Okay, let me get this straight.....
Storm
>Gevaudan,
>In many myths there is a seed of truth. Besides, I've recently been in a
>very interesting discussion regarding this very topic (yet another coincidence
>in my life) and there's a theory that 'thropy used to be a physical as well
>as spiritual thing. This would certainly explain why so many cultures have
>Were-mythology (eg WereWolves in Native American mythology, WereJaguars (I
>think) in South America, the Hengyokai (sp?) of oriental mythology....).
>The theory is deep and esoteric; if you (or anyone else) is interested in
>hearing it, email me.
>-Rimblesah
>Why be normal?
It is still a physical condition. I experience true physical change. It is, in
many ways, not all it's cracked up to be...
Storm
////// ////// ////// ///// //////// Wolf Snider
// // // // // // // // // EMail:wol...@primenet.com
////// // // // ///// // // // HTTP://www.primenet.com/~wolfman
// // // // // // // // //
////// // ////// // // // // // AHWW Pack Member
Jan Hilborn
: the legend of werewolves goes like this:
: Silver hurts.
: We change under a full moon.
: We don't like wolfsbane.
: We attack and kill everything in sight,
** list snipped **
: So my question is, looking at all of the
: legendary stuff, where are we getting our defination of wereness? I
: never even thought about myself being a werewolf until I reached AHWW,
: and then my Shamanistic attachment to Great Wolf made a little more
: sense. But where did we get this reputation? Would any of us be treated
: according to the legends if we were to reveal ourselves?
The legends are legends. We are reality.
Like you I never thought of myself as a "were" per se before coming to the
fire at ahww. I had my totemic spirit guide but that I also had a deeper,
older feeling that there was more going on than just my totem. I had
feelings and i had metaphors I used to explain myself to myself. And I
thought I was the only "human" to feel the way I felt.
At ahww I have found a group who share similar thoughts and feelings. We
are not "weres" in the legendary sense but have stolen the term (cultural
mis-appropriation anyone?) to use as an over-arching description of what
we share. We are using "were" as a shorthand to describe what may be a
different (yet similar) experience for each of us.
As for revealing ourselves. With all the flamers burning through here
recently can you even wonder how we would be treated. If you are going
public use the term Spiritual Therianthrope. I've used the term "were" when
I've "come out" to friends but those are folks I know aren't stoopid and
that will consider my words.
Vladwolf
--
***********************
Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given.
D TRENT DRAKE
>I don't know about any other weres, but the only thing I have on the palm
>of my left hand is a nasty scar that is the remains of a blister that I got
>from playing J. Talbin on DarkStalkers just a little too furiously. *grin*
>Would that be a telltale sign of wereness? :)
Could be... I had a similar scar from playing Blanka in Street Fighter II...
BTW: Here are a couple of real wierd old myths that Gevuadan missed:
1: According to old myths, the change was undertaken by swimming under a
full moon.
2: Slashing a changed were across the forehead three times, or twice in the
sign of the cross, was said to remove the curse by invoking God.
3: (My Fave) If a naked werewolf urinated a circle around his human
clothing, they would turn to stone until he changed back.
Got them from a book called "Full Moons" that I read back in high school.
Hiker (Gives a whole new meaning to stoneware, eh?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"He dreamed he was a wolf * When you're walking alone
who dreamed he was a man * In the darkness, you can see
who dreamed he was a wolf * Things those in the light
who dreamed." * Cannot.
-The Wolf's Hour * -The Hiker
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D. J. Sylvis
In a previous article, ddr...@UPEI.CA (D TRENT DRAKE) says:
>
>Could be... I had a similar scar from playing Blanka in Street Fighter II...
>
>BTW: Here are a couple of real wierd old myths that Gevuadan missed:
>1: According to old myths, the change was undertaken by swimming under a
>full moon.
>2: Slashing a changed were across the forehead three times, or twice in the
>sign of the cross, was said to remove the curse by invoking God.
>3: (My Fave) If a naked werewolf urinated a circle around his human
>clothing, they would turn to stone until he changed back.
>
>Got them from a book called "Full Moons" that I read back in high school.
>
>Hiker (Gives a whole new meaning to stoneware, eh?)
Not to mention stone-washed jeans!
