Werewolves of ancient legends. Types of werewolves. Werewolf Legends. Those who take on animal form

Legends of werewolves, people who turn into wild animals, are common in many countries. In Europe, it is believed that werewolves turn into wolves. Therefore, there legends about werewolves were especially popular in countries where wolves posed a real danger to residents. They were especially widespread in Norway, where the ability to turn into a wolf was assigned to fearless beserker warriors going into battle without armor.

DURING SKALD

The Icelandic skald Urakia Snorrison belonged to a well-known family, whose ancestors were, according to legend, werewolves. Urakia himself was distinguished by a wild, ferocious disposition and a monstrous passion for bloodshed. People also considered him a werewolf, since Urakia seemed to ghost unexpectedly appeared where they did not expect to find him, and caused serious harm to enemies.

In July 1242, a traitor betrayed his whereabouts, and Jarl Gitzur's army attacked the encircled small army of Urakia. Snorrison, like the ancient beserkers, with two axes burst into the thick of the enemy and killed countless warriors before they threw a net over him and, knocking him to the ground, threw blunt spears. The half-dead prisoner was taken to Norway and put to a painful execution. They broke his arms and legs, then they whipped him for a long time so that the skin began to come off his body, after which they broke his back and hanged him. Urakia did not utter a single groan during these terrible tortures.

Horror legends about some kind of self-mutilation werewolves are especially popular in Europe. For example, in France there is a story about a hunter's wife who turned out to be a werewolf. This hunter met a huge wolf in the forest, which he cut off a paw in a fight. Returning home, he found that the wolf's paw in his bag had turned into a woman's hand. And on one of the fingers of this hand flaunted ring which he gave to his wife. Running up the stairs, the hunter found his wife in the bedroom, bleeding from the stump of her arm.

In the same France, they also talk about a certain Breton knight who lived in the 12th century, who periodically turned into a wolf for three days. The wife revealed his secret and persuaded her lover to hide her husband's clothes when he once again turns into a beast. The king, while hunting, caught a knight in the guise of a wolf, but he still managed to bite off the nose of his unfaithful wife.

VICTIMS OF LYCANTROPY

In France, they loved not only to talk about werewolves, but also to catch them. It is said that in this country for 110 years (from 1520 to 1630) as many as 30 thousand people recognized as werewolves were executed. Several trials on charges of lycanthropy (werewolfism) received wide publicity.

In 1573, all of northern France was frightened by stories of werewolves who, in the form of a wolf, attack children and brutally kill them. These conversations were fueled by the torn corpses of children, which were found in various places.

On November 9, several peasants rescued a little girl who had been bitten by a wolf. At the approach of the peasants, the wolf disappeared into the darkness, but it seemed to them that they recognized in him the hermit Gilles Garnier, who lived in a hut near Armange. Garnier was soon arrested on suspicion of lycanthropy and interrogated under torture. He confessed to several murders of children, as well as that he sold his soul to the devil for the opportunity to transform into a wolf. Based on these confessions, Garnier was burned alive, without the mercy of preliminary strangulation, at Dole on January 18, 1574.

But Garnier was by no means the last French werewolf. In 1598, a soldier and some peasants found Jacques Roulet half-naked in the bushes. His hands were covered in blood, and shreds of human flesh were stuck under his nails. Soon, the mutilated corpse of a 15-year-old boy named Korye was found nearby. Rule admitted that he killed him by turning into a wolf thanks to some kind of magical ointment received from his parents. The jury sentenced Rule to death.

That same year, on December 14, the Parlement of Paris sentenced a Chalon tailor to death for lycanthropy. He was accused of killing children, luring them to his shop or lying in wait in the forest, and then eating their meat. A whole barrel of bones was allegedly found in his shop. At the trial, such horrifying details of the tailor's atrocities were revealed that the judges ordered all court documents to be burned.

