The history of werewolves

Torslunda helmet plate showing Odin and a wolf-man or ulfhéðinn

How do werewolves come to be in a historical novel about 8th-century Vikings? Easily, says Theodore Brun, author of A Savage Moon. He explains why in this history of wolf-men, which goes back in time as far as around 2100BC.

The mind of a historical fiction author is full of random snags on the memory from which sometimes whole worlds are birthed.

One such snag came when I was struggling to conceive the antagonists of A Savage Moon — the fourth novel in my Viking adventure series The Wanderer Chronicles. I recalled a vignette about werewolves in the Hamlyn Book of Horror, a catalogue of deliciously chilling stories in which I spent unhealthy amounts of time during my childhood.

Ulfhéðinn, detail from a replica of a sword sheath, 7th century

The claim — if memory serves — was that the legends of killer werewolves arose out of the genuine terror of Viking raiders during the early Middle Ages.

There was a suitably dramatic picture, showing said Vikings garbed in wolfskins and wielding large axes, leaping out of their longship and running straight at you, the enthralled child.

I’ve since realised the book must have been referring to warriors known in Norse culture as ulfheðnar — ‘wolf-coats’. And since my books are full of both axe-wielding warriors and a touch of the supernatural, I thought it’d be fun to play around with the werewolf myth in this novel.

Digging deeper, however, I discovered the concept of werewolves is far older and more widespread than this childhood memory suggested.

A strong bet for the earliest recorded reference to a werewolf is the Epic of Gilgamesh. In it, Gilgamesh refuses to become lover of the goddess Ishtar because of her cruel treatment of a previous suitor; a shepherd whom she turned into a wolf.

Later one of Ovid’s Metamorphoses has the god Zeus turning King Lycaon into a wolf as punishment for trying to trick him into eating human entrails. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

Lycaon’s name and the word ‘lycanthropy’ — the mythical transformation of a person into a wolf — share the same etymological root: lykos means ‘wolf’ in Greek.

But while stories of humans turning into terrifying carnivores as the result of a supernatural curse abound throughout all epochs and cultures, they were not always treated as the far-fetched fables we do today. On the contrary, even quite respectable figures, like Saint Augustine of Hippo, were inclined to take at least the belief in lycanthropy seriously.

In his City of God, he notes: “it is generally believed that, by certain witches’ spells, men may be turned into wolves.” Mostly, this and other similar early Christian references were made in order to attribute shape-shifting of any kind to witchcraft. Both the belief and (to be on the safe side) the practice of which were condemned as abominations.

Despite their best efforts, belief in lycanthropy survived, even proliferated, in European folklore throughout the Middle Ages.

The word ‘werewolf’ derives from Old English werwulf (man-wolf), a phenomenon considered prosaic enough to be warned against in the law codes of King Cnut.

While Gervase of Tilbury, writing in the 13th century, says that “in England we have often seen men change into wolves.” Thankfully, this no longer seems to be the case.

The source material for my own stories mostly comes from Norse traditions. The Völsunga Saga, written down in the 13th century but undoubtedly much older, is one such tale. It features a father and son who don wolfskins and take on all the physical attributes of wolves, very resonant of other werewolf legends. (A cracking read, by the way.) The word used there is ulfheðnar.

One understanding of this term is that ulfheðnar were ‘wolf-warriors’ — something akin to their ‘berserker’ cousins, only dressed in wolf hides rather than those of bears. Both were thought to channel these animal spirits to enhance their effectiveness in battle.

However Viking scholar Neil Price warns against forming too fixed an idea of what either really were. It may be the donning of skins, at least when we see it in archaeological artefacts like the famous Torslunda plates, may have served a merely ritualistic function.

Then again, Price’s whole argument for understanding the Viking worldview is that, in the Norse mind, ritual, warfare and religion all blend into one.

Boundaries we take for granted are there to be crossed, or else do not exist at all. Hence, the fluidity between human and animal forms so prevalent in Norse storytelling should come as no surprise.

Unfettered by hard and fast definitions, I gave myself a free hand for my own version of ulfheðnar. In A Savage Moon, we have a band of miscreant thieves, not especially expert at fighting, who dress in wolf-skins and masks, and terrorise the local populace at the behest of a demagogic shaman, in order to service his blood-crazed rituals at the turning of each new moon.

Unluckily for them, many find themselves on the wrong end of my protagonist’s sword.

But to return to the history, the 15th and 16th centuries saw a spate of cases of alleged werewolves — especially in those parts of Europe where much of the action of A Savage Moon is set (France and Germany).

In 1573, Gilles Garnier was burned at the stake as an alleged werewolf. In 1589, a man called Stubbe Peter was executed near Cologne for cannibalism and multiple murders. He claimed he had a belt which allowed him to become a werewolf (a common trope in the folklore).

In 1603, a certain Jean Grenier claimed responsibility for a series of murders and disappearances, saying he had a skin that turned him into a wolf. He was declared insane and confined to a monastery. Probably the safest place for him.

As populations of wolves diminished across Europe in recent centuries, so too have the stories of werewolves and the belief that they should be taken seriously. Although elsewhere, as recently as the 20th century, ethnographers in Ghana reported that belief in ‘were-hyenas’ was still widespread.

So what’s going on here? Are there plausible explanations underlying the enduring myth of the werewolf and how it arose?

Some experts suggest the stories provide a metaphor for understanding the changes that occur in puberty, particularly in men.

Pedro González (Petrus Gonsalvus) and His Wife, Catherine, c1575-1580

Or that they are metaphors for (dare I say it) ‘toxic masculinity’: sexual predation, obnoxious aggression, too much body hair, poor table manners, etc. (Though one notes women can be werewolves, too.)

Others offer medical explanations: a genetic condition called hypertrichosis, causing thick hair to grow over a person’s face and body; or even the spread of rabies, a disease which might explain some of the characteristic behaviours of werewolves.

Throw into the mix a quite reasonable fear of witchcraft, outlaws, and large mammalian predators, and you have all the ingredients for a universe of weird and scary stories.

While we no longer take the belief in actual werewolves seriously in our culture, enthusiasm for a good werewolf story hasn’t dimmed any. Think of popular movies through the last few decades — The Wolf Man, American Werewolf in London, Wolverine in the X-Men series; or bestselling novels like The Twilight Saga; the Harry Potter series (thinking Remus Lupin there)…

… And now — who knows? — with a bit of luck, A Savage Moon.