NaosArchives-Werewolf
The werewolf legend is a common one throughout Europe, to the point of being trans-cultural. Its true origins are unknown, though stories of men with the ability to become wolves has been with recorded history since at least the Classical period (where the stories being told were even then from older periods still).
In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon was said to suffer a similar fate. Herodotus in his Histories tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves.
The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthius' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across, resulting in his transformation into a wolf, a form in which he wandered for nine years. On the condition that he attacked no human being over the nine year period, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form.
In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods."
Some of the terms by which werewolves have been known, throughout the world:
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Known Werewolves
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Werner Kreiger & the Krieger Family
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