In 1603, in a village in southwestern France, several girls were tending sheep. And there they were frightened by a strange-looking 14-year-old boy who came from nowhere. He stated that he " Gray wolf, teeth click "and that now he will eat the girls. But then one of them entered into a conversation with him. And the boy told her the following: “The man gave me a wolf-skin cloak. He wraps me in it, and every Friday, Sunday, and Monday, and for about an hour at dusk on all other days, I become a wolf. I have bitten dogs and drunk their blood. But little girls have a more pleasant taste, their flesh is tender and sweet, and their blood is plentiful and warm.

The girls reported the strange boy to the right place. And then it became known about the murder of several children in Gascony. The boy Jean Grenier was handed over to the chief judge in Kutra. In court, Grenier confirmed that thanks to the wolf skin and magic ointment, he turned into a wolf and killed girls. However, Father Grenier convinced the court that his son was a well-known fool and liar, boasting that he had slept with all the women in their village. At first, the court sentenced Grenier to be burned, but then, taking pity on him and deciding that he had become an easy prey for the devil in childhood and was not yet completely lost to society, he changed his mind. On September 6, 1603, Jean Grenier was sentenced to life imprisonment in a local monastery.

WEREVORS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

During the years of the Northern War, especially many wolves were bred in Sweden. Local Swedish sorcerers immediately said: these are the returning Swedish soldiers killed in Russia and Poland. They were not believed until someone shot a wolf, which literally did not give a pass to a pretty widow. As soon as she leaves the house, out of nowhere, a strange wolf appears and follows her, making no attempt to attack. When this wolf was skinned, an embroidered shirt was found under his skin (polo shirts with short sleeves in Moscow). Seeing her, the widow collapsed into a faint. It turned out that she personally embroidered this shirt for her husband, who went with King Charles XII to the war in Muscovy.

There were also werewolves in Russia. In 1625, a certain robber named Yakov was caught, who was accused of turning into a wolf and in this form attacking merchant carts and robbing them. In view of the special importance of the case, the arrested Yakov was sent from Verkhoturye to Moscow. There is no doubt that Yakov answered with his head for his atrocities in the capital, but it is hard to believe in his transformations. Still, robbing is more convenient in human form than in wolf form.

And stories about werewolves are still told in the forested areas. For example, they say that in the 20th century a certain citizen lived in the Pudozh region of Karelia - Fedor Ivanovich Dutov, who had a reputation as a sorcerer and was a werewolf. He lived and lived until one night in the forest in the form of a wolf he fell into a trap. When people in the morning saw him wandering through the water with a bandaged bloody hand, he became an enemy for the whole village. People already tuned in to his hut “to let the red rooster go”, but only one of the nights Fyodor Ivanovich disappeared without a trace. But now at midnight, with a full moon, a terrible wolf howl is heard from the forest, instilling fear in the entire village.

In Asia and Africa, werewolves do not turn into wolves, but into other animals. In China, werewolves are believed to turn into foxes. In Nigeria, in hyenas.

In the first half of the 20th century, Zaire suffered from leopard people. Only in 1920 in the court of the city of Boma were they sentenced to death penalty 11 werewolves who, turning into leopards, killed and ate 13 people.

On the Ivory Coast, the authorities for a long time could not cope with the cult of leopard people. Local sorcerers turned people into werewolves in a complex procedure. The converts were instructed not only to walk in leopard skins with claws, but also to kill someone from relatives relatives, most often children.

In 1960, Harold Young, the owner of a zoo in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was hunting in the Lahu mountains, where he stopped for the night in a small village. During the night, he was awakened by a scream from a nearby hut. Running there, Yang in the moonlight saw a tao clinging his teeth to the woman's neck. Harold fired at the beast, but it fled into the jungle, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. In the morning, Young followed the trail with the locals and soon came across a man who was bleeding from a gunshot wound in his chest.

werewolf legends

Almost every nation has legends about werewolves. As a rule, legends about werewolves are tied to the ability of people to turn into wolves. But, for example, Indian legends carry information about the possibility of turning people into tigers, monkeys and other animal life. And Tibetan and Indian legends even tell about an intelligent civilizational race of monkeys that once ruled on planet Earth in the region of South and Southeast Asia, Japanese legends for some reason tell mainly about werewolves-foxes.

