The Monstrefact: The Werewolf, Part 2 - Name of the Wolf

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert continues his the werewolf of myth, legend and media with a breakdown of lycan terminology...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind
focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. As

(00:25):
we discussed last time, the origins of werewolf traditions may
trace back to our prehistoric ancestors and the gradual domestication
of the wild wolf, an act that may have made
us better hunters and better watchers of the dark. At
different points in human history, we saw shades of the
wolf in our own animal nature, just as we also

(00:46):
saw shades of human intelligence, cunning, and society in the
ways of the wild wolf. This is not, however, to
say that the werewolf specifically is a universal concept. Shapeshifters
and animal human hybrids exist in virtually all human cultures,
but the werewolf naturally requires some familiarity with the species

(01:07):
Canis lupus, particularly the Eurasian wolf. Now, I want to
stress that yes, the wolf's range includes North America, and
they certainly do factor into the rich traditions of various
indigenous North American tribes. But these traditions, including the off
sited skin walkers, are rather distinct from the werewolf concept
as we know it today. We may come back to

(01:29):
discussion on this topic later on. Let's start with the
term werewolf or the Germanic wewolf. This we can trace
back to the writings of English Benedictine monk Bishop Wolfstan,
and this would have been very early in the second
millennium CE. While most famous for being the last pre

(01:49):
conquest English bishop, his service began a mere four years
prior to the Norman conquest of ten sixty six. Wolfstan
did in fact warn the English of the threat posed
by the quote with frakoverwulf, this being a threat to
the Church's flock. As Daniel Ogden explains in The Werewolf
in the Ancient World, the usage here is broad and

(02:11):
don't get excited, but it certainly doesn't refer to actual
werewolfs now. As Ogden explains, the traditional interpretation of the
word werewolf saw it as a combination of the Latin
vere or man with wolf a man wolf, But he
stresses in his book that the commonly accepted theory today
is that where derives from the Anglo saxon war meaning

(02:34):
stranger or outsider, the were wolf is an outsider wolf,
and this might, too, he argues, connect to Norse ideas
of wolf and outlaw. In fact, he cites a thirteenth
century Danish tradition that saw convicted thieves hanged beside the
corpse of a wolf to fully convey the dead man's

(02:54):
criminal nature to common citizens passing by. Of course, these
ideas is line up with the way where wolves have
often been presented dangerous outsiders, threats to law and ruling landowners,
and if we think seriously about the animal itself, a
lone wolf that is not part of a social pack.

(03:15):
Male lone wolves in reality, are generally only temporarily alone,
moving from one social group to another or back into
the same group they just left. But in some cases
this may also constitute an individual infected with rabies a
most dangerous creature. Indeed, the termlyanthropy, however, is much older,
first employed by the second century CE physician Marcellus of Side,

(03:39):
who employed the term like anthropia to describe medical conditions
that we would now Ogden describes define as different forms
of mental illness. Marcellus's description continued to echo through ancient
medical writings and as Nadine Metzger summarizes in twenty fourteen's
Battling Demons with Medical Authority public in the journal History

(04:01):
of Psychiatry, These lichenthroats were described as otherwise harmless, melancholic
individuals who suffer from extreme dryness, hang out in cemeteries,
and mimic the behaviors of wolves and dogs. Modern interpretations
have considered a number of actual ailments that might have
underlined this broad diagnosis, rabies, porphyria, neurological dysfunction, and epilepsy.

(04:26):
Some additionally make a case for some manner of true
clinical lycanthropy. For ancient physicians, however, it was nothing that
a little fasting or the consumption of a wolf's.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Heart wouldn't cure. The term lycanthropy would remain a purely
medical term, while other Latin words more specifically described shape
shifting beings. That is, until ninth century CE, historian Theophanes
the Confessor described agents of the Byzantine emperor as licanthropes,
a manner of wordplay here to invoke the Greek myth

(04:59):
of life can wordplay that would be repeated by George
Hammertolos aka George the Monk later that same century, and
this ogden contends sets the word werewolf on the trajectory
that we enjoy today. It's interesting that we've long seen
this duality of magic and medicine, of the rational and

(05:20):
the superstitious in our werewolf media, As Matt Schimkowitz explores
in a twenty twenty five av Club article titled film
Trivia FactCheck, original The Wolfman's Script kept the Werewolf at bay,
the nineteen forty one Universal horror classic film, was originally
intended to leave it ambiguous as to whether the film's

(05:41):
Lawrence Talbot suffered from a monstrous curse or a distortion.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Of the mind.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
The nineteen forty six film She Wolf of London, as
well as the nineteen seventy six Italian grindhouse favorite Werewolf Woman,
both employ the idea of werewolf delusion rather than literal transform. Finally,
I want to come back to Bishop Wolfstan here. His
name has nothing to do with werewolves, being rather a
family name that meant Wolfstone in the sense of strength

(06:10):
and resilience. But as Brad Steiger points out in nineteen
ninety nine's The Werewolf Book, a much later German tradition
recorded I believe in the nineteenth century told of a
wolf stone erected over the grave of a slain werewolf,
keeping the monster at rest but also becoming a focal
point for the paranormal. Join us next week as we

(06:33):
continue this journey through the world of the werewolf in general.
You can tune in for additional episodes of The Monster, Fact,
The Artifact, or Anomalius Dupendium each week. As always, you
can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind and is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.