Werewolf fiction denotes the portrayal of werewolves and other shapeshifting therianthropes,
in the media of literature, drama, film, games and music. Werewolf literature
includes folklore, legend, saga, fairy tales, Gothic and horror fiction, fantasy fiction and poetry.
Such stories may be supernatural, symbolic or allegorical.
A classic cinematic example of the theme is The Wolf Man (1941) which in later films joins with
the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula as one of the three famous icons of modern day
horror. However, werewolf fiction is an exceptionally diverse genre, with ancient folkloric roots
and manifold modern re-interpretations.
Literary origins
[edit]
For more information on werewolves in ancient myth, legend and folklore, see Werewolf.
In Greek mythology, there is a story of an Arcadian King called Lycaon who tested Zeus by
serving him a dish of his slaughtered and dismembered son to see if Zeus was really all-
knowing. As punishment for his trickery, Zeus transformed Lycaon into a wolf [1] and killed his 50
sons by lightning bolts, but supposedly revived Lycaon's son Nyctimus, who the king had
slaughtered and who succeeded his father in the kingdom of Arcadia.[2]
In medieval romances, such as Bisclavret and Guillaume de Palerme, the werewolf is relatively
benign, appearing as the victim of evil magic and aiding knights errant.[3][4]
However, in most legends influenced by medieval theology, the werewolf was a Satanic beast
with a craving for human flesh. This appears in such later fiction as "The White Wolf of the Hartz
Mountains": an episode in the novel The Phantom Ship (1839) by Marryat, featuring a
demonic femme fatale who transforms from woman to wolf.
Sexual themes are common in werewolf fiction; the protagonist kills his girlfriend as she walks
with a former lover in Werewolf of London (1935),[5] suggesting sexual jealousy.[6][7] The writers
of The Wolf Man (1941) were careful in depicting killings as motivated out of hunger.[citation needed]
The wolf in the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" has been reinterpreted as a werewolf in many
works of fiction, such as The Company of Wolves (1979)[8] by Angela Carter (and its 1984 film
adaptation) and the film Ginger Snaps (2000), which address female sexuality.[9][10] 2011 also
saw the release of Red Riding Hood[11] with Amanda Seyfried in the main role, with the character
name of Valerie.
Folklore
[edit]
In folk and fairy tale traditions all over the world, humans who can shapeshift at will into both
human and lupine forms appear in several fairy tales. According to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther
Index, they can appear in this capacity in the following tale types:
• Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tale type ATU 409, "The Girl as Wolf" [et]: a tale type more
commonly found in the folklore of Estonia and Finland, a human hunter finds a woman
in the woods and hides her animal (wolf) skin. Years later, after the wolf-maiden has
given birth to children, one of them finds her wolf skin and returns it to her. She puts it
back and disappears, never to return.[12][13]
• Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tale type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband" and
ATU 425A, "The Animal Bridegroom": a maiden is betrothed to an animal bridegroom (a
wolf, in several variants), who comes at night to the bridal bed in human form. The
maiden breaks a taboo and her enchanted husband disappears. She is forced to search
for him.[14][15] Example: The White Wolf, Belgian fairy tale; Prince Wolf, Danish fairy tale.
• Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tale type ATU 425C, "Beauty and the Beast": a father has
three daughters, the youngest the most beautiful and the most loved by her parent. He
needs to go on a journey and asks his daughter what presents should he bring them, the
youngest suggest something simple, but very or nearly impossible to find. Near the end
of his journey, he finds the wished-for object in the garden of a (seemingly) abandoned
castle, when a booming voice interrupts him. The voice belongs to a fierce creature
(sometimes explicitly described as a wolf by the narrative) who demands "his most
precious gift" in return: the youngest daughter. She willingly offers herself to the beast
and discovers he is an enchanted prince. She helps him break the curse and they both
live happily ever after.
• Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tale type ATU 552, "The Girls who married Animals": a
bankrupt nobleman or a poor farmer is forced to wed his daughters to three animal
suitors, who are actually enchanted princes under a curse. In some variants, one of the
suitors is a wolf.[16][17][18][19][20][21]
19th century
[edit]
The Were-Wolf by Housman
Nineteenth-century Gothic horror stories drew on previous folklore and legend to present the
theme of the werewolf in a new fictional form. An early example is Hugues, the Wer-Wolf by
Sutherland Menzies, published in 1838. The year after in 1839, Frederick Marryat's book The
Phantom Ship was published, which included one of the first stories about a female werewolf,
and is often reprinted as a stand-alone short story called The White Wolf of the Hartz
Mountains.[22] In another, Wagner the Wehr-Wolf (1847) by G. W. M. Reynolds, we find the classic
subject of a man who, although a kind-hearted man himself, accepts a Deal with the Devil to
become a werewolf for 18 months accompanying Dr. Faustus and killing humans, in exchange
for youth and wealth. "The Man-Wolf" (1831) by Leitch Ritchie yields the werewolf in an 11th-
century setting, while Catherine Crowe penned what is believed to be the first werewolf short
story by a woman: "A Story of a Weir-Wolf" (1846).[23] Other werewolf stories of this period
include The Wolf Leader (1857) by Alexandre Dumas and Hugues-le-Loup (1869) by Erckmann-
Chatrian.
A later Gothic story, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), has
an implicit werewolf subtext, according to Colin Wilson.[24] This has been made explicit in some
recent adaptations of this story, such as the BBC TV series Jekyll (2007).
Stevenson's Olalla (1887) offers more explicit werewolf content, but, like Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde, this aspect remains subordinate to the story's larger themes.
Charles De Coster's 1867 novel The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak includes
an extensive episode where the Flemish town of Damme is terrorized by what seems a
rampaging werewolf, the numerous victims' bodies bearing what seems the mark of a wolf's
fangs - thought ultimately they turn out to have been killed by a completely mundane serial
killer, clever and ruthless, who used metal blades to simulate these wolf's tooth marks.
A rapacious female werewolf who appears in the guise of a seductive femme fatale before
transforming into lupine form to devour her hapless male victims is the protagonist of Clemence
Housman's acclaimed The Were-wolf published in 1896.[25]
20th and 21st centuries
[edit]
In literature
[edit]
The 20th century saw an explosion of werewolf short stories and novels published in both
England and America. The famed English supernatural story writer Algernon Blackwood wrote a
number of werewolf short stories. These often had an occult aspect to them. English
author Gerald Biss published the 1919 werewolf novel The Door of the Unreal. American pulp
magazines of the 1920 to 1950s, such as Weird Tales, include many werewolf tales, written by
such authors as H. Warner Munn, Seabury Quinn and Manly Wade Wellman.[26] Robert E.
Howard made his own contribution to the genre in "Wolfshead".
The most renowned werewolf novel of the 20th century was The Werewolf of Paris (1933) by
American author Guy Endore. This novel has been accorded classic status and is considered by
some to be the Dracula of werewolf literature.[27] It was adapted as The Curse of the Werewolf in
1961 for Hammer Film Productions. The novel The Wolf's Bride: A Tale from Estonia written by
the Finnish author Aino Kallas was published in 1928 and it tells the story of the forester's wife
living in Hiiumaa in the 17th century who became a werewolf under the influence of a
malevolent forest spirit.[28] A more recent example is Moon of the Wolf (1967) by Les Whitten,
which the 1972 movie of the same name, Moon of the Wolf, was based on.
In the Harry Potter stories (1997 to 2007), the characters Remus Lupin (Defence Against the
Dark Arts teacher during Harry's third year at Hogwarts, who becomes one of Harry's friends),
and Fenrir Greyback (a villain), are werewolves.[29]
In films
[edit]
In cinema during the silent era, werewolves were portrayed in canine form in such films as The
Werewolf (1913) and Wolf Blood (1925). The first feature film to portray
an anthropomorphic werewolf was Werewolf of London in 1935[5][30] (not to be confused with
the 1981 film of a similar title), establishing the canon that the werewolf always kills what he
loves the most. The main werewolf of this film was a dapper London scientist who retained
some of his style and most of his human features after his transformation.[31]
However, he lacked warmth, and it was left to the tragic character Laurence Stewart "Larry"
Talbot played by Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941's The Wolf Man to capture the public imagination. This
catapulted the werewolf into public consciousness.[31] The theme of lycanthropy as a disease or
curse reached its standard treatment in the film, which contained the now-famous rhyme:
Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf
When the wolfbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright.
This movie draws on elements of traditional folklore and fiction, such as the vulnerability of the
werewolf to a silver bullet (as seen for instance in the legend of Beast of Gévaudan),[32] though at
the climax of the film, the Wolf Man is actually dispatched with a silver-handled cane.
While the process of transmogrification is sometimes portrayed in such films and works of
literature to be painful, other works omit this aspect in favor of a loss of consciousness during
the change and even an inability to recall the event. Regardless, the resulting wolf is typically
cunning but merciless, and prone to killing and eating people without compunction, regardless
of the moral character of the person when human.
Lon Chaney Jr. himself became somewhat typecast as the Wolf Man and reprised his role in
several sequels for Universal Studios. In these films, the werewolf lore of the first film was
clarified. In Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) it is firmly established that the Wolf Man is
revived from the dead at a night of the full moon after his grave was disturbed. In House of
Frankenstein (1944), silver bullets are used for the first time to dispatch him. Further sequels
were House of Dracula (1945) and the parodic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
The success of Universal's The Wolf Man prompted rival Hollywood film companies Columbia
Pictures and Fox Studios to bring out their own, now somewhat obscure, werewolf films. The
first of these was The Undying Monster produced by Fox in 1942, adapted from a werewolf novel
of the same name by Jessie Douglas Kerruish, published in 1936.
In 1981, two prominent werewolf films, The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, both
drew on themes from the Universal series.[33] While the werewolves in The Howling resembled
bipedal wolves, the one in An American Werewolf in London had a more quadrupedal form with
longer claws, a short tail, and finger-like structures on its front paws. The later had a follow-up
called An American Werewolf in Paris.
In television
[edit]
In games
[edit]
As a well-known and iconic creature type, lycanthropes, and particularly werewolves, are
central to a variety of games, including board games, role-playing games, and video games.
These include a number of games where lycanthropes are either incidental villains, or the
primary villain of the game, as well as games that allow players to play as a lycanthrope. It has
been noted with respect to video games in particular that werewolves are "most often presented
in videogames as mindless, slavering enemies", though some games do provide a more
nuanced presentation.[34][35]
In more rare cases, they feature as NPCs, such as the character Witherfang from Dragon Age:
Origins (2009), who is not strictly evil and was created as an act of revenge, or even the game's
protagonist, as in the case of Bigby Wolf from The Wolf Among Us (2013), a noir adventure
game based on the eponymous comic book series that includes characters inspired by fairy
tales.[36] The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006) causes the series' recurring main
character, Link, to become a werewolf, a transformation induced by a magical "Twilight" that
has spread across the realm. In wolf form, he is ridden and guided by the imp Midna. While the
idea was praised as fun to control, it also proved divisive, seen as a "gimmick" in comparison to
controlling Link as a sword-wielding human.[37]
Werewolves have long been a race in the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons. In the game's 5th
edition, its most recent version, werewolves are weak to silver, and can shift between human,
wolf, and hybrid humanoid forms, being able to use weapons in both human and hybrid form. [38]
Dungeons & Dragons
[edit]
Lycanthrope
Drawing based on the depiction of a werewolf
in Dungeons & Dragons.
