WEBVTT - The Monstrefact Omnibus: The Werewolf 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:09.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.279 Hey everyone, Robert Lamb. Here in this special omnibus edition 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.400 of The Monster Fact, we've put together all five episodes 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.639 of our recent look at the werewolf in myth, legend 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:29.160 and media, from prehistoric wolf interactions and the ancient world 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:34.040 to modern media incarnations of lacanthropy. So let's dig right 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:41.840 in draw blood, where the limit of our campfire's glow 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.360 licks against the darkness of the wild's strange forms leap 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:52.559 and prowl, sometimes human, sometimes lupine, often somewhere in between. 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:58.680 Huddled around our cultivated flames, this nighttime sun of burning wood, 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.600 we invoke the ight of man, hot, food and drink, 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:08.160 dance and song, story and myth. These acts tell us 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.000 who we are, and yet the creatures of the outer 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.280 night tempt us to darker, wilder orbits places in the 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.600 wilderness from which our fire would be but a pinprick 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.720 of light. They are the wildness from which we arose 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.520 and might yet return, dressed in no furs but their own, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.760 naked before no gods or none, man still remembers. They 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:37.360 are our violent hearts, our erotic blood, flesh, hunger, and desire. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:42.120 Suckled by the moon, the werewolves creep closer, threatening to 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.800 leap with shredding claw and ripping teeth, even as their 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.800 howls urge us to cast aside our tools, our garments, 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:54.320 our language tongues and join them in the all encompassing night. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.720 Here we begin a multi episode look at the werewolf 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.920 shape shifters, who walk the line between human being and 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:10.360 the wild wolf in all manner of horrifying and alluring ways. Broadly, 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:15.440 werewolf traditions and visions overlapped greatly with other shape shifter traditions. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.880 Pretty Much every culture boasts some version of the human 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.680 into animal or animal into human story, as well as 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.960 some manner of human animal hybridity. These theoryanthropes are many, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.840 serving as everything from divine avatars to tricksters and tormentors, 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:38.560 and entailing a plethora of animal forms. The werewolf, however, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.880 is a creature that specifically emerges from the nexus of 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:46.119 human beings and the Eurasian wolf. The history of these 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:50.320 two species is long debated, concerning their coevolution and the 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:55.160 domestication of dogs some twenty thousand to forty thousand years ago, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:03:00.240 just before or during the last glacial maximum. Suffice to say, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.360 humans and some canids, perhaps cast off wolves or abandoned young, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.880 forged a mutually beneficial relationship. In a sense, each social 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.519 animal found a new pack in the company of the other. 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.840 It's an interesting bond unlike any other. As neuroscientist John 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.520 Allman discusses in his two thousand book Evolving Brains, each 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.919 species benefited greatly from the domestication. The wolves gained at 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.720 its support for the rearing of their pups, and humans, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.680 now bolstered by the wolf's keen senses, became an even 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:41.000 stronger hunter, able to outcompete their evolutionary rivals and protect 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:46.280 their camps against nocturnal predators. Thus, our ice age ancestors 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.360 brought canids closer to the fire of their culture, even 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.080 as their wild kin howled and raged in the vast 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.200 darkness beyond. Did they even then tell stories of fellow 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.080 hunter's lost to those outer orbits of wildness? Do they 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.760 imagine humans transformed into wolves, perhaps by the dawning of 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.520 a pelt or some act of savagery, We don't know. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.840 They thought enough of wolves to depict one in the 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:18.839 surviving cave paintings at Fonde Gamme Cave in modern day France. Elsewhere, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.560 I sage artists depicted the oldest known human animal hybrid 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.640 in the lone minsh or lion man figure of Hollenstein's 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.240 Stadel Cave, so we might reasonably assume such imaginings were possible, 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.279 but it would be tens of thousands of years before 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.799 specific words for what we think of as werewolves emerged 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.520 in human culture. In the nineteen forty eight book Man 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:46.200 into Wolf, Austrian polymath Robert Eisler presented an elaborate take 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:50.599 on humanity's prehistoric past, arguing that traditions of the werewolf 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.279 are based in the dual emergence of our ancestors as 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.960 two separate strains of early humans, one savage, violent and predatory, 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:03.200 the other peaceful. The conflict between these early peoples, he argues, 