#folklore fact

[maverick-werewolf]

Revised Werewolf Fact 2, "Full Moon"

October is a great month to revise another Werewolf Fact. This one got a great makeover!

I've heard some people claim that werewolves in folklore have no relation to the full moon or to the moon at all. Some even say they have no relation to night as opposed to daylight, and they pin all these concepts squarely on Hollywood and modern media. I say those people need to do more research.

The revised Werewolf Facts will be shared with my patrons first as I prepare to polish them and publish them in book form. However, I want to make sure everyone knows I'm still doing nonfiction work (especially since I hope to keep everyone excited for my upcoming folklore collection), that Werewolf Facts will return in a big way, and that they will be so much better than they were before - so I wanted to share this one publicly very early!

This is very much a ROUGH DRAFT. This is not yet ready for wide publication (such as in my official Werewolf Facts masterlist and in the upcoming book), and it'll undergo further revisions before I do that. Please remember this is rough and DOES NOT REFLECT EXACTLY WHAT WILL BE FOUND IN THE WEREWOLF FACTS BOOK COMING SOMETIME IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS.

But this is my starting point!

Expect many more updates ahead. And before you ask, yes, I am technically supposed to cite myself if I pull anything from my own works - I'm not being egotistical. Weird, right?

Enjoy!

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The full moon and the werewolf are inseparable. Today, some media tragically shies away from it, ashamed of holding to tradition, yet the iconic imagery of a werewolf howling at the baleful visage of the full moon will always persist in the subconscious mind, as it has for so many ages. So, what is the connection, how old is it really, and where did it come from?

Werewolves being associated with the moon, and specifically the full moon, is an old association indeed. Although perhaps best known for an early appearance in film with the movie Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), the idea of a werewolf turning beneath the light of the moon appeared in stories long before.

One could naturally discuss in depth the age-old concept of moon-induced madness - "lunacy" - and studies and arguments on how the moon phases affect human and animal behavior and aggression levels, not too unlike how they affect the tides. However, I'm not here to dive into those matters; I'm here to talk about werewolves specifically.

Examples abound in folklore and are well-documented by the two foremost werewolf scholars, Sabine Baring-Gould and Montague Summers, as well as assorted folklore stories besides. Associations with the full moon and moonlight existed among, and were not limited to, the Gauls, legends from France, and Italy; an association with moonlight is also alluded to in tales from Russia and ancient Rome. The following is by no means an exhaustive list, but the aforementioned examples will be detailed, as follows...

Beginning with several examples found in Summers' work on werewolves, he states point-blank when discussing several werewolf legends, "In the first place, the transformation is effected in the moonlight" (Summers 155). He goes on to discuss, in particular, a set of tales around Palermo, which is located in Italy...

"In Palermo they say that as the moon waxes to her round the werewolf begins to feel the craving; his eyes sink deep and are glazed (si cci'nvitrianu), he falls to the earth wallowing in the dust or mud, and is seized with fearful writhings and pangs, after which his limbs quiver and contract horribly, he howls and rushes off on all fours, shunning the light, especially (they say in Menfi) torches, candles or lanthorns [sic]. The lycanthrope dashes to and fro, and he will bite anyone whom he may meet in his wild courses. His hideous cries may, however, be heard from afar and all hasten to avoid the wolf-man" (Summers 163-164)

Quite the graphic description of a man turning into a "wolf-man" (interesting quote, as well) under the light of the full moon. And yes, I personally love this quote. This represents, perhaps, one of the most directly classical werewolf descriptions that has survived to this day. We really have to thank both Baring-Gould and Summers immensely for protecting tales such as these from being utterly lost to time.

Not yet done discussing the legends from Palermo, Summers also says, "A certain wealthy man, the scion of a noble house, at the full of the moon was seized with lycanthropy [...] [they] wondered who this dread werewolf might be, seeing that my lord's face and features were so convulsed and hideous lupine as to be unrecognized even by those of his intimacy and own household" (164-165).

These are certainly not every single example Summers gives of a relation between werewolves and the full moon, nor is it every example of a relation between werewolves and the moon, or moonlight itself, in general. Indeed, Summers gives quite a few cases in which werewolves are connected to the moon in more ways than one - but most often by a full moon inducing their beastly transformation, after which they utterly lose control.

