The Ancient Greek Origins of the Werewolf

 

 

For thousands of years the moon has been both worshiped and feared in Greece, even Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician and father of Western medicine, understood the power of the moon and stated:

 “One who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night, is being visited by the Goddess of the Moon”

It was well-known that Selene; goddess of the moon, kept company with wolves, so of course, it’s only logical that werewolves originated in Greece; after all, Greeks do everything first; right?

 

 

Werewolf is an old English word for “wolf man”, which in Greek is “lycanthropos”, a term used when a man is transformed into a wolf (Greek-“Lykos”), usually at the time of the full moon.

 

The ancient Greek origins of the werewolf

 

 

No one’s really sure when or where the werewolf first raised its ugly head; they pop up in so many different legends; and in many a nightmare!

The general consensus is that the werewolf made its debut in ancient Greece, along with the myth of King Lycaon of Acardia, who was turned into a wolf by the great god Zeus.

 

 

As consistently happens when it comes to Greek mythology, there are many variations on a theme.

So it is with the myth of King Lycaon, first told by Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet active between 750 and 650 BC.

 The most popular version is the one told by Ovid, a Roman poet, in the first book of Metamorphoses and it goes as follows:

 

The displeasure of Zeus

 

 

By the time Pandora, the first mortal woman created by the gods, a woman who would wreak havoc on earth and whom Zeus regarded as the “catastrophe of mankind” opened her infamous box, releasing all manner of abominations upon mankind, Zeus had had enough.

He could not believe the depths of savagery man had stooped to and so he shape-shifted himself into human form and descended to Earth in order to to sort things out.

His first stop was at the palace of Lycaon, the King of Arcadia.

 

Lycaon: king of Arcadia

 

 

Lycaon, the legendary cruel king of Arcadia, an idyllic land of nymphs naiads and dryads and the father of fifty sons, had his suspicions, that the peasant, who had the audacity to drop in on a king, unannounced, was none other than the mighty Zeus; incognito.

Lycaon set about to outwit Zeus, by tricking him into eating human flesh, for the purpose of confirming whether Zeus really was the all-knowing god he made out to be.

The roasted human flesh King Lycaon served up, was none other than that of his own son, Nyctimus!

Zeus was not hoodwinked and in retaliation to this horrific deed, in raging anger, obliterated the Earth with the “Deucalion Deluge”, a terrible flood in Greek mythology, similar to the story of Noah and his Ark.

He killed the remaining sons of the king with lightning-bolts, transformed king Lycaon into a werewolf and brought Nyctimus back to life.

So was king Lycaon the first werewolf?

 

  A twist in the wolf’s tale

 

 

Was this myth about king Lycaon, a smoke screen, meant to shift the attention of the ancient Greeks away from the alleged dastardly goings on at Mount Lycaeus (Wolf Mountain) the tallest peak in the Arcadian countryside ?

According to the Greek philosopher, Plato (Republic, Book VIII), a mysterious festival; The Lycaea, involving secret rituals which included human sacrifice and lycanthropy (taking the form of a wolf), took place every nine years, most likely around springtime.

 

 

The ancient Festival of the Arcadian Lykaia

 

In Ancient Greece The Lykaia was a festival, held for male adolescents, celebrated on the slopes of Mount Lykaion, “Wolf Mountain”, the highest mountain in Arcadia, where secret rituals were performed, including cannibalism and maybe even werewolf transformation (lycanthropy).

 

The Arcadian cult of Zeus Lykaios

 

 

As reported by Plato, people gathered on Mount Lykaion every nine years to pay homage and to make sacrifices at the altar of Zeus Lykaios, meaning “Zeus the Wolf”, the name given to Zeus by his cult in the city of Lykaia.

The plate of the day offered up at the Festival of the Arcadian Lykaia, was tasty, tender morsels of animal flesh but with a catch; concealed within the animal flesh was one solitary scrap of human flesh.