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.080 continues to resonate in the collective unconscious, as well as 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:13.640 our ongoing human struggles against war, pain, and cruelty. These arguments, however, 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.400 depend on now outdated understandings of human evolution as well 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.560 as union archetypes, so I don't want to misrepresent his 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.760 ideas as modern scientific hypothesis, but rather as a work 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.039 of cultural commentary, it's an interesting take on the very 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:33.480 real long history of man and wolf. Turning to contemporary scholarship, 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.120 historian Daniel Ogden's excellent twenty twenty one book The Werewolf 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.159 in the Ancient World stresses that we mustn't be too 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.160 quick to view wolves as the mere bestial opposite of 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.800 humanity and thus a fitting wild energy to entertain in 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.560 our myths and legends of metamorphosis. Certainly, as he points out, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.039 there are plenty of connotations in ancient accounts throughout the 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.800 Eurasian wolfe's historical range that identify the creature as an 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:08.760 embodiment of savagery or trickery, but others still acknowledge the social, noble, intelligent, cooperative, 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.880 and tactical nature of wild wolves. In other words, we 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.280 didn't just see our savage id in the wolf, something 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.120 frequently cited in werewolf tales. No, we saw much of 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.000 our nobility in them as well. Ogden writes, quote, were 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.560 wolves are wolves because there is a sense in which 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:33.320 wolves are in and of themselves were wolves already insofar, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.040 that is, as they combine the qualities of the wildest 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:42.200 and most lawless of animals with those of civilization. And humanity. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.960 In twenty seventeen's she Wolf, A Cultural History of Female Werewolves, 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.720 editor Hannah Priest also weighs in on this issue, arguing 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.359 that while we often do look to humanity's prehistoric past 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.280 for the seeds of werewolf legends, the narratives of werewolves 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:03.400 are intrinsically bound to quote historical circumstance, civilization, and literature. 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.160 The European roots of the werewolf are perhaps linked, she suggests, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.960 not merely to the threat posed by wolves to hunter gatherers, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.080 or even to the wolf like and wolf aided nature 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.360 of the hunter, but also to the threat posed by 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:22.320 wolves to domesticated animals, ultimately a threat to agriculture and property. 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.280 As we'll discuss later, this interpretation reveals much about the 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.360 gendered nature of male and female were wolves and the 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:35.320 sort of distinct threats they seem to embody toward male landowners. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.440 Suffice to say, specific werewolf traditions do arise from the 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.600 relationship between humans and wolves, but it's a relationship that 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.840 changes drastically over time and takes on different forms across 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.239 cultural lines. Well have much to explore in the weeks ahead, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.040 but for now, as we sit by our campfire, we 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.080 gaze out at the most perplexing shapes in the darkness, 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.240 Creatures that indeed blur the line between wilderness and civility, 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:06.960 Creatures that embody unnatural transformation. Informed it would seem, by 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.600 the many ways we transformed the natural world and ourselves 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:19.520 through the domestication of fauna and flora. As we discussed 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.920 the last time, the origins of werewolf traditions may trace 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.680 back to our prehistoric ancestors and the gradual domestication of 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.960 the wild wolf, an act that may have made us 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.280 better hunters and better watchers of the dark. At different 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.280 points in human history, we saw shades of the wolf 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.520 in our own animal nature, just as we also saw 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.600 shades of human intelligence, cunning, and society in the ways 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.080 of the wild wolf. This is not, however, to say 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:53.000 that the werewolf specifically is a universal concept. Shapeshifters and 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.560 animal human hybrids exist in virtually all human cultures, but 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:02.120 the werewolf naturally requires some familiarity with the species Canis lupus, 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.800 particularly the Eurasian wolf. Now, I want to stress that, yes, 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.240 the wolf's range includes North America, and they certainly do 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.520 factor into the rich traditions of various indigenous North American tribes, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.240 but these traditions, including the off sited skin walkers, are 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.360 rather distinct from the werewolf concept as we know it today. 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.440 We may come back to discussion on this topic later on. 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.319 Let's start with the term werewolf or the Germanic wewulf. 