Further examples connecting the full moon, and moonlight itself, to werewolves can be found in the single best source for werewolf folklore that still exists: Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves...

Baring-Gould details on page 115, citing the writings of Gervaise of Tilbury in his work Otia Imperalia, “Vidimus frequenter in Anglia, per lunationes, homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulfos Galli vocant, Angli vero wer-wlf, dicunt: wer enim Anglice virum sonat, wlf, lupum."

In my own edition of Baring-Gould's work, I translated this passage as, roughly, “We have frequently seen in England, through means of the moons, men are changed into wolves, a race of men the Gauls call gerulfos, but the English specifically say wer-wlf: for in English wer sounds like man, wlf, a wolf" (115n45).

Similarly, Baring-Gould gives a mention of legends in France: "In the south of France, it is still believed that fate has destined certain men to be lycanthropists—that they are transformed into wolves at full moon. The desire to run comes upon them at night" (119-120). Here, we see specificity about the full moon yet again, and this time from an entirely different region than previous examples.

Also coming from France, Baring-Gould mentions "the Périgord," wherein "[c]ertain men, especially bastards, are obliged at each full moon to transforms themselves into these diabolic beasts" (120).

Though less specific regarding the full moon, Baring-Gould also mentions tales from Russia, saying that one who wishes to become a werewolf (here called an "oborot," meaning "one transformed" [132]), will need to recite an incantation that includes the lines, "On the empty pasture gleams the moon, on an ashstock lying," and, prominently, "Moon, moon, gold-horned moon" (133), as though addressing the moon itself when reciting the spell, asking it for protection and transformation.

In terms of popular culture, the previously mentioned Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) helped bring the full moon and werewolf connection to the forefront with the alteration of the curse from the film's predecessor, The Wolf Man (1941), in which the werewolf rhyme specifies...

Even a man who is pure at heart And says his prayers by night May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms And the autumn moon is bright

However, the werewolf transformation's specific timing was altered in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), in which the rhyme instead says...

Even a man who is pure at heart And says his prayers by night May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms And the moon is full and bright

However, much earlier, in 1935, the film Werewolf of London had werewolves that transformed beneath the full moon, but it is much lesser-known.

Thus, it is quite obvious that a connection has long existed between the werewolf and the full moon. This is not some newfangled concept, and there's a reason they are so endlessly iconic. Indeed, even in the mind of those who do not turn their thoughts often to werewolves, the sight of the full moon may inspire them to recall these sundry legends - as it should be.

Works Cited:

Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves. 1865. Justin & Maegan Stebbins, 2023.

Stebbins, Maegan. The Werewolf: Past and Future - Lycanthropy's Lost History and Modern Devolution. Justin & Maegan Stebbins, 2017.

Summers, Montague. Werewolf. 1933. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino, 2012.

And as always...

Happy Howl-o-ween!

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[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #75 - Cynocephali (dog-headed men)

This month's folklore fact is a long-awaited one from over on the Patreon: the cynocephali or "dog-headed men."

Some depictions of cynocephali (the one above is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493) are mistaken for werewolves fairly frequently; there are several differences of note, including but not limited to the fact that they are otherwise very, very human (normal hands and feet, no tail, etc) and that their ears are not always shaped like a wolf's/pointing directly upright. They often are, however, so don't take the ear shape as a surefire thing, either. When in doubt, make sure the depiction is actually meant to be showing a werewolf before using it for, I don't know, a royalty-free image in your werewolf publication (I've seen several). The cynocephali do not shapeshift, nor are they associated with wolves. They have nothing to do with werewolves. Yes, it was just a plot to make you click this link and read about cynocephali.

Cynocephali, or singular cynocephalus, is a term derived from the original Greek word "kynokephaloi," meaning "dog-headed." They have other names as well, which mean a range of things such as "dog-faced" and "half-dog." They were mentioned in assorted accounts and tales of travelers in Africa and India, appearing in sources as old as ancient Greece, and some similar beings can be found in other cultures, such as China. Likewise, depictions of and discussions of such beings continue into the Middle Ages. This same term was later used to refer to baboons, to which no-fun modern day scholars now attribute all cynocephali legends (although we do have at least one Ottoman depiction of a cynocephalus battling a monkey).

