People have told stories about humans who turn into wolves for well over two thousand years. Some were myths, some were accusations that ended in court, and one was a real beast that terrified a whole French province. Here is the short history of the werewolf.

Ancient wolves

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Jupiter visits King Lycaon of Arcadia in disguise. Lycaon wants to test whether his guest is really a god and serves him human flesh, and Jupiter punishes him by turning him into a wolf. That is why the change from human to wolf is still called lycanthropy. Centuries earlier, the Greek historian Herodotus had written of the Neuri, a people north of the Black Sea who were said to turn into wolves for a few days every year. He wrote the story down, and added that he did not believe it.

Wolf-skins, belts and ointments

Medieval and early modern Europe had many recipes for becoming a wolf. The simplest was to put on a belt or a whole skin of wolf fur. Others rubbed their bodies with a magic salve, or made a pact with the devil, and some were said to be cursed into wolf shape. The Swedish writer Olaus Magnus reported in 1555 that the werewolves of Livonia gathered in great numbers and were initiated by drinking a cup of specially prepared beer. Not every werewolf was a monster: in the 12th-century lai Bisclavret by Marie de France, the werewolf is a loyal baron betrayed by his wife.

The werewolf trials

In the 1500s and 1600s, werewolf accusations sometimes ran alongside the witch trials, especially in France and the German lands, although they were only a small fraction of them. In 1573 Gilles Garnier was convicted and executed as a werewolf at Dole, and in 1589 Peter Stumpp was executed at Bedburg near Cologne after confessing under torture to murders he said he had committed as a wolf. Confessions like his were extracted by force, and many of the accused were poor outsiders. More on the wider trials is in The European Witch Trials.

Thiess, the good werewolf

One of the strangest cases comes from Jürgensburg in Livonia, today's Latvia, in 1692. An old man in his eighties called Thiess told the court that he was indeed a werewolf, but one of God's hounds. Three times a year, on the nights of Pentecost, Midsummer and St Lucy, he said, the werewolves went down to hell to fight the devil and his witches, who had stolen the grain and the livestock, and brought the harvest back. The judges were not persuaded. He was sentenced to be flogged and banished. His story lives on in The Pack Guardian.

The Beast of Gévaudan

Between 1764 and 1767 something attacked people in the Gévaudan region of south-central France. A 1987 study counted 210 attacks, resulting in 113 deaths and 49 injuries, and many of the dead were partly eaten. King Louis XV sent hunters, and in September 1765 François Antoine killed a huge grey wolf, known as the wolf of Chazes. The attacks went on. They ended only after a local hunter, Jean Chastel, shot an animal on the slopes of Mont Mouchet on 19 June 1767.

What was the Beast? Most historians believe it was one or more wolves, magnified by fear, and theories about lions, hyenas or wolf-dog hybrids have never been proven. The famous detail that Chastel loaded his gun with silver bullets is a literary invention, as you can read in Werewolf Weaknesses. The patient hunter of the Mortvane pack, The Shadow Stalker, is named after these hills.

The vlkolak of Central Europe

In Slovak the werewolf is a vlkolak, in Czech a vlkodlak. The old Slavic word means wolf-haired. Further south, in Serbia, the werewolf and the vampire came to share one name, vukodlak, a reminder that the two creatures of the night were close cousins in Slavic folklore. You can meet more of their relatives in Creatures of Slavic Folklore.

Patient hunter, protector or wise elder? Meet The Shadow Stalker, The Pack Guardian and The Ancient Grey, then take the werewolf quiz.