Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters. In time,
Speaker 2: we've been discussing the roots of werewolf traditions, both in
Speaker 2: prehistoric human history and in ancient mythology and literature. Based
Speaker 2: on my readings, I think it's safe to say that
Speaker 2: werewolf traditions emerge from various elements in human history and
Speaker 2: the human psyche, taking on different forms depending on time
Speaker 2: and location, and most importantly influencing later traditions legends, folk tales,
Speaker 2: and of course fictional takes as well. When we look
Speaker 2: for specific examples of early or even the earliest literary
Speaker 2: examples of werewolfs, it really depends on how narrowly or
Speaker 2: widely we refine our search. For instance, the oldest surviving
Speaker 2: work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, features the wild
Speaker 2: man and possible beast men in Keitu, and there's certainly
Speaker 2: some crossover from here into later werewolf traditions, but to
Speaker 2: be clear, in Ketu, not a werewolf more interesting as
Speaker 2: Daniel Ogden brings up in the werewolf in the ancient world.
Speaker 2: The epic of Gilgamesh does feature reference to the goddess
Speaker 2: Ishtar having turned humans into various beasts, including a wolf.
Speaker 2: Much later, though still ancient to us, Homer's the Odyssey
Speaker 2: from the eighth century BCE refers to the witch Circe
Speaker 2: transforming humans not only into pigs her specialty, but into
Speaker 2: wolves as well. These are both cases of transformative witchcraft,
Speaker 2: and while Ogden contends that stories like this certainly feed
Speaker 2: into werewolf traditions, we'd be going overboard to single either
Speaker 2: out as a true case zero for literary or mythic lacanthropy,
Speaker 2: focusing on the importance of temporary and even deliberate transformation
Speaker 2: with connection between the two forms. Ogden points to a
Speaker 2: tale that is often singled out as the most obvious
Speaker 2: werewolf story from the ancient world, one appearing in the
Speaker 2: satiricon of Gaius Petronius Arbiter from the late first century CE.
Speaker 2: The Latin satire contains a story told by the character
Speaker 2: Nicros at a banquet, and it roughly goes as follows.
Speaker 2: Back when the freedman Nicros was still a slave he
Speaker 2: fell in love with the wife of an innkeeper, and
Speaker 2: would sneak off to her whenever he could. One night,
Speaker 2: when the master of the house was away, Nicros persuaded
Speaker 2: the current HouseGuest, quote a soldier as brave as Orcus,
Speaker 2: to accompany him on the midnight journey. Shortly afterwards, they
Speaker 2: found themselves in an acropolis amongst the tombs, where the
Speaker 2: moon shone down in them like the midday sun. And
Speaker 2: then Nicros observed the soldier in a most shocking and
Speaker 2: remarkable act. He took off all his clothes, neatly, piled
Speaker 2: them up urinated in a circle around them, and then
Speaker 2: transformed into a wolf. The wolf howled and ran away,
Speaker 2: and when Nekroes tried to touch the clothes that the
Speaker 2: soldier had left within the circle of urine, he found
Speaker 2: that the clothing had turned to stone. In fear, he
Speaker 2: hurried on to see the innkeeper's wife, whose name was Melissa,
Speaker 2: and she told him that if he'd arrived earlier, he
Speaker 2: could have helped them, for a wild wolf had attacked
Speaker 2: their livestock, draining their blood. Before they were able to
Speaker 2: drive the beast away with a spear to the neck,
Speaker 2: Nicros began his way home after that, passing where the
Speaker 2: clothing had been stacked, but finding only splashes of blood there,
Speaker 2: And when he finally reached his master's house, he found
Speaker 2: a doctor attending to the soldier who had suffered a
Speaker 2: grievous neck wound. Now we can easily identify the key
Speaker 2: attributes of temporary deliberate transformation with connection between the two forms,
Speaker 2: as well as various flourishes that would remain popular in
Speaker 2: werewolf fiction up through modern times. Thus it's pretty definitive. Furthermore,
Speaker 2: Ogden contends that this one is quote one really good
Speaker 2: quirking story, which is key because the tale first and
Speaker 2: foremost serves as entertainment with humorous wrinkles concerning the storyteller,
Speaker 2: while also somewhat reflecting popular beliefs and the contemporary appetite
Speaker 2: for fantastic tales infused with the supernatural. In short, it's
Speaker 2: a werewolf story doing what werewolf stories have always done,
Speaker 2: and that is entertained. Visual depictions are less definitive as
Speaker 2: we often lack the full context of what we're looking at.
Speaker 2: Is it a mere wolf, a human disguised as a wolf,
Speaker 2: or merely wearing a wolf's pelt. There are various stopping
Speaker 2: points before we arrive at full werewolf. Even as we
Speaker 2: contend with images tied to known tales, such as the
Speaker 2: Satiricon or the myth of Lycaean theory, anthropic figures can
Speaker 2: likewise mean various things. Still acknowledging all of this, some
Speaker 2: images do read strongly as werewolf, at least to us
Speaker 2: Modern viewers across the Gulf of time consider the sixth
Speaker 2: century Etruscan pontic plate, which seems to depict a furry,
Speaker 2: bipedal humanoid with a wolf's head. The context is unclear,
Speaker 2: though probably linked in some way to Hercules and the
Speaker 2: centaur depicted elsewhere on the plate. The theoryanthropic figure here
Speaker 2: may represent death or the wolf man combination here may
Speaker 2: reference the god Faunas, who in Ovid's metamorphosis attempts to
Speaker 2: rape Hercules while Hercules is dressed in his lover amphies clothing.
Speaker 2: We're reminded in all of this that the werewolf is
Speaker 2: a monster. It is a thing, a form that illustrates
Speaker 2: various ideas, observations, and comparisons, and any of these ideas, observations,
Speaker 2: or comparisons may essentially summon an image comparable to the werewolf,
Speaker 2: completely on their own, detached in whole or in part
Speaker 2: from any particular werewolf tradition. That's it for now, But
Speaker 2: next week we will continue our journey and we will
Speaker 2: turn our attention to the female werewolf. Tune in for
Speaker 2: additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Anomilia
Speaker 2: Stupendium each week. As always, you can email us at
Speaker 2: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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