More Werewolf Info.....

WereWolf Folklore and Myth's Legend's..

An 18th century engraving of a werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a mythological human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or lycanthropic affliction from a bite or scratch from a wolfman, or some other means. This transformation happens during the cycle of the full moon, noted by the medieval writer Gervase of Tilbury, and perhaps in earlier times among the ancient Greeks through the writings of Petronius.
Werewolves often have superhuman strength, speed, and senses, far beyond those of both wolves and men. The werewolf is generally held as a European creature, although its lore spread through the world in later times. Shape shifters, similar to werewolves, are common in tales from all over the world, most notably amongst the Native Americans, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.
Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fiction, although fictional werewolves have been given traits distinct from those of original folklore. For example, the ideas that werewolves are only vulnerable to silver bullets or that they can cause others to become werewolves by biting or wounding them derive from works of modern fiction. Werewolves continue to endure in modern culture and fiction, with books, films and television shows portraying the werewolves as a dominant figure in horror.

Common Folklore Descriptions of Werewolves

Werewolves were said in European folklore to carry physical traits even in their human form. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low-set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the accused, under the assumtion that fur would be seen in the wound. A Russian superstition claims a werewolf can be recognised by bristles under the tongue. The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though it is most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves except that it has no tail, is often larger, and retains human eyes and voice. According to some Swedish accounts, the werewolf could be distinguished from a regular wolf by the fact that it would run on three legs, stretching the fourth one backwards to look like a tail. After returning to their human forms, werewolves usually become weak, debilitated and undergoes a painful nervous depression.
Fennoscandian werewolves were usually old women who possessed poison coated claws and had the ability to paralyze cattle and children with their gaze. The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no.

Becoming a Wolfman

Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin. In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. Drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or from certain enchanted streams were also considered effective modes of accomplishing the metamorphosis. The 16th century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia.
In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on their face.
In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan, are certayne sorcerers, who having annointed their bodies with a salve which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certain inchanted girdle, does not only make others see them as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as wolves, in worrying and killing, and mostly of humans.

Real Werewolves or Hypertrichosis

Most people learned of the witch hunts of the 16th century. Less well known are the werewolf hunts that happened in the same era. A common belief was that werewolves turned their skin inside out to return to human form, so one interrogation practice involved cutting and pulling back a person's skin to see if there was fur underneath.
There are several notable claims of lycanthropy that took place during these werewolf hunts. In 1573, an alleged werewolf, Gilles Garnier, was burned at the stake. In 1589, a man known as Stubbe Peter or Peter Stubbe, was executed near Cologne, Germany for cannibalism and multiple murders. He claimed he had a belt that allowed him to become a werewolf. In 1603, a young man named Jean Grenier­ claimed responsibility for a series of murders and disappearances, saying he had a skin that let him become a wolf. A court determined that Grenier was insane and confined him to a monastery.
In France, between 1520 and 1630, there were more than 30,000 recorded cases of people who claimed to be or appeared to be werewolves. As with the witch trials, there were probably several simultaneous causes for this, and for the werewolf hunts:

• Hypertrichosis: A genetic disorder linked to the X-chromosome can cause people to grow very thick hair over their faces and bodies. People with this condition can physically resemble werewolves, but it's extremely rare. One variety, congenital generalized hypertrichosis, is known to affect only 19 people in one Mexican family.
• Ergot poisoning: Ergot is a fungus that can infest grains like barley and wheat, and eating it can cause hallucinations. Ergot poisoning (Saint Anthonys Fire) has also been suggested as a cause of the witch trials in Salem, Mass.
• Rabies: Many mammals can carry and transmit rabies, typically through biting. Rabies is fatal without immediate treatment. In its advanced stages, it can cause agitation and hallucinations. A rabies epidemic may have caused wolves and dogs to bite humans, who then could have exhibited werewolf like tendencies.
• Wolf hybrids: Healthy wolves don't generally attack people without provocation, but aggressive hybrids of wolves and dogs may have attacked villages, leading to the idea of violent werewolves.
• Porphyria: The supernatural condition most often associated with porphyria is vampirism. Porphyria causes sensitivity to light. In some cases, exposure to sunlight causes lesions and blisters, which can sprout fine hair during healing. Advanced porphyria can also lead to hallucinations.
• Collective hysteria: As unlikely as it sounds, the sudden, simultaneous onset of psychological symptoms in a large group of people is a recorded phenomenon.

Werewolf Meataphor

As with vampires, there's a sexual element to werewolves. While vampires tend to be smooth and sexually charged, the typical werewolf is hyper-masculine. He's exceptionally muscular, exceptionally hairy and exceptionally violent.
These traits come not just from a werewolf's appearance, but from the folkloric history behind werewolves. In many stories, a man becomes a werewolf because of some sort of excess. His behavior may be too rough, or he may, by the standards of the community, be sexually deviant, usually in terms of wanton relationships with women. These traits may have even caused the word "werewolf" to apply to human behavior. In the 16th century in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France, teenagers who roamed around at night, broke curfews and socialized outside the bounds of polite society were known as werewolves. In some cases, young people disguised themselves as animals to travel from one community to another. A common belief at the time was that outlaws would eventually become werewolves.