Werewolf (shifter) - a mythological creature with the ability to turn around human or animals. A werewolf is a man or woman who has turned into a wolf. Werewolf (wolfulak, lycanthrope) - a werewolf that takes on the appearance of a wolf. A human wolf is a werewolf who has taken the form of half a man, half a wolf. Werewolves are of two types: those that turn into animals at will and those who suffer from lycanthropy (the disease of turning into animals). They differ from each other in that some can turn into animals at any time of the day or night without losing the ability to think humanly rationally, while others only at night (mostly on the full moon) and at the same time the human essence is driven deep inside, freeing animal start. At the same time, a person does not remember what he did when he was in animal form.

In Ukraine, to this day, there are legends about vovkulak, that is, people who can turn into wolves. At the same time, vovkulaks are characterized in Ukrainian legends as ungodly creatures, bringing various troubles to people, killing the victims they persecuted with particular cruelty. As a rule, for some reason it is people in their majority who become victims of vovkulak, these werewolves, and not animals that are more suitable for the role of victims of real wolves, such as sheep, horses, pigs. Indeed, as experts note, wolves themselves are cowardly animals and they attack their victims only near the forest or in the forest (unlike experts, popular rumor considers wolves to be brave animals). And only in famine years, wolves are able to attack animals within the villages, pulling a piglet or a sheep out of an old shed, built from a weak khmyz, treated with clay mortar. I remember my father told me how in his village such cases occurred in the snowy winters of the fifties, when packs of hungry wolves were a common thing on the territory of Ukraine. My father also said that even in 1965 he saw with his own eyes a pack of wolves in the south of the Chernihiv region, running across the road, heading from one forest to another. The driver of the car, in the back of which my father was at that time, even stopped the car, letting the wolves pass. Maybe - because of the ancient fear of man in front of this animal, maybe in order to get a better look at the flock. The father is more inclined towards the first version. You can even read about the vovkulak, who recently robbed in the Poltava region and allegedly lived on the abandoned Kabany farm before he was shot, even on the Internet.

But in Ukraine there are other legends about werewolves. In these legends, werewolves appear as Cossacks-characterists who “transform” into a werewolf in order to get into the enemy camp and find out from the enemy information about his deployment and enemy intentions. Very often in Ukrainian legends, a Cossack-characterist turns into a werewolf in order to penetrate into another world, into the world of Navi, into the world of Iriy, in order to save, return to the world of Rule, into the world of reality of Our World, a dying or just deceased brother. According to the legends, such a transition has always been fraught with incredible difficulties and in many cases, if not in most cases, threatened the Cossack characternik with inevitable death, regardless of whether he succeeded in saving his brother or not. According to these ancient legends, the Cossacks-characterists knew the geography of Navi, Iria perfectly well in order to, in case of urgent need, penetrate into another world and solve the tasks facing them. For some reason, it is believed that the extremely complex tasks that the Cossacks-characterists face, on the territory controlled by another world, could be successfully solved most often in the guise of a werewolf.

France of the second half of the 18th century was shocked by the bloody nightmare of the province of Gevaudan, where from July 1, 1764 to July 19, 1767, a bloody tragedy broke out. An unusual beast resembling a wolf, but not quite a wolf, which many in those years considered a werewolf, made 230 attacks on people in this French province, and 121 victims of these attacks paid with their lives and were torn to pieces with extraordinary cruelty, with the head cut off and eating the soft parts of the face, breasts and other parts of the body. Why are the numbers of these victims so accurate? All the victims were scrupulously recorded in the parish books of the French villages of Gevaudan, and the years in which the victims of an unusual beast were recorded were named in France as the years of the Beast. But today, the history of the Gevaudan Beast brings a good income to the people of the province from tourists visiting the Museum of the Beast, created in the province of Gevaudan, which records the adventures of the Beast in the mountains of Mushet in the province of Gevaudan.

I want to give a little historical background about werewolves.

