WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: Werewolves, Part 1 - Beginnings

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is the Monster Fact,

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<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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<v Speaker 2>focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time where

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<v Speaker 2>the limit of our campfire's glow licks against the darkness

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<v Speaker 2>of the wild's strange forms leap and prowl, sometimes human,

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<v Speaker 2>sometimes lupine, often somewhere in between. Huddled around our cultivated flames,

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<v Speaker 2>this nighttime sun of burning wood, we invoke the rights

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<v Speaker 2>of man, hot, food and drink, dance and song, story

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<v Speaker 2>and myth. These acts tell us who we are, and

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<v Speaker 2>yet the creatures of the outer night temptest to darker,

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<v Speaker 2>wilder orbits places in the wilderness from which our fire

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<v Speaker 2>would be but a pinprick of light. They are the

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<v Speaker 2>wildness from which we arose and might yet return, dressed

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<v Speaker 2>in no furs but their own, naked before no gods

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<v Speaker 2>or none, man still remembers. They are our violent hearts,

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<v Speaker 2>our erotic blood, flesh, hunger and desire. Suckled by the moon,

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<v Speaker 2>the werewolves creep closer, threatening to leap with shredding claw

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<v Speaker 2>and ripping teeth, even as their howls urge us to

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<v Speaker 2>cast aside our tools, our garments, our language tongues and

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<v Speaker 2>join them in the all encompassing night. Here we begin

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<v Speaker 2>a multi episode look at the werewolf shape shifters, who

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<v Speaker 2>walk the line between human being and the wild wolf

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<v Speaker 2>in all manner of horrifying and alluring ways. Broadly, werewolf

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<v Speaker 2>traditions and visions overlapp greatly with other shapeshifter traditions. Pretty

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<v Speaker 2>Much every culture boasts some version of the human into

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<v Speaker 2>animal or animal into human story, as well as some

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<v Speaker 2>manner of human animal hybridity. These theoryanthropes are many, serving

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<v Speaker 2>as everything from divine avatars to tricksters and tormentors, and

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<v Speaker 2>entailing a plethora of animal forms. The werewolf, however, is

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<v Speaker 2>a creature that specifically emerges from the nexus of human

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<v Speaker 2>beings and the Eurasian wolf. The history of these two

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<v Speaker 2>species is long debated, concerning their coevolution and the domestication

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<v Speaker 2>of dogs some twenty thousand to forty thousand years ago,

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<v Speaker 2>just before or during the last glacial maximum. Suffice to say,

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<v Speaker 2>humans and some canids, perhaps cast off wolves or abandoned young,

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<v Speaker 2>forged a mutually beneficial relationship. In a sense, each social

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<v Speaker 2>animal found a new pack in the company of the other.

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<v Speaker 2>It's an interesting bond unlike any other. As neuroscientist John

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<v Speaker 2>Allman discusses in his two thousand book Evolving Brains, each

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<v Speaker 2>species benefited greatly from the domestication. The wolves gained at

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<v Speaker 2>its support for the rearing of their pups, and humans,

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<v Speaker 2>now bolstered by the wolf's keen senses, became an even

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<v Speaker 2>stronger hunter, able to outcompete their evolutionary rivals and protect

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<v Speaker 2>their camps against nocturnal predators. Thus, our ice age ancestors

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<v Speaker 2>brought canids closer to the fire of their culture, even

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<v Speaker 2>as their wild kin howled and raged in the vast

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<v Speaker 2>darkness beyond. Did they even then tell stories of fellow

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<v Speaker 2>hunter's lost to those outer orbits of wildness? Do they

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<v Speaker 2>imagine humans transformed into wolves, perhaps by the dawning of

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<v Speaker 2>a pelt or some act of savagery, We don't know.

