Werewolf Intro
The Werewolf
The werewolf is a creature that has been around in the minds of humans for centuries… perhaps longer than the other well-known creature of legend – the vampire.
Werewolf Origins
In recent times, a 1978 book by Ian Woodward called THE WEREWOLF DELUSION: a thoroughly researched investigation into the werewolf, says that the Vikings may have brought werewolf folklore into the Americas and introduced it to Native American tribes.
But if you go back even farther, where did the belief in the werewolf come from before the Vikings brought it? It is thought that the werewolf originated in ancient Persia in paleolithic times (in other words, the stone age). But deciphering the past is no easy task and the artifacts and symbols that are discovered must also be deciphered.
Deciphering symbols or references to anything from the past that is discovered by an archeologist is not easy – especially when it pertains to the werewolf. Clues to what the symbol represents to the social patterns of the people that lived at the time must be considered. This possesses a problem for deciphering ancient symbols referencing man and wolf, and in some cases man as a wolf (aka werewolf). The structure of the people, culture, and environment, among many many other factors must be considered and deciphered, these clues to the past are clouded in current superstition and folklore.
The Werewolf and Man
Relationships between humans and animals dates back to the beginning of time, and time changes this relationship. Why has this relationship created such a strange twist in development – the werewolf?
For man to transform or shape-shift into a wolf creature is considered an act of fiction; but what about in the past? Consider what we know today, that no human has ever been documented to physically shape-shift.
Folklore and superstition took to the wolf man or werewolf creature stories by storm turning the animals into a whirlwind of lore. Mythical beings, strange sighting, fairy tales, authors, and movie writers, and elaborate exaggerations one after another have piled up forming the legend that we know today- the werewolf.
But for all this, and all the arguments you can make that the werewolf may simply be a creature of folklore and legend, there is one thing that must be considered – one thing that cannot be denied. As time has progressed, and humans have advanced, the sightings and the legends persist. When something persists for so long, there is generally some truth to it.
Whether you want to believe it or not, one fact is without question…
Almost every culture has some knowledge of the werewolf.