The image of a werewolf lycanthrope appeared in legends and beliefs long before many other creatures - vampires, harpies, pegasi, demons, basilisks, gnomes, genies, minotaurs, angels, hippos, unicorns, elves, dragons, etc... But even despite Despite the fact that the recent discovery of the genetic "lycanthropy syndrome" destroys the mystical charm of ancient legends, people still want to believe in the existence of mysterious and powerful wolf people chasing their prey in the light of the full moon.

The ancient Greek legend about the emergence of werewolves says that God Zeus turned a man into a wolf for the first time, angry at the Arcadian king Lycaon, a tyrant, an atheist, who, in order to laugh at Zeus, fed him a dish of human flesh, preparing a roast from the body of his own killed seven-year-old son. And Zeus said in a thunderous voice: "From now on, you will forever turn into a wolf. A wolf among wolves. This will be your punishment. Death would be too little punishment for you!"

The image of the wolf served as the basis for the creation of numerous European legends about werewolves. During the Inquisition, the wolf, as a "competitor" of man, became an image of evil. But in antiquity, the wolf was not at all a symbol of evil, into which it later turned in Christian teaching. Romulus and Remus, fed by a she-wolf, became the founders of Rome. And the Capitoline she-wolf in Italy is still revered as an image of selfless motherhood. Also, the companions of Odin, the Great God of northern mythology, have always been the faithful wolves Jerry and Frekka. The qualities of a wolf cause a certain charm in a person. His speed, mobility, cruelty, courage, absolutely fine hearing, as well as prudence, courage and a penchant for family life.

Somewhere in the 5th c. BC e. Herodotus mentioned people who could turn into wolves. Similar motifs are found among many peoples of Africa and Asia and are ubiquitous in Europe.

It was also believed that witches had the ability to turn into various animals. The surviving materials of the trials of the 11th century on accusations of witchcraft contain numerous eyewitness accounts of the transformation of a witch into a wolf.

The werewolf trials were - like the witch trials - a terrible farce! The verdict was considered established de facto almost always from the beginning of the process. The accused, who did not recognize his guilt, was tortured until he gave the expected answers to the court. "Evidence" was the confession of the defendant in receiving gifts from Satan (ointment of transformation into a werewolf). It was during the Middle Ages that the wildest stories about werewolves circulated. Under torture, people slandered themselves and loved ones in the way that the church wanted. The first werewolf trial took place in 1521, followed by numerous others. So, in 1541, accused of murders, a peasant claimed that he was a werewolf and a wolf skin was hidden inside his body. The judges, to test the claim, ordered that his arms and legs be cut off. Nothing was found, an acquittal was issued, but the peasant had already died from blood loss. Only in France between 1520 and 1630, the Inquisition "revealed" more than 30 thousand werewolves. Most of them were executed.

The transformation of a person into an animal is a very common fact of the mythology of different peoples of the world. So in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" capture is described Vseslav Polotsky Novgorod and the Battle of Nemiga. Vseslav is represented by a sorcerer and a werewolf. And in the ethnic culture of the North American Indians, turning the tribal totem into an animal is an indicator of the highest merging with the spirit of the ancestors. Scandinavians believed that berserkers they can transform into bears and wolves.

Physician Josef Claudius Rougemont introduced in 1798 described the behavior characteristic of werewolves. The term "lycanthropy" has Greek roots: "lycos" - "wolf" and "anthropos" - "man". Today it is officially used in psychiatry to refer to a form of insanity in which a person imagines himself to be an animal. Numerous examples of lycanthropy are known in psychiatry, cases of people who feel like supposed wolves, cats, dogs, etc. A classic example is the case of a Japanese girl in 1921 in the Austrian town of Wiesenschaft. The girl became obsessed with the image of the fox, then her behavior became completely consistent with the behavior of the fox. Children born sick showed signs of wolf lycanthropy. Often "... the trouble begins with the bite of an animal. After a long time, the first symptoms appear in the victim: the unfortunate are afraid of daylight, and also water immersion and begin to beat like crazy, bite and spin. On their actually motionless faces, muscle spasms draw in their lips and expose their tongue and teeth, foam comes out of the mouth, and terrible, guttural sounds are made by these tortured creatures.