WolfBard
--
D. J. Sylvis fm...@cleveland.freenet.edu WolfBard
"Now . . . if he turned himself into a werewolf, is he gonna want to stick
his head out the car window?" -Joel, MST3K, "The Mad Monster"
Gregory L Hansen
steve kerry <st...@metaphor.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3il34v$i...@utdallas.edu> byer...@utdallas.edu writes:
>
>> the legend of werewolves goes like this:
>> Silver hurts.
>> We change under a full moon.
>> We don't like wolfsbane.
>> We attack and kill everything in sight,
>> We sometimes have a pentagram on the palm of our left hands.(checks left
>> hand, whew
>> nothing.)
>> If someone accuses us of being a werewolf to our face, we change and
>> cannot change back until the person who know's our secret is dead.
>> We transmit werewolfism to another person through biting, or we are born
>> with it.
>
>You've done your homework, Gevaudan. Unfortunately, you've picked up a
>bit of Hollywood in the process!
>
>If you ignore the I-Was-A-Teenage-Werewolf moviegoers and concentrate on
>history, mythology and folklore, you won't find any problems with silver.
>(Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't find any pre-1939 - that is,
>pre-Lon Chaney - reference to silver hurting weres.)
Normal weapons have been quite deadly to werewolves in legend. There's
the classic of the Roman story who stabbed an attacking wolf with his
spear. The wolf ran away, and the soldier later found his friend in bed
with the same wound the wolf had. And this is also a classic way of
identifying werewolves. Like the man who cut off a wolf's paw (the wolf
was attacking him), put it in a bag, brought it home, and found his wife
with her hand cut off and in his bag. I can't recall any silver stories.
>Nor will you find any
>compulsion to attack and kill everything - there are documented cases of
>benificent werewolves, even in Christian records (tho you have to look hard
>to find those ones).
In legend, werewolves were generally pretty savage. This might have
something to do with the fact (legend) that evil, depraved men took pains
to become werewolves. Then they would run around and feast on the flesh
of children, as the accusations so often went. There've also been
benificent werewolves, but they usually start out as good people who are
cursed.
There are also medical records of people who thought they were
wolves. Even looking in a mirror at their bare human faces, they would
see fur and fangs. I think the particular animal depended on which
animal was feared in their region; wolves in old Europe, leopards in
parts of Africa (they even had/have a leopard cult), and so on. Some of
these people have created trouble, carried away children, that sort of
thing. Others seem to have thought they did when they didn't, and their
confessions were a bad thing for them when they stood trial in medeival
Europe. And that didn't improve the reputation of werewolves.
(Hey, I may be normal, and I may be new, but I've done my homework...)
Stop.
Kitsune
gha...@isc.sjsu.edu "Gregory L Hansen" writes:
> In legend, werewolves were generally pretty savage. This might have
> something to do with the fact (legend) that evil, depraved men took pains
> to become werewolves. Then they would run around and feast on the flesh
> of children, as the accusations so often went. There've also been
> benificent werewolves, but they usually start out as good people who are
> cursed.
Re-reading my original post, I may have overstated my case. Certainly
there are many cases of lycanthropes killing and devouring people. No
doubt some of these tales were propaganda, but I'm sure some of them
were accurate. I meant to say that weres were not always vicious killers:
I didn't mean they were _never_ vicious killers. An oversight on my part.
> There are also medical records of people who thought they were
> wolves. Even looking in a mirror at their bare human faces, they would
> see fur and fangs. I think the particular animal depended on which
> animal was feared in their region; wolves in old Europe, leopards in
> parts of Africa (they even had/have a leopard cult), and so on. Some of
> these people have created trouble, carried away children, that sort of
> thing. Others seem to have thought they did when they didn't, and their
> confessions were a bad thing for them when they stood trial in medeival
> Europe. And that didn't improve the reputation of werewolves.
The were-animal involved is usually the largest indigenous predator: hence
werejaguars in South America, werebears in Asia, weretigers in China etc.
> (Hey, I may be normal, and I may be new, but I've done my homework...)
Sorry if anybody found my 'homework' comment offensive, it certainly wasn't
meant that way. But there's so much crap in circulation (most of it via
Hollywood) that a bit of extra research is needed if we're not going to
become another erzatz new-age religion.