Whoever was unlucky enough to unknowingly consume the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf and his only chance to be reunited with his human form, was to refrain from eating human flesh for the next nine years.

In other words, meaning until the next Festival of the Arcadian Lykaia came around again.

 

 

Pausanias, Greek geographer and travel writer of the second century AD, hints in his writings, that the rituals were still practiced in his time.

Pausanias also spreads more light on the dubious shenanigans of Mount Lykaion with his descriptions of The Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios.

 

The Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios

 

 

The sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios, on Mount Lykaion in Arcadia, was one of the most famous shrines dedicated to Zeus in all of ancient Greece.

All types of big shots, athletes and religious pilgrims, made their way to the ancient Festival of the Arcadian Lykaia, to pay their respects and show their faithful devotion to the mighty Zeus.

Our trusty ancient traveler, Pausanias, describes how the sanctuary stretches down onto the lower mountain, leading to a hippodrome and stadium; the venue  for the Lykaion Games, held every four years, in honor of the Greek’s greatest god; Zeus.

Thanks to Pausanias, we have an idea of how the layout of the Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios must have appeared in ancient times.

We can imagine the open-air altar; a mound of earth, which took pride of place on the highest peak of the mountain, surrounded by a holy area, or temenos and the rituals performed there, we can see, in our mind’s eye, how the Peloponnese stretches out below, for as far as the eye can see.

Pausanias writes:

  “In front of the altar there are two columns towards the rising sun; the gilded eagles on them are even older than the columns. At this altar they offer a secret sacrifice to Lykaion Zeus. I could see no pleasure in pursuing inquiries about this sacrifice; let it be as it is and was from the beginning.”

 

The open-air ash altar of Zeus

 

 

We invariably think of ancient Greek altars to be constructed from stone, however, the altar of Zeus at Lykaia was no more than an ancient ash heap, consisting of bones which had piled up over the hundreds of years of sacrifices to Zeus.

Close by to the ash-heap was a temenos, a piece of land separated from the rest, cordoned off from common use and dedicated to kings, chiefs or gods; a sanctuary, a forbidden place in which, it is said, all creatures, human and animal alike, cast no shadow.

 

 

 Pausanias held the common belief that anyone entering the temenos would have to be sacrificed and even if they weren’t, they would be dead within a year anyway.

 

Excavations and discoveries at the Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios

 

 

The first archeological excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios, were carried out in 1897 by K. Kontopoulos, for the Greek Archaeological Service, later, between 1902 and 1909, K. Kourouniotes would continue the work

A circular altar of blackened earth about 1.5 meters in height and 30 meters in diameter (as described by Pausanias) and its nearby temenos – sacred forbidden places, were discovered which proved there was definite cult activity at the Lykaion altar from the late 7th century BC.

 

 

Excavation of the earth and ash of the altar revealed burnt stones, small animal (cow and pig) bones, pottery fragments, iron knives, clay figures, coins from Aegina, a clay figure of a bird, two small bronze tripods and small statues of Zeus holding an eagle and a lightning bolt.

Diggings around the Hippodrome and stadium, unearthed two stone tablets with inscriptions of the names of winning athletes who participated in the Lykaian Games, which were held every four years between 320 and 304 BC.

Further excavation in 2007, uncovered pottery fragments and signs of activity in the ash altar showing it to have been used as early as 3000 BC.

More recently, archeological digs, point to prehistoric human activity at the altar site, suggesting it to have been in continuous use from the Late Neolithic period until the Hellenistic era.

 

3000 year old human skeleton discovered

 

 

In 2016 a three thousand year old skeleton of an adolescent boy, thought to be a victim of human sacrifice, was discovered; he is missing part of his skull but was carefully buried in a stone-lined grave.

The discovery of the human skeleton is of great importance to David Gilman Romano, co director of the excavation.

Up until now, only animal remains had come to light, the human skeleton gives credit to the tales of ancient Greek writers, including Plato and Pausanias, which mention the practice of human sacrifice happening on Mount  Lykaion.