Previously, science has completely rejected the possibility of the existence of lycanthrope werewolves. However, then the views of medicine changed significantly - it recognizes the existence of werewolves, understanding as such not only people suffering from mental disorders, but also recognizing scientifically confirmed facts of a purely physical nature. Even the so-called "genetic syndrome" of lycanthropy has been identified. If it is possible to isolate the gene for lycanthropy, then medicine will learn to treat lycanthropy as a disease. But this will be possible when it comes to the disease of lycanthropy, but not at all about the possibility of turning a person into a werewolf at will.

Lycanthropy transmitted to a person through the bite of a werewolf or as a result of being born from a werewolf is hereditary and incurable. However, it should be noted here that the paranormal properties received by the child from the parents (most often this applies to the case when only one of them is a werewolf) do not appear immediately. Lycanthropy can sleep inside such a person for many years and manifest itself at the most unexpected moment (during a solar eclipse, a parade of planets, mortal danger, or under other unusual circumstances). What are the external signs of lycanthropy and how can you recognize a wild monster in a simple-looking person? It should be remembered that the conversion never goes unnoticed - the werewolf becomes unusually aggressive and even cruel. It is characterized by sudden outbursts of rage, painful perception of harsh sounds, insomnia, gluttony, inexplicable anxiety, suspicion and other variants of unnatural behavior. It should not be forgotten that the lycanthrope is able to varying degrees to control the manifestation of these symptoms, so they should be considered only as indirect signs of the wolfman. They also do not apply to "correct werewolves", whose behavior is practically devoid of signs of aggression and can only reflect some of the neutral "human" properties of the wolf described in the literature: pride, unsociableness, love of freedom, etc.

There are three ways to become a lycanthrope - by magic (curse), by being bitten by another werewolf, or by birth (lycanthropy heredity).

Magical transformation into a wolf most often occurs at the behest of the sorcerer (witch, shaman) himself, who casts a transformation spell on himself (less often on others). Such treatment is temporary (for example, the Scandinavian god Loki and the Limikkin sorcerers from the Navajo tribe of American Indians were able to turn into any animal by throwing on its skin) and is not inherited. Similar in essence, but opposite in direction of intent, is the acquisition of the appearance of a wolf as a result of a curse: the punishment of the gods or the spell of evil wizards. It is permanent, or at least difficult to overcome, and, unlike a magical transformation, significantly worsens the life of a lycanthrope.

The ability of werewolves to regenerate is well known. Wolf people are not subject to aging or disease. Their wounds heal right before our eyes. Thus, lycanthropes have physical immortality, which, however, is not absolute. They can be killed, causing serious damage to the heart or brain. Ways to kill a lycanthrope are cutting off the head, severely wounding the chest, as well as drowning, strangulation and other actions that cause oxygen starvation of the brain. In many beliefs, lycanthropes are afraid of silver (there is a legend that only three round silver bullets can kill a werewolf, or one that will break the heart), less often - obsidian, which causes them non-healing wounds. This is another common weakness attributed to both werewolves and vampires. Vampires and werewolves share physical traits - hairy palms and almost unibrows. They also equally possess inhuman strength. Both of them can change shape. Vampires, like werewolves, often walk in wolf form themselves. They have strongly developed front teeth, especially fangs, thirsting for warm human blood. They are not disgraced angels, but neither are demons sent by Satan. Yes, they bring evil, but their own. The wolf man is a werewolf, like any predator, a hunter by nature. He enjoys the meat and blood of his prey. Werewolves are cannibals and extremely carnivorous. If you believe the occult sciences, then a werewolf after death becomes a vampire. There is some strange ceremony of transition to a new level.

The ability to identify oneself with various animals, including wolves, is characteristic of shamanic practice according to a technique that some Western and Polynesian shamans call the groking method, in other words, the method of identifying a person, in this case a shaman, with certain animals, birds, and even with objects of the non-living world, such as roadside stones, ships, planes, carts, and much more, which at the moment of a shamanic trance helps him achieve his intended goal. I have already mentioned and will repeat now that a shaman or a practitioner of the shamanic method, before entering a trance in which he intends to communicate with the spirits that should help him, this shaman must always be very clearly aware of the task that he intends decide in this particular case. Otherwise, he exposes himself to extreme danger, at best, he is doomed to failure!