--
Kitsune "Don't look with your eyes, all they show is limitations.
See with what you already know to be true."
Kitsune
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 95 19:36:19 GMT
Organization: Myorganisation
Reply-To: Kit...@metaphor.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29
Lines: 76
In article <3j5fek$8...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
fm...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu "D. J. Sylvis" writes:
> >BTW: Here are a couple of real wierd old myths that Gevuadan
missed:
> >1: According to old myths, the change was undertaken by
swimming under a
> >full moon.
> >2: Slashing a changed were across the forehead three times, or
twice in the
> >sign of the cross, was said to remove the curse by invoking
God.
> >3: (My Fave) If a naked werewolf urinated a circle around his
human
> >clothing, they would turn to stone until he changed back.
> >
> >Got them from a book called "Full Moons" that I read back in
high school.
You'll also find two of those three in (here I go again) The
Beast Within by
Adam Douglas (just downloaded the AHWW FAQ and found it's listed
there!).
> >1: According to old myths, the change was undertaken by
swimming under a
> >full moon.
Fluid or liquid of some sort seems to be an intrinsic part of the
transformation, although it appears in many different forms
around the
world: a man would swim across a lake and emerge as a were on the
far shore,
or anoint himself with some special ointment, and so on. Pissing
in a
circle is not quite as romantic, but the theme is still there:
being
surrounded by liquid, either literally or metaphorically.
> >2: Slashing a changed were across the forehead three times, or
twice in the
> >sign of the cross, was said to remove the curse by invoking
God.
That's a new one to me (but I'm no expert). I think you'd be
damn lucky
to live long enough to get the third slash in!
> >3: (My Fave) If a naked werewolf urinated a circle around his
human
> >clothing, they would turn to stone until he changed back.
Aha, I know this one all right!
The author here is Petronius, who lived in the first century AD.
The story
is _Trimalchio's Banquet_, although Fellini filmed it as
_Satyricon_. As an
after dinner story, a fellow named Niceros relates that he was
walking to the
house of his mistress, Melissa. 'I persuaded a guest in our
house to come
with me as far as the fifth milestone: he was a soldier, as brave
as Hell,'
he tells them. So Niceros and the solider trot off into the
night, the full
moon shining clearly down on them. In those days in southern
Italy,
tombstones lined the sides of the roads, and Niceros and his
solider friend
stop to rest among these for a while. Niceros spends the time
idly counting
graves and thinking happily about his mistress, while the solider
goes off to
read the inscriptions. But when Niceros looks up, he sees the
soldier
stripping off his clothes and putting them down by the roadside.
'My heart
was in my mouth,' Niceros tells the banqueters, 'but I stood
there like a
dead man,' Then comes the astonishing transformation: the
soldier urinates
in a circle around his clothes and suddenly turns into a wolf.
'Please do
not think I am joking; I would not lie about this for all the
money in the
world,' Niceros assures his audience. The wolf begins to howl,
and runs away
into the woods, leaving a bewildered Niceros to examine the
clothes he has
left behind - which have all turned to stone. Terrified, Niceros
continues
on his way, fearfully slashing out at shadows with his sword
until he reaches
Melissa's house and goes in trembling and weak. But Melissa has
news for him:
'If you had come earlier you might at least have helped us,' she
tells him.
'A wolf got into the house and worried all out sheep, and let
their blood like
a butcher. But he did not make fools of us, even though he
escaped, for our
slave stabbed him in the neck with a spear.' Unable to sleep
that night,
Niceros rushes back to his master's house at dawn, pausing only
to see that
the clothes have been removed from the roadside, in their place
nothing but
a pool of blood. At home, he finds the soldier lying in bed
'like an ox',
with a doctor looking after his neck. 'I realised then that he
was a
werewolf [the Latin word is _versipellem_, literally
'turn-skin'],' Niceros
says, 'and I could not sit down to a meal with him afterwards,
not if you had
killed me first. Other people may think what they like about
this; but may
all your guardian spirits punish me if I am lying.'
- from 'The Beast Within', by Adam Douglas
D TRENT DRAKE
>> benificent werewolves, but they usually start out as good people who are
>> cursed.
I'd love to hear a couple of those legends... all I've ever been able to
find outside of modern fiction are the vicious killers.
>I didn't mean they were _never_ vicious killers. An oversight on my part.
Zigactly, as my sister would say. I know that in the past we have been
killers. And I am just arrogant enough to believe that we have only lately
learned to realize that the killing instinct must be tempered. My motto on
violence is: Only when in great hunger, or for self-defense. And anger is
not an excuse, it is a weakness.
Hooboy... now I sound like a preacher. Forgive me.
>The were-animal involved is usually the largest indigenous predator: hence
>werejaguars in South America, werebears in Asia, weretigers in China etc.
So where are the weresharks from? Honestly, I want to know! And one last
thing... how do you suppose a creature as small as a fox got such a
reptutation for atrocity in Japan? No offense, Kitsune, but American foxes
are only a threat to chickens, not man.
>> (Hey, I may be normal, and I may be new, but I've done my homework...)
Would that the rest of the normals did as much...
>Sorry if anybody found my 'homework' comment offensive, it certainly wasn't
>meant that way. But there's so much crap in circulation (most of it via
>Hollywood) that a bit of extra research is needed if we're not going to
>become another erzatz new-age religion.
Hear, hear. To say nothing of the well-meaning therapists who try to 'de-
program' us weres...-
>
>Kitsune "Don't look with your eyes, all they show is limitations.
> See with what you already know to be true."
Hiker (Walker in the Night)
Jan Hilborn
: and HIker replied:
: >> There've also been
: >> cursed.
: I'd love to hear a couple of those legends... all I've ever been able to
: find outside of modern fiction are the vicious killers.
"In 1692, during an often quoted Latvian trial in Jurgensburg, a peasant
definitely bearing schwejk-like traits, 'who was never known to lack
common sense', related how he and other peasants 'went into the bush and
threw off their ordinary clothes. Instantly they turned into wolves.'
...
"Werewolves such as these had the task of rescueing the "grain
blossoms', the barley, oats, and rye' of the old year, in other words,
fertility, which had been robbed by the 'sorcerers', and taken to 'hell'.
...
"when the grain was properly blooming, because it is at such times and
at the time the seeds are forming that the sorcerers spirit away yhe
blessing and take it to hell, and it is then that the werewolves take it
upon themselves to bring it back out again.
"Women had a role in these activities too. 'The women are also among the
werewolves.'"
this rather edited quote is from _Dreamtime (Concerning the Boundary
between Wilderness and Civilization)_ by Hans Peter Duerr. 1978.
Translated by Felicitas Goodman. 1985.
The "Barley Wolves" as they are called are probably the best example in
Western Culture of benevolent or even beneficent werewolves. In
non-western cultures there are more because the wilderness was respected
rather than feared.
Jan Hilborn
: So where are the weresharks from? Honestly, I want to know! And one last
: thing... how do you suppose a creature as small as a fox got such a
: reptutation for atrocity in Japan? No offense, Kitsune, but American foxes
: are only a threat to chickens, not man.
Weresharks are from Polynesia as I remember. Not sure what book I picked
that tidbit up from.
I don't know much about the historical fauna of Japan... Kitsune, were
there ever wolves in Japan? Weres as bad guys usually got assigned to the
largest, fiercest preditor in the area. Maybe the little much maligned
fox had no competition in Japan.
And a rabid fox is very much a threat to man. Fast and fearless.
Historically there may be very good cause for the Kitsune's evil reputation.
Kitsune
> And anger is not an excuse, it is a weakness.
Yep. And a mighty destructive one, for both sides.
> And one last thing... how do you suppose a creature as small as a fox got
> such a reptutation for atrocity in Japan? No offense, Kitsune, but American
> foxes are only a threat to chickens, not man.
This research business is getting to be a full-time occupation :-)
The question has occurred to me, too. Off the top of my head (and bearing
in mind it was a late night last night), the fox was (is?) the largest
predator in Japan. Compared to a grizzly or a tiger, a cute little
vulpine isn't much of a threat. However, I doubt that large predators
like these could survive in Japan - and when I say Japan, I'm talking of
_feudal_ Japan rather than the megacorporate islands of today. Land was
a scarce resource, and any animals needing a large food intake would have
been hunted down and wiped out. Have you ever tried to catch a fox?
