We’ve covered how to tame our furry pals from acting Beastly when guests arrive, but in the spirit of the holidays what about if we ourselves behave beastly? Beware the full moon!

This post is about WereWolves!

Almost every culture has a version of men becoming beasts of some kind,either a mythical separate species,or men cursed to become creatures, or punished to live as animals for behaving badly. In greek and roman myths and legends,Rome was founded by Romulus. Romulus along with his brother Remus were said to have been suckled by a shewolf in a grove called the Lupercal. The king of Lycaon either knowingly or unknowingly served human flesh to his guests at a feast and was cursed to live for as many years as pieces of flesh he had eaten in the form of a wolf. In france werewolves were called Loup Garou and tended to be tailless and spend their time lurking around cemeteries.
During the time of the witch hunts there was also a pretty fierce lycanthropy infestation as well. Both were fuelled by wide spread Ergot poisoning in Rye bread which was the staple bread of the average commoner. Only the wealthy ate the delicate soft white breads. Accusations and Trials and Interrogations were rampant.

Medieval versions of the were wolf tale were based less on eating human flesh punishments and more on men behaving badly. Act like a beast and you will become a beast. Some other ways to become a werewolf included drinking water out of a wolves paw print that had been exposed to the light of the full moon. Being born on a blue moon,being bitten by another werewolf,making a pact with the devil,wearing a wolf skin and doing a ritual under a full moon could also grant you Shifting abilities.


If you saw a person with a long left thumb nail,a crescent moon tattoo or birth mark or their two middle fingers the same length or even just having a unibrow,they were probably a werewolf.
Priests could grant a werewolf sanctuary from being hunted and force them to change back to their human form by calling to them using their human name.
Silver of course was one way to kill a werewolf as well as wolfsbane.
Some wolves transformed by putting on a skin and others claimed their fur was on their insides,a few people during the burning times lost their lives to interrogators who insisted on proof of such claims and cut the accused open to look for fur.

The links below will give you more info on a few of these famous characters of werewolf fame:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Garnier
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stumpp
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_(Arcadia)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf