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.
An early cinematic example of the theme is The Wolf Man (1941) which along with Frankenstein's Monster and Count Dracula comprise some notable modern horror works. Werewolf fiction is an exceptionally diverse genre however, with ancient folkloric roots and manifold modern re-interpretations.
Literary origins
In Greek mythology, there is a story of an Arcadian King called Lycaon who tested Zeus by serving the god a dish of his own slaughtered and dismembered son to see if Zeus was really all-knowing. As punishment for his trickery, Zeus transformed Lycaon into a wolfOvid, Metamorphoses, 1. 216 - 239 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.Apollodorus: Bibliotheca 3. 8, 1
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.Black, Joseph. "Bisclavret." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2009. 183. Print.
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 Frederick 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 the film Werewolf of London (1935), suggesting sexual jealousy. The writers of The Wolf Man (1941) were careful in depicting killings as motivated out of hunger.
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). by Angela Carter (and its 1984 film adaptation) and the film Ginger Snaps (2000), which address female sexuality. 2011 also saw the release of Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried in the main role, with the character name of Valerie.
Folklore 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, : 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.Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 96. 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.Uther, Hans-Jörg. Handbuch zu den "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" der Brüder Grimm: Entstehung - Wirkung - Interpretation. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter. 2008. pp. 200-201. Sherman, Josepha (2008). Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. Sharpe Reference. pp. 376-377. 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.Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York: Basic Books. 1984. pp. 35-36.János Berze Nagy. Népmesék Heves- és Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok-megyébol (Népköltési gyüjtemény 9. kötet). Budapest: Az Athenaeum Részvény-Társulat Tulajdona. 1907. pp. 127-133.Schiefner, Anton. Awarische Texte. K. Akademie der wissenschaften. 1873. pp. xiixv and 33-47.Macler, Frederic. Contes, légendes et épopées populaires d'Arménie, traduits ou adaptés de l'arménien, par Frédéric Macler. Vol. I. Collection: Les joyaux de l'Orient; Tome 13. Paris. 1928-1933. pp. 69-80.Prym, E./Socin, A. Syrische Sagen und Märchen aus dem Volksmunde. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprechts Verlag, 1881. pp. 60-66.Kovács Ágnes. Szegény ember okos leánya: Román népmesék. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó. 1957. pp. 100-114.
19th century
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. 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).Barger, Andrew; Shifters: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849, 2010. p. 85; 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.Wilson, Colin "Werewolves", in Jack Sullivan (ed.) The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (Viking Press, 1986) pp. 453-455 (out of print); (Random House Value Publishing, 1989) 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.Brian Frost (1973) Book of the Werewolf: 29
20th and 21st centuries In literature 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.Stefan Dziemianowicz, "The Werewolf" in Icons of Horror and the Supernatural, edited by S.T. Joshi. Greenwood Press 2007, (pp. 653-668). 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.Squires, J., "Endore, Guy S." in Sullivan 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.Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. (p. 112, 169) 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.
The book series Goosebumps featured an assortment of werewolves ranging from the bipedal werewolves to the quadrupedal werewolves that resemble larger wolves. The book The Werewolf of Fever Swamp featured Will Blake who also appeared in the films Goosebumps and Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween. The book A Shocker on Shock Street featured Wolf Boy and Wolf Girl who were from a horror movie franchise called Shock Street. The book Werewolf Skin reveals the titular item can turn its wearers into werewolves like it did with Alex Hunter's Aunt Mart and Uncle Colin. Give Yourself Goosebumps featured werewolves in Night in Werewolf Woods, The Werewolf of Twisted Tree Lodge, and All-Day Nightmare. The book The Werewolf in the Living Room features Ben Grantley who was responsible for biting Aaron Friedlus.
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.Harry Potter site at Bloomsbury's
In films 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 (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.
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. The theme of lycanthropy as a disease or curse reached its standard treatment in the film, which contained the now-famous rhyme: