1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,160 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:08,240 Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is the Monster Fact, 3 00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:11,039 Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 4 00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:22,880 Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time where 5 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:26,720 Speaker 2: the limit of our campfire's glow licks against the darkness 6 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:32,159 Speaker 2: of the wild's strange forms leap and prowl, sometimes human, 7 00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:39,200 Speaker 2: sometimes lupine, often somewhere in between. Huddled around our cultivated flames, 8 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:43,519 Speaker 2: this nighttime sun of burning wood, we invoke the rights 9 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:48,159 Speaker 2: of man, hot, food and drink, dance and song, story 10 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:52,720 Speaker 2: and myth. These acts tell us who we are, and 11 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:55,840 Speaker 2: yet the creatures of the outer night temptest to darker, 12 00:00:56,040 --> 00:01:00,240 Speaker 2: wilder orbits places in the wilderness from which our fire 13 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:04,240 Speaker 2: would be but a pinprick of light. They are the 14 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:08,160 Speaker 2: wildness from which we arose and might yet return, dressed 15 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 2: in no furs but their own, naked before no gods 16 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,320 Speaker 2: or none, man still remembers. They are our violent hearts, 17 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:22,240 Speaker 2: our erotic blood, flesh, hunger and desire. Suckled by the moon, 18 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:26,800 Speaker 2: the werewolves creep closer, threatening to leap with shredding claw 19 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:30,480 Speaker 2: and ripping teeth, even as their howls urge us to 20 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:34,680 Speaker 2: cast aside our tools, our garments, our language tongues and 21 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:43,720 Speaker 2: join them in the all encompassing night. Here we begin 22 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:47,640 Speaker 2: a multi episode look at the werewolf shape shifters, who 23 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:51,480 Speaker 2: walk the line between human being and the wild wolf 24 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:57,320 Speaker 2: in all manner of horrifying and alluring ways. Broadly, werewolf 25 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:02,560 Speaker 2: traditions and visions overlapp greatly with other shapeshifter traditions. Pretty 26 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,720 Speaker 2: Much every culture boasts some version of the human into 27 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:10,240 Speaker 2: animal or animal into human story, as well as some 28 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:16,160 Speaker 2: manner of human animal hybridity. These theoryanthropes are many, serving 29 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:20,400 Speaker 2: as everything from divine avatars to tricksters and tormentors, and 30 00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 2: entailing a plethora of animal forms. The werewolf, however, is 31 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:28,760 Speaker 2: a creature that specifically emerges from the nexus of human 32 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:32,760 Speaker 2: beings and the Eurasian wolf. The history of these two 33 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:37,480 Speaker 2: species is long debated, concerning their coevolution and the domestication 34 00:02:37,639 --> 00:02:41,600 Speaker 2: of dogs some twenty thousand to forty thousand years ago, 35 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,680 Speaker 2: just before or during the last glacial maximum. Suffice to say, 36 00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:50,800 Speaker 2: humans and some canids, perhaps cast off wolves or abandoned young, 37 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:56,320 Speaker 2: forged a mutually beneficial relationship. In a sense, each social 38 00:02:56,360 --> 00:02:59,880 Speaker 2: animal found a new pack in the company of the other. 39 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:05,280 Speaker 2: It's an interesting bond unlike any other. As neuroscientist John 40 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,920 Speaker 2: Allman discusses in his two thousand book Evolving Brains, each 41 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:15,320 Speaker 2: species benefited greatly from the domestication. The wolves gained at 42 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:18,119 Speaker 2: its support for the rearing of their pups, and humans, 43 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:22,080 Speaker 2: now bolstered by the wolf's keen senses, became an even 44 00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:27,440 Speaker 2: stronger hunter, able to outcompete their evolutionary rivals and protect 45 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:32,680 Speaker 2: their camps against nocturnal predators. Thus, our ice age ancestors 46 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,800 Speaker 2: brought canids closer to the fire of their culture, even 47 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:40,480 Speaker 2: as their wild kin howled and raged in the vast 48 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:44,640 Speaker 2: darkness beyond. Did they even then tell stories of fellow 49 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:48,520 Speaker 2: hunter's lost to those outer orbits of wildness? Do they 50 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,200 Speaker 2: imagine humans transformed into wolves, perhaps by the dawning of 51 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,920 Speaker 2: a pelt or some act of savagery, We don't know. 52 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:59,240 Speaker 2: They thought enough of wolves to depict one in the 53 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:05,280 Speaker 2: surviving case paintings at Fonde Gamme Cave in modern day France. Elsewhere, 54 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:09,000 Speaker 2: I Sage artists depicted the oldest known human animal hybrid 55 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:13,080 Speaker 2: in the lone Minsh or lion man figure of Hollenstein's 56 00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:17,680 Speaker 2: Stadel Cave, so we might reasonably assume such imaginings were possible, 57 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:20,719 Speaker 2: but it would be tens of thousands of years before 58 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:24,240 Speaker 2: specific words for what we think of as werewolves emerged 59 00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:27,960 Speaker 2: in human culture. In the nineteen forty eight book