay you for betraying me; I'm going to give that brain of yours a new home in the skull of the Frankenstein monster. As for you Strauss, I'm going to give you the brain of the wolfman so that all your waking hours will be spent in untold agony awaiting the full of the moon... which will change you into a werewolf.
  • Curt Sidomak, House of Frankenstein (1944).

• He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amok in Kent.
  Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair.
  You better stay away from him! He'll rip your lungs out, Jim!
  Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor.
  • Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London", written by Warren Zevon, LeRoy Marinell, and Waddy Wachtel, Excitable Boy (1978).

• I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's!
  His hair was perfect.
  • Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London", written by Warren Zevon, LeRoy Marinell, and Waddy Wachtel, Excitable Boy (1978).

See also

• Horror

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Werewolves on Wikipedia
• The dictionary definition of werewolf on Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of lycanthropy on Wiktionary
• Media related to Werewolves on Wikimedia Commons