Putting on a red and white outfit and crying 'Tally ho!' is an highly
inefficient way of catching _one_ fox, but the Japanese terrain is not
exactly hospitable for that kind of thing.
Consider also that foxes see a farm as a convenient food store. For a
farmer (particularly a peasant farmer) to make a chicken coop fox-proof
would be a lengthy and arduous task. To make the entire farm fox-proof
would be impossible. The poor guy works from sunrise to sunset, breaking
his back for very little reward, and the foxes come along and raid his
stock in the middle of the night. Foxes have always given themselves a
reputation for sneaky hit-and-run attacks. These cause a of of anguish to
the farmers (and to the general population when food runs short), but apart
from gnashing their teeth they can't do much about it. Small wonder, then,
that the fox was credited with supernatural powers and regarded as some sort
of demon.
Which is probably why the tales of various kitsune describe them as tricksters
rather than bloodthirsty monsters who destroy entire villages.
--
Kitsune
If I am like someone else, who will be like me?
Robin Weare
: >> There've also been
: >> benificent werewolves, but they usually start out as good people who are
: >> cursed.
: I'd love to hear a couple of those legends... all I've ever been able to
: find outside of modern fiction are the vicious killers.
I know several from my reading. Joseph Campbell tells of a Lithuanian
man, arrested for lycanthropy, who claimed werewolves were the soldiers of
God against the Devil. Not unlike Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
Another once approached a priest in the woods. The priest was terrified,
but the wolf spoke, reassuring him. The werewolf said he and his wife
were under a seven-year curse to be were. His wife was very sick now, and
he feared she would die without receiving extreme unction. Would the
priest come and bless her?
The priest followed the werewolf into a thicket. There he
found a sick she-wolf. He was still dubious about giving unction to an
animal, but at the husband-werewolf's invitation he pulled at her fur.
Some of it slipped aside, revealing an old woman inside the wolf. He
blessed her as they asked.
A third one, quite famous in France, is called Bisclaravet (I think). It's
really too long to post, but you can find it and the story about the
priest in The Werewolf Delusion (can't remember the author.)
Lyka
Timothy D Fay
>
> I don't know much about the historical fauna of Japan... Kitsune, were
>there ever wolves in Japan? Weres as bad guys usually got assigned to the
>largest, fiercest preditor in the area. Maybe the little much maligned
>fox had no competition in Japan.
There were wolves in Japan in ancient times--their word for wolf is
"ookami" (pronounded oh-kah-mee). I'm not sure if any populations
survive. If they do, they're probably in Hokkaido (Japan's northern
large island).
Werefoxes in Japan are part of a different tradition than the European-style
"were" creatures. Japanese werefoxes are foxes that become human rather than
the other way around. Foxes, in general, were viewed as magical creatures in
Japanese mythology. Sometimes mischievious and malicious, but sometimes
helpful (there's a story about a fox who brings water to a drought-stricken
village, where there is a shrine to the benevolent fox-deity).
--
Reply to: fayx...@maroon.tc.umn.edu
-- http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m279/fayxx001 --
"My mental facilities are TWICE what yours are -- you pea brain!"
-Percival McLeach
Robin Weare
: Jan Hilborn (jhil...@moose.uvm.edu) wrote:
: >
: > I don't know much about the historical fauna of Japan... Kitsune, were
: >there ever wolves in Japan? Weres as bad guys usually got assigned to the
: >largest, fiercest preditor in the area. Maybe the little much maligned
: >fox had no competition in Japan.
: There were wolves in Japan in ancient times--their word for wolf is
: "ookami" (pronounded oh-kah-mee). I'm not sure if any populations
: survive. If they do, they're probably in Hokkaido (Japan's northern
: large island).
There were wolves in Japan until around the year 1905 or 1920, depending on
whose date you believe. They're all extinct now (sigh).
The native wolf of Japan, Canis lupus hodophylax (I think), was very small,
only a foot high according to one account. The Aino called it "the Howling
God," while the regular Japanese called it the Shamanu. For all its small
size, it was greatly feared and hated for some reason, and the Japanese wiped
it out. It lived on Hokkaido.
A species of Asian wolf lived on some offshore islands as well as the
continent, but it too was wiped out in Japan, though it's said to still exist
on the mainland.
Oddly, I've never heard of Japanese werewolf legends.
Lyka