There are many quotes across various sources and time periods about these beings, including but not limited to this one from the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Histories 4. 191. 3 (trans. Godley) [source: Theoi]

"For the eastern region of Libya, which the Nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the Kunokephaloi (Cynocephali) (Dog-Headed) and the Headless Men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous."

Some stories of the cynocephali are also frightfully specific as to how they live, rear livestock, grow fruit, weave baskets, wage war, and much more, even including details of their society, clothing, how long they live, etc. It's all quite interesting. If you'd like to read more specific quotations, you can find many on one of my favorite websites, Theoi.

Sources seem to dispute one another as to whether they bark, do not bark but only howl, only shriek, or whatever other sounds they may make, and there is also a range of descriptions including elements such as if they have beards and whether hair covers their bodies as well as the dog-head. Overall, probably the majority of sources say they wear the skins of animals as opposed to having fur, but there are those that also call them hairy all over.

Please note that I will not be covering/discussing any gods from ancient Egypt in this post, because despite what some modern day scholars like to discuss, I don't consider them "cynocephali." They were wolf-headed deities, not dog-headed (or even jackal-headed), and are overall only related to cynocephali legends by proxy and by modern scholars always putting everything into blasted categories for their next thesis. There were some dog-headed deities in ancient Egypt, and Anubis, Wepwawet, Duamutef, etc, were not among them, and even then, we can't really assert that the dog-headed deities among the ancient Egyptians are actually related to other legends and records of cynocephali.

With that out of the way, let's continue...

One of my personal favorite stories involving a dog-headed man is a version of the tale of Saint Christopher, though these depictions and this tale are not seen as canon by churches and has been proscribed in Eastern Orthodoxy (where such depictions were generally most common). Some of these depictions still survive, however. Some sources believe that Byzantine depictions of a dog-headed Christopher come from mistaking "Cananeus" (meaning "Canaanite") for "caninus," i.e. canine.

In the story about a dog-headed Saint Christopher, there lives Reprebrus (among other variations of his name; ultimately, they all essentially mean "reprobate"), who is captured by Romans in battle and made to serve among them. Reprebrus was said to be of "enormous size," with the head of a dog, said to be typical of his kind. He was later baptized and martyred. However, in another version (this one from Germany), Saint Christopher is depicted as a giant cynocephalus who ate human flesh and performed many atrocities. He meets the Christ child later and carries him across a river, as in tradition (the name Christopher means "bearer of Christ") and repents for his sinful behavior. He is baptized and becomes human, dedicating himself to serving Christianity and became a soldier saint.

There are far more fascinating details in the story than I relayed here in extreme simplicity, but that's a very simple view (the story is actually very specific about different regions and even the unit in which he served).

Other depictions of cynocephali exist in certain Christian traditions, with Ahrakas and Augani sometimes being depicted with dog heads in Coptic Christian tradition, in the life and legend of Saint Mercurius.

Bestiaries also got pretty wild with the creatures depicted therein, many of which were also mentioned in classical sources (such as the Herodotus quote earlier in this post). The image above is from between 1357 and 1371, in a work called The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, or simply Mandeville's Travels, the memoirs of a man who traveled across the Middle East, India, and even as far as China. Medieval bestiaries also recorded all the same creatures shown here: a monopod or sciapod, a cyclops, a blemmy, and a cynocephalus, each different civilizations of beings said to dwell across the world (and often cited in multiple sources over considerable spans of time, which generally cite the same or similar regions for each civilization, which I've always found very interesting).

Mentions of the cynocephali span across centuries, such as in works by scribe Paul the Deacon, a Benedictine monk, and they are even mentioned in the Nowell Codex, a surviving Old English work containing Beowulf (as well as a work of the life of Saint Christopher and Wonders of the East, among others). They are also acknowledged in the works of multiple noteworthy explorers, including but not limited to Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Ibn Battuta, and Piri Reis.

With that, I think that's a decent overview! Hope you enjoyed the post.

And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf/fantasy/adventure/horror/epic] book release later this year!

If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for much more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, book previews, and my other sundry projects and works, such as plushes.

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[maverick-werewolf]

Folklore Fact - Wargs (or vargs or worgs)

Wargs (aka worgs, if you play D&D) handily won the poll for August's folklore fact. What are these giant wolves like, anyway, and are they really all evil in legend?