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.640 This we can trace back to the writings of English 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.199 Benedictine monk Bishop Wolfstan, and this would have been very 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:42.160 early in the second millennium CE. While most famous for 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.080 being the last pre conquest English bishop, his service began 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.600 a mere four years prior to the Norman conquest of 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.560 ten sixty six. Wolfstan did in fact warn the English 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.440 of the threat posed by the quote would Fraco Verwulf, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.480 this being a threat to the Church's flock. As Daniel 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.680 Ogden explains in The Werewolf in the Ancient World, the 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.880 usage here is broad and don't get excited, but it 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:11.599 certainly doesn't refer to actual were wolves now. As Ogden explains, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.520 the traditional interpretation of the word werewolf saw it as 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.640 a combination of the Latin vere or man with wolf 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.960 a man wolf. But he stresses in his book that 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.920 the commonly accepted theory today is that where derives from 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.440 the Anglo saxon war, meaning stranger or outsider. The were 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.440 wolf is an outsider wolf, and this might, too, he argues, 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.360 connect to Norse ideas of wolf and outlaw. In fact, 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.920 he cites a thirteenth century Danish tradition that saw convicted 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.240 thieves hanged beside the corpse of a wolf to fully 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.600 convey the dead man's criminal nature to common citizens passing by. 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.400 Of course, these ideas line up with the way were 0:10:55.440 --> 0:11:00.480 wolves have often been presented dangerous outsiders, threats to law 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.120 and ruling landowners, and if we think seriously about the 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.160 animal itself, a lone wolf that is not part of 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.040 a social pack. Male lone wolves, in reality, are generally 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.480 only temporarily alone, moving from one social group to another 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.000 or back into the same group they just left. But 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.760 in some cases this may also constitute an individual infected 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:26.960 with rabies a most dangerous creature. Indeed, the term like panthropy, however, 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.760 is much older, first employed by the second century CE 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:35.080 physician Marcellus of Side, who employed the term like anthropia 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.800 to describe medical conditions that we would now Ogden describes 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:44.440 define as different forms of mental illness. Marcellus's description continued 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:49.360 to echo through ancient medical writings, and, as Nadine Metzger 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.840 summarizes in twenty fourteen's Battling Demons with Medical Authority, published 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.439 in the journal History of Psychiatry, these lichen throats were 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:02.720 described as otherwise harmless, melancholic individuals who suffer from extreme dryness, 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.600 hang out its cemeteries, and mimic the behaviors of wolves 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.920 and dogs. Modern interpretations have considered a number of actual 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:16.640 ailments that might have underlined this broad diagnosis, rabies, porphyria, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.840 neurological dysfunction, and epilepsy. Some additionally make a case for 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.439 some manner of true clinical lycanthropy. For ancient physicians, however, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.240 it was nothing that a little fasting or the consumption 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.320 of a wolf's heart wouldn't cure. The term lycanthropy would 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.200 remain a purely medical term, while other Latin words more 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:42.600 specifically described shape shifting beings. That is, until ninth century CE, 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:49.280 historian Theophanes the Confessor described agents of the Byzantine emperor ascanthropes, 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.079 a manner of word play, here to invoke the Greek 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.760 myth of lychaan wordplay that would be repeated by George 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.480 Hammertolos aka George the Monk later that same century, and 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:06.160 this Ogden contends sets the word werewolf on the trajectory 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.120 that we enjoy today. It's interesting that we've long seen 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:14.040 this duality of magic and medicine, of the rational and 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:19.080 the superstitious in our werewolf media. As Matt Schimkowitz explores 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.800 in a twenty twenty five AV Club article titled film 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.360 Trivia FactCheck, original The Wolfman script kept the Werewolf at bay. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.720 The nineteen forty one Universal Horror classic film was originally 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.720 intended to leave it ambiguous as to whether the film's 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:39.520 Lawrence Talbot suffered from a monstrous curse or a distortion 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.839 of the mind. The nineteen forty six films She Wolf 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.720 of London, as well as the nineteen seventy six Italian 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.959 grindhouse favorite Werewolf Woman, both employ the idea of werewolf 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:56.000 delusion rather than literal transformation. Finally, I want to come 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.199 back to Bishop wolf Stand here. His name has nothing 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.560 to do with werewolf, being rather a family name that 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.360 meant Wolfstone in the sense of strength and resilience. But 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.400 as Brad Steiger points out in nineteen ninety nine's The 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.679 Werewolf book. A much later German tradition recorded I Believe 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.800 in the nineteenth century, told of a wolf stone erected 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.840 over the grave of a slain werewolf, keeping the monster 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.080 at rest, but also becoming a focal point for the parentormal. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.080 We continue this week with our look at werewolves, having 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:36.520 previously discussed purported prehistoric origins of the were wolf in 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.840 the experiences and observations of early humans, as well as 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.680 the earliest known usages of the words werewolf and lacanthropy. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.080 The former werewolf emerges in the early second millennium CE, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.680 while the latter lacanthropy has an older but complex history 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.800 as a second century CE catch all for various mental illnesses, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.720 which came to be conflated with the Greek myth of 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:05.360 Lachaan Like Haan was the legendary king of Arcadia who 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.960 dared to try and trick the high god Zeus into 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.200 eating human flesh. His ploy was unsuccessful, however, and Zeus 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:17.680 inflicted a fitting divine punishment for one so savage, which 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:24.840 Avid describes as following in the Metamorphosis Henry Thomas Riley translation, Alarmed, 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.359 he himself takes to flight, and, having reached the solitude 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.680 of the country. He howls aloud and in vain attempts 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:36.120 to speak. His mouth gathers rage from himself, and through 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.760 its usual desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep, 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.560 and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.720 into hair, his arms into legs. He becomes a wolf, 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.640 and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.120 hoariness is still the same, The same violence appears in 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.480 his features. His eyes are bright as before. He is 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.640 still the same image of ferocity, and just to be sure, 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.640 all responsible parties are punished. Zeus follows this up with 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.800 a great flood. But Laikaan himself is indeed transformed into 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.280 a wolf, and, like the Biblical Cane, as Riley points 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.200 out in his notes, he is forced to live as 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.640 a cast off outsider, a lone wolf. In some tellings, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.960 his sons are transformed as well. While the myth of 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.960 Likaan is sometimes held up as an ancient key to 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.520 understanding subsequent werewolf tales, Daniel Ogden in twenty twenty one's 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.240 were Wolves in the Ancient World maintains that the tale 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.720 is a quote metaphorical derivative of the ancient folkloric traditions 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.840 that are indeed the key. He devotes an entire later 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.680 chapter in the book to Laichan and the complex interplay 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:52.800 there of three key categories. One historic evidence for a 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:57.600 lupine transformation right of passage for young men of the 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:02.880 Antet clan, Two various related myths of lupine transformation and 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.199 sacrilegious acts of human sacrifice in cannibalism. And three a 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:11.000 supposedly historical tale of an individual changing into a wolf 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.240 after eating part of a human sacrifice at the Likekaea 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.679 festival on the slopes of Mount like Chaan aka Wolf Mountain. 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.080 I won't attempt to summarize the entirety of his analysis, 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.640 but Ogden does contend that the story is more werewolf 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:31.520 adjacent than anything. Laikayan is a man punished with transformation 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.920 into a wolf, a transformation that occurs only once outside 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.359 of his control, making him no more a true were 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.159 wolf than Arachne, another victim of divine transformation punishment in 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.320 Greek myth, is a were spider, so an unsatisfying were 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.560 wolf and by no means the key trendsetter that some 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.000 make him out to be, but still an important and 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.360 influential myth in the Grand tradition of were wolves. As 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.520 discussed in the last episode, He's not key to the 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:04.040 understand the word lacanthropy, but his myth eventually becomes conflated 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.240 with the term to some degree. Now. One of the 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.520 tales interwoven in the Arcadian myth is that of the 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.560 Olympic athlete DeMarcus, a boxer who is said to have 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.359 been transformed into a wolf for a period of nine 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.240 to ten years at the Festival of Lykaea, possibly due 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.159 to ritual consumption of human flesh, thus, as is common 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.639 in all Ichaean myths, blurring the line between man and beast. