Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. As
Speaker 2: we discussed last time, the origins of werewolf traditions may
Speaker 2: trace back to our prehistoric ancestors and the gradual domestication
Speaker 2: of the wild wolf, an act that may have made
Speaker 2: us better hunters and better watchers of the dark. At
Speaker 2: different points in human history, we saw shades of the
Speaker 2: wolf in our own animal nature, just as we also
Speaker 2: saw shades of human intelligence, cunning, and society in the
Speaker 2: ways of the wild wolf. This is not, however, to
Speaker 2: say that the werewolf specifically is a universal concept. Shapeshifters
Speaker 2: and animal human hybrids exist in virtually all human cultures,
Speaker 2: but the werewolf naturally requires some familiarity with the species
Speaker 2: Canis lupus, particularly the Eurasian wolf. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: stress that yes, the wolf's range includes North America, and
Speaker 2: they certainly do factor into the rich traditions of various
Speaker 2: indigenous North American tribes. But these traditions, including the off
Speaker 2: sited skin walkers, are rather distinct from the werewolf concept
Speaker 2: as we know it today. We may come back to
Speaker 2: discussion on this topic later on. Let's start with the
Speaker 2: term werewolf or the Germanic wewolf. This we can trace
Speaker 2: back to the writings of English Benedictine monk Bishop Wolfstan,
Speaker 2: and this would have been very early in the second
Speaker 2: millennium CE. While most famous for being the last pre
Speaker 2: conquest English bishop, his service began a mere four years
Speaker 2: prior to the Norman conquest of ten sixty six. Wolfstan
Speaker 2: did in fact warn the English of the threat posed
Speaker 2: by the quote with frakoverwulf, this being a threat to
Speaker 2: the Church's flock. As Daniel Ogden explains in The Werewolf
Speaker 2: in the Ancient World, the usage here is broad and
Speaker 2: don't get excited, but it certainly doesn't refer to actual
Speaker 2: werewolfs now. As Ogden explains, the traditional interpretation of the
Speaker 2: word werewolf saw it as a combination of the Latin
Speaker 2: vere or man with wolf a man wolf, But he
Speaker 2: stresses in his book that the commonly accepted theory today
Speaker 2: is that where derives from the Anglo saxon war meaning
Speaker 2: stranger or outsider, the were wolf is an outsider wolf,
Speaker 2: and this might, too, he argues, connect to Norse ideas
Speaker 2: of wolf and outlaw. In fact, he cites a thirteenth
Speaker 2: century Danish tradition that saw convicted thieves hanged beside the
Speaker 2: corpse of a wolf to fully convey the dead man's
Speaker 2: criminal nature to common citizens passing by. Of course, these
Speaker 2: ideas is line up with the way where wolves have
Speaker 2: often been presented dangerous outsiders, threats to law and ruling landowners,
Speaker 2: and if we think seriously about the animal itself, a
Speaker 2: lone wolf that is not part of a social pack.
Speaker 2: Male lone wolves in reality, are generally only temporarily alone,
Speaker 2: moving from one social group to another or back into
Speaker 2: the same group they just left. But in some cases
Speaker 2: this may also constitute an individual infected with rabies a
Speaker 2: most dangerous creature. Indeed, the termlyanthropy, however, is much older,
Speaker 2: first employed by the second century CE physician Marcellus of Side,
Speaker 2: who employed the term like anthropia to describe medical conditions
Speaker 2: that we would now Ogden describes define as different forms
Speaker 2: of mental illness. Marcellus's description continued to echo through ancient
Speaker 2: medical writings and as Nadine Metzger summarizes in twenty fourteen's
Speaker 2: Battling Demons with Medical Authority public in the journal History
Speaker 2: of Psychiatry, These lichenthroats were described as otherwise harmless, melancholic
Speaker 2: individuals who suffer from extreme dryness, hang out in cemeteries,
Speaker 2: and mimic the behaviors of wolves and dogs. Modern interpretations
Speaker 2: have considered a number of actual ailments that might have
Speaker 2: underlined this broad diagnosis, rabies, porphyria, neurological dysfunction, and epilepsy.
Speaker 2: Some additionally make a case for some manner of true
Speaker 2: clinical lycanthropy. For ancient physicians, however, it was nothing that
Speaker 2: a little fasting or the consumption of a wolf's.
Speaker 3: Heart wouldn't cure. The term lycanthropy would remain a purely
Speaker 3: medical term, while other Latin words more specifically described shape
Speaker 3: shifting beings. That is, until ninth century CE, historian Theophanes
Speaker 3: the Confessor described agents of the Byzantine emperor as licanthropes,
Speaker 3: a manner of wordplay here to invoke the Greek myth
Speaker 3: of life can wordplay that would be repeated by George
Speaker 3: Hammertolos aka George the Monk later that same century, and
Speaker 3: this ogden contends sets the word werewolf on the trajectory
Speaker 3: that we enjoy today. It's interesting that we've long seen
Speaker 3: this duality of magic and medicine, of the rational and
Speaker 3: the superstitious in our werewolf media, As Matt Schimkowitz explores
Speaker 3: in a twenty twenty five av Club article titled film
Speaker 3: Trivia FactCheck, original The Wolfman's Script kept the Werewolf at bay,
Speaker 3: the nineteen forty one Universal horror classic film, was originally
Speaker 3: intended to leave it ambiguous as to whether the film's
Speaker 3: Lawrence Talbot suffered from a monstrous curse or a distortion.
Speaker 2: Of the mind.
Speaker 3: The nineteen forty six film She Wolf of London, as
Speaker 3: well as the nineteen seventy six Italian grindhouse favorite Werewolf Woman,
Speaker 3: both employ the idea of werewolf delusion rather than literal transform. Finally,
Speaker 3: I want to come back to Bishop Wolfstan here. His
Speaker 3: name has nothing to do with werewolves, being rather a
Speaker 3: family name that meant Wolfstone in the sense of strength
Speaker 3: and resilience. But as Brad Steiger points out in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine's The Werewolf Book, a much later German tradition
Speaker 3: recorded I believe in the nineteenth century told of a
Speaker 3: wolf stone erected over the grave of a slain werewolf,
Speaker 3: keeping the monster at rest but also becoming a focal
Speaker 3: point for the paranormal. Join us next week as we
Speaker 3: continue this journey through the world of the werewolf in general.
Speaker 3: You can tune in for additional episodes of The Monster, Fact,
Speaker 3: The Artifact, or Anomalius Dupendium each week. As always, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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