What is a Werewolf or Lycanthropy?

Is it a fact based on concrete evidence? Is it a myth, or folklore made up to explain mass killings in small towns? Is it an exaggeration of wolf packs infected with rabies? all these questions have been puzzling mankind for the last 5 centuries. Though many ingenious hypotheses have been suggested as possible explanations, but definite conclusion can not be established. Some experts have tried to observe it as purely supernatural phenomena while others have relied on scientific observations. Contradictions and debates still arise and will continue till any single theory solves the unexplained which seems unlikely considering complexity and diversity of the topic. Nonetheless, the werewolf phenomenon has not perished, yet recent werewolf sightings are still reported.

Recent Werewolf Sightings in America

Although most sightings were reported before the 2000 year decade, there has been a few sightings of the Wolfman, Werewolf, or Dogman. The names are all different, but the descriptions are all similar to the folklore and legendary Werewolf. Everyone of the recent sightings were by people that heard of the legends, and was out looking for the monster. All except the Virginia sighting, in which evidence was all inconclusive and sounded more like tales told in a bar, about something a distant brother of a cousin's wife's brother's friend, had happen to them.

Werewolf Sightings in Henrico County, Virginia

Werewolf sightings in Henrico County Virginia of a dog like creature, has come to be known as the Werewolf of Henrico County. The story of the werewolf of Henrico County has taken on something of urban legend status, it's hard to find true first-hand accounts – every thing heard about this particular werewolf seems to be something that a friend said. When you finally are able to get through the excitement and whispers, accounts of the werewolf sightings describe a greyish white creature covered in fur that stands upright and has the face of a wolf or dog. These werewolf sightings seem to be clustered in Henrico County Virginia in and around the Confederate Hills Recreation Center. It is unclear how often the werewolf appears or what its appearances coincide with.

Michigan Werewolf or Dogman Sighting: Lansing, May 2006

The report is noted as follows; On may 6 2006 Ron was driving back to his girlfriends house, who lives around lansing, MI, he was coming back from the store and she lives out in the country completely isolated so the only way to get there is to go down dirt roads that are surrounded by fields. Ron was driving and saw something moving on a little hill that was right on the side of the road so he stopped. All of a sudden a human like hand (except much larger than a normal mans hand) reached over the edge of the hill and this huge silouette came into view. It was much larger than a normal man and it had a wolf like face and its eyes reflected in his headlights, it just sat there and looked across the field on the other side of the road and than it just very calmly turned its head and looked right at Ron, froze from fear and locked in each others stares for about 20 seconds, it started to move down the hill so Ron hit the gas and flew past it and got to the stop sign, stopped and looked in the rearview mirror and it was sitting in the middle of the road just looking at the car. Ron took off again and as he was driving proceded to look back again and it moved very calmly into the other field. After getting to his girlfriends house, they went back to the spot but the creature was gone. This happend in between Lansing and the small town of Eaton Rapids.

Wolfman Spotted in Wisconsin on Bray Rd. 2004

A 45 year old registered nurse from Greendale, her 14 year old daughter and 14 year old friend saw what was definitely the wolfman while driving down Bray Road about 8:30 p.m. October 30, 2004, for the sole purpose of trying to scare the daughter's friend, Kevin. The woman is trained in anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology, and they estimate the creature was no farther than 9 feet away from them and illuminated in the headlights of their car. "We had been looking for it for years," said the woman.
Kevin had never been to Bray Road so her daughter wanted to scare him, they arrived about 8:30, drove up and down the road a few times, drove around Bowers Road and back onto Bray Road, driving slowly and under the speed limit, when something popped out of the corn about two miles down the road, heading toward Elkhorn.
It stepped right out of the corn and it looked aggressive. We all screamed very loud, she put her foot on the gas, and went away as fast as she could and did not go back. What she saw doesn't make sense. A quadruped has its legs "backward' for speed and agility. But this creature had large powerful thigh muscles and its knee was backward. It was covered in fur, with heavier fur on its back. It was dark in color but tipped silvery gray. It was in the oncoming lane of traffic so they were less than nine feet away from the creature. It was not a person in a suit, it was way too tall (about seven feet) and way too muscular, and its eyes were glittery and dark, it had no whites like a human's eyes in a mask would have. It's head was big, almost too big for its body. It had an elongated snout, but pointy, not rounded like a dog.
It stood there, and then it hunched over into an aggressive stance. It's arms were bent at the elbow and forward. Its ears were pointed, shaped like a German shepherd's, but laid back. It was looking right at them and they all felt it was aggressive and would defend itself viciously.
This wasn't a dog. Or a wolf. It had canine features but it was something else something different, yet the same. It was a Wolf man. They all had the feeling they were not safe. And didn't get a picture although they had cameras all over the car, video camera, digital camera, and a disposable camera, they were prepared. But when they saw it, they all just screamed and then the mother floored the gas.
The woman said she was not drinking any alcohol and does not do drugs. She has had a few incidents in her life she considers "somewhat" paranormal, but has never seen anything definite like that. All three witnesses saw the creature at the same time and agreed on its appearance.