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:34.120 But Ogden stresses that the quote unquote werewolf ism of DeMarcus, 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.360 if we may call it, that, is more directly related 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.919 to his status as a superb athlete. In keeping with 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.640 various other supernatural stories of the time about athletes, including 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.800 other accounts of lupine transformation, this would seem a tale 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.920 as old as time. Multiple contemporary mma fighters, for example, 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.440 and professional sports stars have been nicknamed werewolf. The Batman 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.199 villain known as Werewolf is also an Olympic athlete, and 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.000 let us not forget teen Wolf cousins Scott and Todd Howard, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:11.320 known for their lycanthropic basketball abilities. This brings us back 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.520 to a continuing point of contemplation in were wolf traditions, 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.080 there is a certain bit of the beast that we 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.960 admire and crave to manifest in our strength and speed, 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.920 or even in our savagery. We'll have more to explore 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.440 concerning ancient lacanthropy in the next episode, including the best 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:37.119 cases for the earliest written and visual depictions of werewolves. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.320 We've been discussing the roots of werewolf traditions, both in 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:57.119 prehistoric human history and in ancient mythology and literature. Based 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.000 on my readings, I think it's safe to say that 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.639 werewolf tradition emerged from various elements in human history, in 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:06.119 the human psyche, taking on different forms depending on time 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:11.159 and location, and most importantly influencing later traditions, legends, folk tales, 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.400 and of course fictional takes as well. When we look 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.760 for specific examples of early or even the earliest literary 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.879 examples of werewolfs, it really depends on how narrowly or 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.800 widely we refine our search. For instance, the oldest surviving 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.280 work of literature, the epic of Gilgamesh features the wild 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.600 man and possible beast men in Keitu, and there's certainly 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.800 some crossover from here into later werewolf traditions, but to 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.119 be clear, in Ketu not a were wolf. More interesting, 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.600 as Daniel Ogden brings up in the werewolf in the 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.119 ancient world, the epic of Gilgamesh does feature reference to 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.840 the goddess Ishtar having turned humans into various beasts, including 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.840 a wolf. Much later, though still ancient to us, Homer's 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.760 the Odyssey from the eighth century BCE refers to the 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.000 witch circeansforming humans not only into pigs her specialty, but 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.639 into wolves as well. These are both cases of transformative witchcraft, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.760 and while Ogden contends that stories like this certainly feed 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.240 into werewolf traditions, we'd be going overboard to single either 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.159 out as a true case zero for literary or mythic leacanthropy. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.360 Focusing on the importance of temporary and even deliberate transformation 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.919 with connection between the two forms. Ogden points to a 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.920 tale that is often singled out as the most obvious 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.679 werewolf story from the ancient world, one appearing in the 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:40.359 satiricon of Gaius Petronius arbiter from the late first century CE. 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.800 The Latin satire contains a story told by the character 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.800 Nicros at a banquet, and it roughly goes as follows. 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:53.040 Back when the freedman Nicros was still a slave, he 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.679 fell in love with the wife of an innkeeper and 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.960 would sneak off to her whenever he could. One night, 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.359 when the master of the house was away, Nicros persuaded 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.040 the current HouseGuest, quote a soldier as brave as Orcus, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:10.479 to accompany him on the midnight journey. Shortly afterwards, they 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.879 found themselves in an acropolis amongst the tombs, where the 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.440 moon shone down in them like the midday sun. And 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:21.679 then Nicros observed the soldier in a most shocking and 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.960 remarkable act. He took off all his clothes, neatly, piled 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.960 them up urinated in a circle around them, and then 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:33.320 transformed into a wolf. The wolf howled and ran away, 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.520 and when Nekros tried to touch the clothes that the 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.400 soldier had left within the circle of urine, he found 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.560 that the clothing had turned to stone. In fear, he 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.760 hurried on to see the innkeeper's wife, whose name was Melissa, 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.399 and She told him that if he'd arrived earlier, he 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.280 could have helped them, for a wild wolf had attacked 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.280 their livestock, draining their blood before they were able to 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.000 drive the beast away with a spear to the neck. 