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<v Speaker 2>They thought enough of wolves to depict one in the

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<v Speaker 2>surviving case paintings at Fonde Gamme Cave in modern day France. Elsewhere,

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<v Speaker 2>I Sage artists depicted the oldest known human animal hybrid

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<v Speaker 2>in the lone Minsh or lion man figure of Hollenstein's

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<v Speaker 2>Stadel Cave, so we might reasonably assume such imaginings were possible,

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<v Speaker 2>but it would be tens of thousands of years before

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<v Speaker 2>specific words for what we think of as werewolves emerged

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<v Speaker 2>in human culture. In the nineteen forty eight book Man

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<v Speaker 2>into Wolf, Austrian polymath Robert Eisler presented an elaborate take

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<v Speaker 2>on humanity's prehistoric past, arguing that traditions of the werewolf

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<v Speaker 2>are based in the dual emergence of our ancestors as

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<v Speaker 2>two separate strains of early humans, one savage, violent and predatory,

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<v Speaker 2>the other peaceful. The conflict between these early peoples, he argues,

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<v Speaker 2>continues to resonate in the collective unconscious, as well as

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<v Speaker 2>our ongoing human struggles against war, pain, and cruelty. These arguments, however,

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<v Speaker 2>depend on now outdated understandings of human evolution as well

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<v Speaker 2>as union archetypes, so I don't want to misrepresent his

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<v Speaker 2>ideas as modern scientific hypothesis, but rather as a work

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<v Speaker 2>of cultural commentary. It's an interesting take on the very

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<v Speaker 2>real long history of man and wolf. Turning to contemporary scholarship,

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<v Speaker 2>historian Daniel Ogden's excellent twenty twenty one book, The were

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<v Speaker 2>Wolf in the Ancient World, stresses that we mustn't be

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<v Speaker 2>too quick to view wolves as the mere bestial opposite

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<v Speaker 2>of humanity and thus a fitting wild energy to entertain

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<v Speaker 2>in our myths and legends of metamorphosis. Certainly, as he

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<v Speaker 2>points out, there are plenty of connotations in ancient accounts

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<v Speaker 2>throughout the Eurasian Wolfe's historical range that identify the creature

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<v Speaker 2>as an embodiment of savagery or trickery, but others still

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<v Speaker 2>acknowledge the social, noble, intelligent, cooperative, and tactical nature of

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<v Speaker 2>wild wolves. In other words, we didn't just see are

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<v Speaker 2>savage id in the wolf, something frequently cited in werewolf tales. No,

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<v Speaker 2>we saw much of our nobility in them as well.

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<v Speaker 2>Ogden writes, quote werewolves are wolves because there is a

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<v Speaker 2>sense in which wolves are in and of themselves were

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<v Speaker 2>wolves already insofar, that is, as they combine the qualities

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<v Speaker 2>of the wildest and most lawless of animals with those

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<v Speaker 2>of civilization and humanity. In twenty seventeen's She Wolf, A

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<v Speaker 2>Cultural History of Female Werewolves, editor Hannah Priest also weighs

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<v Speaker 2>in on this issue, arguing that while we often do

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<v Speaker 2>look to humanity's prehistoric past for the seeds of werewolf legends.

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<v Speaker 2>The narratives of werewolves are intrinsically bound to quote historical circumstance, civilization,

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<v Speaker 2>and literature. The European roots of the werewolf are perhaps linked,

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<v Speaker 2>she suggests, not merely to the threat posed by wolves

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<v Speaker 2>to hunter gatherers, or even to the wolf like and

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<v Speaker 2>wolf aid nature of the hunter, but also to the

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<v Speaker 2>threat posed by wolves to domesticated animals, ultimately a threat

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<v Speaker 2>to agriculture and property. As we'll discussed later, this interpretation

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<v Speaker 2>reveals much about the gendered nature of male and female

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<v Speaker 2>were wolves and the sort of distinct threats they seem

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<v Speaker 2>to embody toward male landowners. Suffice to say, specific werewolf

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<v Speaker 2>traditions do arise from the relationship between humans and wolves,

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<v Speaker 2>but it's a relationship that changes drastically over time and

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<v Speaker 2>takes on different forms across cultural lines. Well have much

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<v Speaker 2>to explore in the weeks ahead, but for now, as

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<v Speaker 2>we sit by our campfire, we gaze out at the

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<v Speaker 2>most perplexing shapes in the darkness, Creatures that indeed blur

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<v Speaker 2>the line between wilderness and civility, Creatures that embody unnatural

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<v Speaker 2>transformation informed, it would seem by the many ways we

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<v Speaker 2>transformed the natural world and ourselves through the domestication of

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<v Speaker 2>fauna and flora. Tune in for additional episodes of The

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<v Speaker 2>Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalia Stupendium each week. As always,

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<v Speaker 2>you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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<v Speaker 2>your Mind dot com.

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