At the heart of any shamanic cult are three elements: the ability to enter a trance, the ability of the spirit to leave the body, and the ability of the spirit to take on some kind of animal form. Usually these rites were intended to enable the shaman to take part in the struggle against the evil forces of decay and decay. Sometimes, similar methods were also used to rescue a lost soul that had fallen into the snares of the spiritual world. Legends of wolves and other terrible werewolves appeared, no doubt, as echoes of those ancient magical shamanic rites.

With the appearance of the Chernobyl Zone on the map of Ukraine, there was a revival of the wolf population in this Zone, which is quite natural, since it is forbidden to hunt animals in the Chernobyl Zone, except for the shooting of wild animals for purely scientific purposes. But what is surprising is that in these areas of Ukrainian Polissya, close to the Zone, legends about werewolves, or a werewolf, who, they say, are even involved in the accident itself, began to walk again. I won’t say that I myself strongly believed in this new legend about the Chernobyl werewolf, but as a person who knows, let’s say, some details of magical techniques, I didn’t silently and completely deny the possibility of some realities in this new legend.

In conclusion, I will say that even at the beginning of the third millennium, orthodox science, with all its power, is often very incapable of explaining many simple things that our ancestors encountered, not to mention complex cases, such as, for example, the instantaneous mutation of a person into a werewolf with animal likeness. We are not the first civilization to inhabit the planet Earth, and catastrophes like Chernobyl apparently happened. This means that the mutations of the organic world must have occurred with some certainty. Recall the research in the Indian Mohenjo-Daro zone, where, as some researchers suggest, an atomic catastrophe occurred about 3,000 years ago. Therefore, if you have to hear about werewolves, do not smile cynically - in our sublunar world, everything is possible, and therefore people are werewolves. Werewolves have existed next to a person for more than one century, and their bloody traces stretch through the centuries.

Nocticula (Fialcora). wiccan coven Blessed Shadows”, Kyiv.

A werewolf - a person who can turn into a beast - has been known since ancient Greece. Paulus Aegineta, who lived in Alexandria at the time, was one of the first physicians to describe such a medical condition. Then it was called "melancholic lycanthropy." People suffering from this disease had ulcers on their legs and used four limbs to move around. At night they wandered in the dark, howling, and at dawn they came to their senses. It was believed that such a disease was caused by an excess of black bile, one of the four components of the human body.

The first mentions in history

Werewolves were mentioned not only in the history of ancient Greece, but also in ancient Roman legends and myths. Such famous ancient Roman figures as Virgil and Ovid sang about them.

The well-known historian of Greece, the author of a large historical treatise called "Histories", called the werewolves nothing more than "neuri". So called sorcerers who took the form of a wolf and remained in it for several days. Naturally, then they turned back.

In Norway, and in some of the ancient cities of Iceland, werewolf myths were a little different from the rest. It was rumored that in those parts lived people who took on several forms of the beast. That is, werewolves with multiple skins. Also among the people of Norway and Iceland there were rumors that these creatures, who took the form of an animal, automatically adopted his feelings and abilities. In other words, it was impossible to distinguish a werewolf from an animal. One of the most popular legends about these creatures is the story that happened to Vereticus, King of Wales. Saint Patrick turned him into a wolf. A similar story, around the same time, happened in Ireland. There, Saint Natalius turned all family members into wolves. It was such a curse for the unrighteous deeds of people.

Werewolves in real life

One of the most shocking stories about werewolves is considered to be "the exposure of the German Peter Stubbe." This man lived in the Rhineland (Rhineland). Now it is the modern territory of Germany near the river Rhine.

In the 16th century, this man did terrible things near Cologne. The people said that he was the messenger of the devil, so he shed the blood of the human race.