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.280 Nicros began his way home after that, passing where the 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.840 clothing had been stacked, but finding only splashes of blood there, 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.480 And when he finally reached his master's house, he found 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:11.840 a doctor attending to the soldier who had suffered a 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.320 grievous neck wound. Now we can easily identify the key 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:21.320 attributes of temporary deliberate transformation with connection between the two forms, 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.639 as well as various flourishes that would remain popular in 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:30.439 werewolf fiction up through modern times. Thus it's pretty definitive. Furthermore, 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:33.880 Ogden contends that this one is quote one really good 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.359 quirking story, which is key because the tale first and 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:41.920 foremost serves as entertainment with humorous wrinkles concerning the storyteller, 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:46.919 while also somewhat reflecting popular beliefs and the contemporary appetite 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:51.280 for fantastic tales infused with the supernatural. In short, it's 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:55.000 a werewolf story doing what werewolf stories have always done, 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.560 and that is entertained. Visual depictions are less definitive, as 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.440 we often lack the full context of what we're looking at. 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:06.000 Is it a mere wolf human disguised as a wolf, 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.600 or merely wearing a wolf's pelt. There are various stopping 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:13.000 points before we arrive at full werewolf, even as we 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.840 contend with images tied to known tales such as the 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:20.600 satiricon or the myth of Lycaan theoryanthropic figures can likewise 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.880 mean various things. Still acknowledging all of this, some images 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.399 do read strongly as wear a wolf, at least to 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:31.320 us Modern viewers across the gulf of time consider the 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:35.760 sixth century Etruscan Pontic plate, which seems to depict a furry, 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:40.320 bipedal humanoid with a wolf's head. The context is unclear, 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:44.080 though probably linked in some way to Hercules and the 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:48.159 centaur depicted elsewhere on the plate. The theory anthropic figure 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:52.160 here may represent death or the wolf man combination here 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:57.160 may reference the god Faunas, who in Ovid's metamorphosis, attempts 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:00.920 to rape Hercules while Hercules is dressed in his lover 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:04.879 Amphilles clothing. We're reminded in all of this that the 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:09.280 werewolf is a monster. It is a thing, a form 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:15.359 that illustrates various ideas, observations, and comparisons, and any of 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:20.960 these ideas, observations, or comparisons may essentially summon an image 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:25.439 comparable to the werewolf, completely on their own, detached in 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:29.840 whole or in part from any particular werewolf tradition. That's 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.760 it for now, But next week we will continue our journey, 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:35.960 and we will turn our attention to the female werewolf. 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:47.160 As we continue our look at the werewolf in myth, legend, 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:51.040 and media, we now turn to the female werewolf, a 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:54.120 gendered take on the monster that might, at first glance 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:57.320 seem to be mere titillation, but the roots of the 0:25:57.359 --> 0:26:01.240 concept weave their way through a variety of contemplations about 0:26:01.320 --> 0:26:06.080 femininity and the wild in all their forms. I want 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:09.399 to return to twenty seventeen's She Wolf, A Cultural History 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:13.400 of Female Werewolves, which features multiple chapters by different authors 0:26:13.520 --> 0:26:17.640 that examine female werewolves in myth, legend, and media, everything 0:26:17.640 --> 0:26:22.439 from centuries old legends to modern cartoons. As previously mentioned, 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:26.760 the book's editor, Hannah Priest argues that European werewolf narratives 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:31.200 revolve around the threat posed by wolves to domesticated animals, 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:35.560 ultimately a threat to male owned agriculture and property. When 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:38.359 the werewolf is male, the threat comes from outside the 0:26:38.400 --> 0:26:42.200 male land donor's domain, the outlaw wolf wanderer, who might 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:45.600 seek to tear through the defenses and kill livestock or 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:49.840 family members. Meanwhile, female werewolves tend to emerge from within 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:54.560 the male land donor's domain, often endangering children and serving 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:59.439 as an overall threat to domesticity. Of note, the first 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:03.199 Mexican wear wolf movie, Leloba or The She Wolf from 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:07.240 nineteen sixty five, features both a female and a male werewolf, 0:27:07.440 --> 0:27:10.640 and they correspond to this form quite perfectly. The female 0:27:10.640 --> 0:27:13.919 werewolf the daughter of a well to do Mexican landowner 0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:17.320 and scientists, and the male werewolf pursuit her from afar. 0:27:18.040 --> 0:27:21.479 In this gothic slice of Golden age Mexican cinema, the 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:25.400 werewolf seems to represent the wild and uncontrollable elements of 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:29.040 someone within the family unit and someone from beyond it. 0:27:29.760 --> 0:27:32.879 For more on Laloba, see our recent episode of Weird 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:36.760 House Cinema on the film, It's interesting that both the 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:40.119 first Mexican Werewolf movie and the first werewolf motion picture 0:27:40.200 --> 0:27:43.919 period a now lost nineteen thirteen short titled The Werewolf, 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:48.879