Man 60 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,599 Speaker 2: into Wolf, Austrian polymath Robert Eisler presented an elaborate take 61 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:37,040 Speaker 2: on humanity's prehistoric past, arguing that traditions of the werewolf 62 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:40,719 Speaker 2: are based in the dual emergence of our ancestors as 63 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 2: two separate strains of early humans, one savage, violent and predatory, 64 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:49,599 Speaker 2: the other peaceful. The conflict between these early peoples, he argues, 65 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,520 Speaker 2: continues to resonate in the collective unconscious, as well as 66 00:04:53,560 --> 00:05:00,000 Speaker 2: our ongoing human struggles against war, pain, and cruelty. These arguments, however, 67 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:03,840 Speaker 2: depend on now outdated understandings of human evolution as well 68 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:07,000 Speaker 2: as union archetypes, so I don't want to misrepresent his 69 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:11,200 Speaker 2: ideas as modern scientific hypothesis, but rather as a work 70 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:14,520 Speaker 2: of cultural commentary. It's an interesting take on the very 71 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:19,880 Speaker 2: real long history of man and wolf. Turning to contemporary scholarship, 72 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:24,280 Speaker 2: historian Daniel Ogden's excellent twenty twenty one book, The were 73 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:27,240 Speaker 2: Wolf in the Ancient World, stresses that we mustn't be 74 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:31,320 Speaker 2: too quick to view wolves as the mere bestial opposite 75 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:36,039 Speaker 2: of humanity and thus a fitting wild energy to entertain 76 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,479 Speaker 2: in our myths and legends of metamorphosis. Certainly, as he 77 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,800 Speaker 2: points out, there are plenty of connotations in ancient accounts 78 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,919 Speaker 2: throughout the Eurasian Wolfe's historical range that identify the creature 79 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 2: as an embodiment of savagery or trickery, but others still 80 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:57,000 Speaker 2: acknowledge the social, noble, intelligent, cooperative, and tactical nature of 81 00:05:57,120 --> 00:06:00,720 Speaker 2: wild wolves. In other words, we didn't just see are 82 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:06,479 Speaker 2: savage id in the wolf, something frequently cited in werewolf tales. No, 83 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:09,320 Speaker 2: we saw much of our nobility in them as well. 84 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:14,039 Speaker 2: Ogden writes, quote werewolves are wolves because there is a 85 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:17,440 Speaker 2: sense in which wolves are in and of themselves were 86 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:22,560 Speaker 2: wolves already insofar, that is, as they combine the qualities 87 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:26,440 Speaker 2: of the wildest and most lawless of animals with those 88 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:31,159 Speaker 2: of civilization and humanity. In twenty seventeen's She Wolf, A 89 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:35,960 Speaker 2: Cultural History of Female Werewolves, editor Hannah Priest also weighs 90 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:38,560 Speaker 2: in on this issue, arguing that while we often do 91 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:42,760 Speaker 2: look to humanity's prehistoric past for the seeds of werewolf legends. 92 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:48,920 Speaker 2: The narratives of werewolves are intrinsically bound to quote historical circumstance, civilization, 93 00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:52,960 Speaker 2: and literature. The European roots of the werewolf are perhaps linked, 94 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:56,240 Speaker 2: she suggests, not merely to the threat posed by wolves 95 00:06:56,240 --> 00:06:59,400 Speaker 2: to hunter gatherers, or even to the wolf like and 96 00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:02,680 Speaker 2: wolf aid nature of the hunter, but also to the 97 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:07,039 Speaker 2: threat posed by wolves to domesticated animals, ultimately a threat 98 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:11,440 Speaker 2: to agriculture and property. As we'll discussed later, this interpretation 99 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:15,400 Speaker 2: reveals much about the gendered nature of male and female 100 00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 2: were wolves and the sort of distinct threats they seem 101 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:24,400 Speaker 2: to embody toward male landowners. Suffice to say, specific werewolf 102 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:27,920 Speaker 2: traditions do arise from the relationship between humans and wolves, 103 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 2: but it's a relationship that changes drastically over time and 104 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:36,440 Speaker 2: takes on different forms across cultural lines. Well have much 105 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:38,480 Speaker 2: to explore in the weeks ahead, but for now, as 106 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:41,360 Speaker 2: we sit by our campfire, we gaze out at the 107 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:45,440 Speaker 2: most perplexing shapes in the darkness, Creatures that indeed blur 108 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:50,160 Speaker 2: the line between wilderness and civility, Creatures that embody unnatural 109 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:54,640 Speaker 2: transformation informed, it would seem by the many ways we 110 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:59,840 Speaker 2: transformed the natural world and ourselves through the domestication of 111 00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:04,560 Speaker 2: fauna and flora. Tune in for additional episodes of The 112 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:09,200 Speaker 2: Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalia Stupendium each week. As always, 113 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:12,000 Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 114 00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:23,480 Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. 115 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:26,560 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 116 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 117 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:32,319 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.