 

Modern day shaggy wolf stories

 

 

In most werewolf stories, people only seem to turn into wolves when there’s a full moon.

Doctors at Australia’s Calvary Mater Newcastle hospital, decided to look into this belief that a full moon brought out the beast in man.

Their study found, that of the ninety one violent and strange behavioral incidents, that occurred at the hospital between August 2008 and July 2009, twenty three percent of the cases happened during a full moon.

It is unclear why patients attacked staff in a wolf-like manner, using behaviors such as biting, spitting and scratching but why not blame it on the full moon and werewolves, as people have been doing for centuries, in order to explain the inexplicable?

 

How to become a werewolf

 

 

If you dive deeper into silly superstitions about werewolves, you’ll find that dancing around under a full moon, is not the only way to become one.

The simplest way of all, is to take off all your clothes and replace them with a wolf skin, where you might come across a wolf skin is another matter.

Then of course, there are magical potions and creams with which to anoint your body, then, just sit back and watch that fur grow!

 Drinking rainwater out of the footprint of a wolf or from specific bedeviled streams is also said to do the trick.

 Another sure way to become a werewolf, is, on certain Wednesdays or Fridays, sleep outside on a summer night, with the full moon shining directly on your face.

 

Infamous Werewolves

 

 

Down through the centuries, most of the “wannabee”, or suspected to be werewolves have actually been serial killers.

 

Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun

 

In 1521, Frenchmen Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun had supposedly made a pact with the devil, who had presented them with an ointment, which when rubbed all over the body, turned them into wolves.

 They were both accused of brutally murdering several children, to which they both confessed.

They were consequently burned to death at the stake, which, by the way, was thought to be one way to kill a werewolf.

 

Giles Garnier

 

Giles Garnier, otherwise known as the “Werewolf of Dole,” was another sixteenth-century Frenchman, who, believe it or not, also claimed to have an ointment with magical wolf-morphing properties.

Giles Garnier, again, as with Burgot and Verdun, viciously killed children but went a step further and ate them.

 He too was burned to death at the stake for his crimes.

 

The Bedburg Werewolf

 

Peter Stubbe was a rich, fifteenth-century farmer from Bedburg in Germany, who, by all accounts, became a werewolf as soon as darkness fell, when he would then go on a killing spree.

Stubbe came to be convicted for the savage killings of men, women and children, after hunters claimed they saw him change from wolf into a human.

He was executed after confessing, under torture, to killing animals, men, women and children and eating their remains.

 Stubbe also professed to having in his possession, a belt, which when worn, gave him the ability to transform into a wolf.

Whether these murderers were mentally ill, intoxicated or simply cold-blooded killers didn’t matter, for the superstitious Europeans of the 15th and 16th century, only a beast such as a werewolf was capable of committing such horrendous acts.

 

Watch out watch out there’s a werewolf about

 

 

Today, werewolves are nothing more than pop culture horror icons, made famous thanks to the 1941 Hollywood film; “The Wolf Man”:

Larry Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr. returns to his home in Europe, where, after he is mysteriously attacked by a wolf after an encounter with some gypsies, he is cursed to become a werewolf every time a full moon rises.

“The Wolf Man”, opened up the way for a whole slew of werewolf films, notably “The Howling” (1981) and “An American Werewolf in London”, also released in 1981.

Just be on the safe side, in case werewolves are not only figures on a silver screen, beware if you meet someone with eyebrows which meet across the bridge of their nose, have curved fingernails, low-set ears and walk with a loping stride.

According to Greek folklore, these are the signs of a werewolf!

 

Related Posts:

The 10 Most Wicked Witches of Ancient Greece

The Siren: Legendery Creature of Ancient Greece

Good Demons Vs Bad Demons in Ancient Greece

The Fates and the Furies – The Moirai and the Erinyes – Fate Vs Destiny in Ancient Greece