Awooo! A haunting howl, frenzied paws and a full moon – that’s werewolf stories for you. But there is a lot more to the legend and mythology behind lycanthropes, and in this article, we’ll be covering the first iterations of werewolf literature and modern interpretations of the myth.
Classic tales featuring the furry shapeshifter are plentiful, but the usual connotations of a werewolf (to be explored in more detail later during this blog post) is an uncontrollable, painful transformation into a wolf-like creature, more often than not uncontrollably following its animal instincts whilst wolf.
Origins of the werewolf
The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the first written records of the werewolf, as a harsh punishment enacted on a previous lover of Ishtar. Typically, references to werewolves at this point in time were due to ‘real’ sightings across a range of countries and continents – as alongside witch trials, werewolves (or rather, those thought to be guilty of lycanthropy) were also persecuted due to widespread fear.
It is this context that makes it clearer as to why a lot of werewolf stories are dark, gory and often have unhappy endings. Romantasy as a genre has done a lot to try to usurp the historic negative associations with werewolves – but no matter public opinion, werewolves are a really interesting species in literature.
What is a werewolf?
Werewolves are often bitten or cursed to become lycanthropic, with their transformations
being triggered by a full moon. Alongside the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ trope of monstrosity, animal instincts and the corruption of the human body, werewolves are often used as a vessel to convey a fissure between human norms and a more animalistic, uncontrollable nature.
Werewolf legends
A widespread folklore concept, werewolf stories can even be found in Greek mythology, such as in Histories by Herodotus where he detailed a tribe called the Neuri who were all transformed into wolves for days at a time before returning to their human forms.
A more modern werewolf portrayal is that of Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, whose portrayal was revealed to be a metaphor for HIV/AIDS and other bloodborne diseases. Werewolves in the modern day tend to be a little more positively presented instead of their slavering beastly past – and in the next section, you can see a mix of modern and historic werewolf tales.
Reccomendations
There are many ways to tell a werewolf tale, across varying different genres and with varying levels of horror, but the following novels feature werewolf characters:
- Thor by Wayne Smith
- The Howling by Gary Brandner
- Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
- Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon
- Red Moon by Benjamin Percy
‘The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.’ – Stephanie Meyer
That was a short delve into werewolves in literature! Hopefully if you caught the scent and are interested in hunting down more werewolf fiction, the recommendations will be a good place to start.
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