mallory: not sure what more you need me to say? his wife made him a werewolf. for 7 years. what's not clicking
OH HEY I KNOW THIS
this is a thing its a whole trope theres bisclavret and william of palerne and melion, men being turned into werewolves by spiteful women is a whole trope but this specifically based on duration and who hes hanging out with this is probably a melion adjacent werewolf knight, so he will have been married to a witch who wanted rid of him and to keep her wealth and status so she turned him in to a wolf with magic and he started his own wolfpack and ran around defending his woods and parlayed with king arthur as an equal before eventually defeating the curse and becomjng a landed knight
Yes! Technically Melion's wife doesn't transform him through her own power as he has the ability before with the ring. She leaves him trapped in that form though. Here is the section on Melion from my copy of The Werewolf in the Ancient World:
In the Picard French Lai de Melion (c. AD 1190–1204) the transformation of King Arthur’s knight Melion into a wolf and back again is dependent upon a magical object. One day, when he and his wife, the daughter of the King of Ireland, are hunting together, she sees an enormous stag and declares she will never eat again unless she has some of it. Melion shows her his ring, with a red and a white stone. He tells her that if she touches him on the head with the white stone when he is naked, he will turn into an enormous wolf, and thus be able to catch the stag and bring her some of its flesh. The red stone will transform him back. He begs his wife to guard his clothing. The wife duly transforms him, in a process which is a physical ordeal for him. As soon as he begins to chase after the stag, his wife, though hitherto seemingly completely loyal and loving, turns tail, rides off with Melion’s squire, and takes him back to her father’s court in Ireland. Melion returns from the hunt with the meat to find his wife gone, and himself accordingly trapped in wolf form. After some adventures, he is adopted, as a tame wolf, by his own Arthur, and he comes to share his food and drink. When Arthur takes him along with his retinue to visit the Irish court, he attacks the squire, now living there. Since this is out of character for the wolf, Arthur forces the squire to explain the beast’s actions, and he reveals all. The Irish king makes his daughter surrender the magic ring, which he passes to Arthur. Gawain persuades Arthur to accomplish the transformation in a private room, for the sake of Melion’s shame. Arthur puts the ring to his head, and he is transformed back to a man, face first, before being covered with a cloak.