First the original Dungeons &
appearance Dragons "white box" set (1974)
Based on Shapeshifting
In-universe information
Type Humanoid
In Dungeons & Dragons, a lycanthrope (/ˈlaɪkənθroʊp/ LY-kən-throhp or /laɪˈkænθroʊp/ ly-KAN-
throhp)[39][40] is a humanoid shapeshifter based on various legends of lycanthropes, werecats,
and other such beings. In addition to the werewolf, in Dungeons & Dragons, weretigers,
wereboars, werebears and other shapeshifting creatures similar to werewolves and related
beings are considered lycanthropes,[41][42][43] although traditionally, the term "lycanthrope" refers
to a wolf-human combination exclusively. The presence of lycanthropes in the gaming system is
one of the elements that has led Christian fundamentalists to condemn Dungeons &
Dragons and to associate it with the occult.[44]
Description
[edit]
In the standard Dungeons & Dragons rules, lycanthropy is both hereditary (the children of
lycanthropes are lycanthropes of the same type) and infectious (victims of lycanthrope bites
become lycanthropes themselves, of the same type as the attacker). The rules distinguish
between natural and afflicted lycanthropes, according to the cause of lycanthropy, and handle
them by different rules.[45]
Hereditary lycanthropes can change shape at will, and retain their personality, being in control
of their actions. Infected lycanthropes' shapechanges are affected by the full moon. They
usually are not aware of their actions and act as aggressive predators. Lycanthropes can
assume the form of an animal/humanoid hybrid, in addition to their animal form. Most
lycanthropes in animal form can communicate with animals of their type. In humanoid form,
they can use any weapon, and in animal form they use natural weapons like the corresponding
animals, but each type has a different fighting style in hybrid form. An illustration in one edition
of the Monster Manual implied that the beast in Disney's Beauty and the Beast was a
lycanthrope, with a creature having a resemblance to the Beast attacking a human resembling
that film's antagonist, Gaston.[46]
Screen Rant has described the operation of lycanthropy in the game as an aspect that "makes
no sense" because it is often a positive development for a character. "It is possible for a
character to be infected with lycanthropy in Dungeons & Dragons and it comes highly
recommended, as the benefits outweigh the negatives".[42] It notes that "[i]n exchange for
learning how to control your condition, you gain Damage Reduction, +2 to your Wisdom stat, the
Scent ability, Low-Light Vision, a new Hit Dice, the Iron Will feat, and the ability to transform into
a more powerful form".[42] Like many examples of werewolves in modern fiction, D&D's
werewolves and other lycanthropes are vulnerable to silver and highly resistant to other kinds of
harm.
The archetypal lycanthrope, the werewolf, was ranked sixth among the ten best low-level
monsters by the authors of Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies. The authors described the
werewolf as "a classic monster" and "the best illustration of a monster with damage reduction;
unless characters have a silver weapon, they will have a hard time hurting this creature". The
authors also note that "Werewolves are shapechangers, which means players can never be
entirely sure whether that surly villager might indeed be the great black wolf who attacked their
characters out in the forest."[47] The werewolf is also fully detailed in Paizo Publishing's
book Classic Horrors Revisited (2009), on pages 58–63.[48]
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
[edit]
Another role-playing game featuring the creature is Werewolf: The Apocalypse from the Classic
World of Darkness line by White Wolf Publishing. Other related products include the Collectible
card games named Rage and several novels (including one series). In the game, players take the
role of werewolves known as "Garou" (from the French loup garou). These werewolves are
locked in a two-front war against both the spiritual desolation of urban civilization and
supernatural forces of corruption that seek to bring about the Apocalypse. Game supplements
detail other shapeshifters.
Along with the other titles in the World of Darkness, Werewolf was discontinued in 2004. Its
successor title within the Chronicles of Darkness line, Werewolf: The Forsaken, was released on
March 14, 2005. A fifth edition is in development. The books have been reprinted since 2011 as
part of the "Classic World of Darknes