During the trial, Peter was found guilty of a series of heinous murders and vicious diabolical deeds. Many witnesses who testified at the trial, as one repeated that Stubbe turned into a wolf and thus killed all his innocent victims. Also this fact was confirmed by many German farmers. They claimed that Peter, right before their eyes, turned into a beast and devoured poor sheep.

Another similar case with the transformation of a man into a devilish beast occurred in the same century, only in France. There have been brutal murders here for ten years. Made by Jean Grenier. They caught him only in 1603, and after being found guilty of occultism, lycanthropy and numerical murders at the Granier trial, he was imprisoned for life. A few years later he died there.

Trials of werewolves at that time took place almost throughout Europe for about a century. It is now, in the modern world, that scientists disagree about the reality of these incidents. But then people believed in everything.

Do werewolves really exist?

Werewolf legends say that the transformation of a person into a wolf is possible. But scientists argue about it to this day. Much evidence suggests that then, in the sixteenth century, people like Peter Schubbe or Jean Granier could be affected by a fungus called ergot. This type of fungus really contributes to the generation of confidence in a person that he is a beast: mental disorder, uncontrollable rage, running on all fours, etc.

But all this is just speculation. No one knows whether werewolves really exist in our time.

Legends about werewolves are known in all countries where wolves were a real danger to the inhabitants. There were very few wolves in the British Isles already in the Middle Ages, and the last wild wolf was killed there as early as the 18th century. The discovery of the real, but very rare and strange disease of lycanthropy, helped spread rumors about werewolves. Anyone with lycanthropy was declared a werewolf. With this disease, people sometimes behave as if they really were wolves. Especially many cases of lycanthropy are noted in France. These fierce and fearless Norse warriors - berserkers - greatly contributed to the emergence of werewolf legends. They dressed in animal skins, worn long hair and a beard and generally differed in a frightening appearance. The inhabitants of the villages torn off from each other, having been attacked by berserkers, really mistook them for half-humans, half-beasts. According to some legends, berserkers during the battle could turn into terrible bears and wolves. According to one Irish saga, a certain priest, lost in the forest, stumbled upon a wolf sitting under a spruce. This wolf spoke with a human voice; he asked the priest to perform the funeral service for his dying wife. The wolf explained that there was a spell on their family, according to which one man and one woman from their family were to live seven years as wolves. If they managed to survive during these seven years, they could become human again. The priest didn't believe the wolf's words until a nearby she-wolf threw off her wolf skin, showing that she was in fact human.

There are many legends about werewolves in France. A story from the Middle Ages tells of a hunter who was attacked by a huge wolf in the forest. He managed to cut off one of the legs of the beast, but he managed to break free and run away, and the hunter put his prey in a bag. Returning home, he was very surprised to see that the paw had turned into a woman's hand. But on one of his fingers he recognized the ring that he once gave to his wife. Running up the stairs, he saw that his wife was lying in bed, bleeding from many wounds; on one hand she had a hand cut off. A Norse saga tells how a sorcerer cast a spell on two wolf skins. Anyone who wore them turned into a wolf for ten days. The skins were discovered by the warriors Sigmund and Siniot, who found shelter in a forest hut. Unaware of the enchantment, Sigmund and Siniot stole the skins from the owners of the hut. Whoever put on this skin could no longer throw it off. Sigmund and Siniot, having turned into wolves, began to howl, attack people and even began to squabble with each other. After ten days, the charm of the skins lost its power, and the warriors threw them off and burned them.

The phenomenon of lycanthropes can be found not only in ancient manuscripts or in medical cards of psychological assistance centers (the concept of "lycanthropes" in psychology is a mental disorder in which a person feels like a beast or a bird).

Even in Vietnam, the United States used lycanthrope soldiers in the fight against the Viet Gong. Having undergone special training, the soldiers (sometimes themselves, sometimes after a special command suggested during hypnosis) entered a special state of bersek. They could both shoot their enemy and cut his throat. They could sit in swamps for weeks without food. Could run 2-3 days...

Entering into such a state is quite difficult, but real. First, the human psyche breaks down - it is subjected to stress, once in certain conditions. The integral factors of "withdrawal" are fear, hatred, despair, loneliness and sexual arousal. The strongest feelings. They affect a person the most. And then you need to give the person a "push" in a certain direction - towards the beast.

