The History of Werewolf Legends

Long before the full moon showed up on any movie poster, villagers were already whispering about men who shed their skin and ran with the wolves. The werewolf is one of the oldest monsters we have. Its story goes back thousands of years, and it turns up in just about every culture that ever feared the dark.

Ancient Roots

The oldest written werewolf tale we have comes from Greece. It is the story of King Lycaon, a cruel ruler who served human flesh to the gods and got cursed to spend the rest of his days as a wolf. His name gave us the word lycanthropy, which people still use for the change from man to beast. The Romans kept the story alive, and the poet Ovid wrote it down in his Metamorphoses.

The Wolf in the Middle Ages

Medieval Europe is where the werewolf really came into its own. Wolves prowled the forests around isolated farming villages, and fear did the rest. There were trials. Confessions were beaten out of people. Men and women were put to death as shapeshifters who had supposedly bargained with dark powers. The French called them the loup-garou. In the Baltic and Slavic lands the wolf-man got so tangled up with vampire stories that the two monsters were hard to tell apart.

How One Became a Werewolf

Nobody could agree on how it happened. Some said you were born cursed under the wrong star. Others swore you turned by pulling on a belt of wolf-skin, or drinking rainwater out of a wolf's footprint, or getting bitten by one of the pack. That last version is the one that stuck. On a single point the legends always agreed: when the full moon rose, the beast came out whether the man wanted it or not.

The Werewolf Endures

Science eventually offered its own explanations, from rabies to a rare blood disorder to plain mental illness. The werewolf shrugged them off. It moved from the campfire into novels, then onto film, getting a little sharper each time. Today's Lycan, proud and dangerous, owes everything to those old moonlit fears.

That bloodline is still alive at Immortal Night. Pick the path of the Lycan, feel the moon start to pull, and hunt beside your Pack the way the stories always promised. Wondering how you would stack up against the fanged crowd? Read our take on Vampire vs Werewolf.

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