I will retreat. Why is it so easy for a person to cross that line between a beast and a man? This is where the self-preservation instinct comes into play. Our brain keeps a person alive in every possible way. And so, when a person is driven into a corner, then the main thing is to give him the opportunity to "be saved" in the form of a beast, ending his suffering (carrot and stick). And he will gladly accept it.

In general, it is not difficult. I did my own experiments about a year ago. Barely got rid of the mask of the beast later. It would be possible to leave it like that (sometimes it helped - physical activity is easier to bear, the ability to stay awake for 3-4 days, go without food for a long time), but sometimes I just “broke down”. Once I almost killed a man just because I didn't like the way he looked at me. Everything passed, but several times a week, I dream of a green lizard dragon - my second self.

Conclusion: 1) It is better to remain a man, no matter how tempting it is to become a beast. 2) Study yourself - a lot of interesting things are hidden in us.

Werewolves in the old days were called people capable of turning into wild animals, most often into wolves. At the same time, they become bloodthirsty and do not know mercy.

Werewolves hunt at night, seeking out and attacking lone travelers. Although they take the form of a wild animal, they can be distinguished from real animals, as they are much larger than their real prototypes and completely retain human intelligence.

There are other types of werewolves, the most famous are werewolf and lupine. They prefer to call themselves garou, warriors of Gaia.

ACCORDING TO OLD LEGENDS, werewolves (werewolves) descended from the children of Adam's first wife Lilith, who was expelled by God from paradise. Already in exile, she gave birth to four children, who were given to the upbringing of a tiger, a bear, a wolf and a snake. The wolves raised her daughter Enoia. It was she who became the progenitor of the werewolf clan throughout the earth.

A real werewolf can turn its fur inside out, becoming a human at this time. It was believed that a werewolf spends most of his life in the form of a beast, and turns into a man only when he is wounded.

Stories, legends about werewolves are found in all countries where wolves pose a real threat to people. So, there are many legends about werewolves in France.

In one of the medieval manuscripts, a story was found about an attack by a werewolf on a hunter, who showed courage and resisted him. He was able to cut off one of his limbs with a sharp hunting knife, but the wounded beast managed to escape.

The hunter put the severed paw into his bag and brought the trophy home. What was his surprise when he opened the bag and took out of it instead of an animal paw ... a woman's hand!

In addition, he found on one of his fingers a ring, exactly the same as he had recently given to his wife. The hunter rushed to look for his wife and found her in his room, bleeding from a terrible wound on her arm.

In the rural areas of France, terrible legends are still told about the werewolf Lu-garou, half-man, half-wolf, at the mention of only whose name the peasants were horrified.

Similar cases are known in Germany, where wolves also caused a lot of harm. local residents. There is evidence of the existence of werewolves in England and Ireland.

A werewolf is not a native of the underworld, like, for example, vampires. This is an absolutely earthly creature.

Any person suddenly struck by a mysterious misfortune could become a werewolf. And be sure to become a man bitten by a werewolf. Therefore, people have always experienced wild horror before any manifestation, similar to signs of werewolves.

In the Middle Ages, people on the slightest suspicion of werewolf were put on trial, executed, burned at the stake.

People who outwardly fit the idea of ​​werewolves suffered especially. If a person by nature had sharp teeth, a thin, elongated face, then the risk of being declared a werewolf and getting on the fire increased many times over.

It often happened that a person, according to the crowd, looked like a wolf, was caught and immediately lynched. It ended with the fact that the poor fellow was simply torn to pieces.

The maddened crowd tried in this way to find animal hair inside the skin.
It was believed that the danger of rebirth of a person into a werewolf increases many times during the full moon. In people "struck by the full moon", the appearance changed - they became like wolves.

Then they began to feel cravings for night walks. And woe to that belated traveler who met a werewolf on his way. Neither garlic, nor amulets, nor the sign of the cross could save against this monster.

Ancient treatises contain information that a werewolf is dangerous not only at night, but also on a clear day.