The jötunn Hyrrokin riding a wolf, on an image stone from the Hunnestad Monument, constructed in 985–1035 AD

As usual, let's start with etymology. The word “warg” comes from Old Norse “vargr” (plural “vargar”), meaning - essentially - "destroyer." Originally, the term is thought to have meant "wolf," but over time, it shifted to refer to criminals (with an inherent negative meaning) instead. Thanks particularly to Tolkien, it is now widely used in scholarship to refer to the various giant wolves of Norse mythology, such as perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying monster in Norse myth, Fenrir (destined to swallow Odin during Ragnarok), along with Skoll (destined to swallow the sun) and Hati (destined to swallow the moon).

Note that this was not the common Old Norse word for wolf. "Varg" came to have a specifically negative connotation, whereas "ulf" (meaning simply "wolf") did not.

There were also plenty of other wargs/giant wolves in Norse myth, often being used as mounts to various gods and giants and other extremely powerful individuals; they were particularly favored of the jötnar, who, despite the simplification in a lot of modern media, were not always universally malevolent and hostile toward the gods. The runestone seen above depicts the giantess Hyrrokin who arrived to assist the gods with shoving off Baldr's funerary ship during Baldr's funeral, as no one else could move the vessel. She arrived riding on the back of a huge wolf so mighty that, after the giantess dismounted, even Odin's berserkers could not restrain it until it was knocked unconscious.

Does this also make Odin’s wolves, Geri and Freki, "wargs" in the modern scholarly concept? That was never really specified. But they are giant, godly wolves, perhaps meant to be the fathers of all wolves everywhere, so… Maybe? In some tales, during Odin's wanderings, Geri and Freki spread their wolf offspring across the world. Thus, it is possible they are simply giant godly wolves rather than specifically "wargs," but it's also possible that mythology wasn't ever planning to be that nitpicky and specific. Odin was, of course, also the creator of the berserkers, which gives him yet another wolf connection.

Going back to etymology for a moment, "ulf" was frequently incorporated into personal names. Wolves were not seen as wholly undesirable in Norse culture; to claim wolves were always seen as "evil" or somehow "negative" is to simplify the concept beyond belief. Wolves were admired for their fabled ferocity, endurance, will to live, voracity, and prowess in battle. Thus, wolves became a symbol of strength and a desirable image for great warriors. Though often feared, this fear is precisely what led many warriors to desire to be like a wolf, for they too desired ferocity feared by those around them. Wolves were a force of nature, an uncontrollable power to be respected (such as the power of the berserkers, again, who themselves were associated with wolves and, despite their connections with the god Odin, were also at once frequently seen as undesirable but worthy of respect), not simply a force of black and white "pure evil." How terrifying they were led to wolves becoming arguably the most powerful and feared monsters in Norse myth, but likewise, it was an image their warriors often wanted to take up and present.

While the majority of named giant wolves from Norse myth are certainly evil, such as Fenrir, what truly popularized the modern concept of the evil wargs in popular culture was - of course - the father of all fantasy and unmatched scholar JRR Tolkien. Likewise, Tolkien popularized the idea of goblins and/or orcs riding giant wolves into battle, no doubt inspired by the jötnar of Norse myth. Obviously, Norse and other myths greatly inspired many elements of The Lord of the Rings. Wargs are no different, but he did of course put his own interpretation upon them - an interpretation that has, like so many of his creations, become staples of many fantasy settings and even the popular mindset.

Whereas wargs in myth are at least semi-divine mounts of gods and giants, the wargs by the Third Age of The Lord of the Rings are mounts for goblins and their ilk. However, the wargs are intelligent and even have a sort of language, one some beings (such as Gandalf, notably inspired to no small degree by elements of Odin, himself) can understand, even if it is an evil tongue and they use it to speak only of evil things, as seen in The Hobbit. In the books, the wargs are often associated with Tolkien's very unfortunate portrayal of werewolves. I won't get into all the details of that. I adore Tolkien and all his works beyond my love for virtually anything else, but I cannot say I love his portrayal of "werewolves," though I do understand them.

So where then do we get this spelling of "worg?" That's entirely Dungeons and Dragons. Oldschool D&D wholesale ripped off Tolkien - which is one reason why oldschool D&D is so great - and had to change some of the terms they used. Balrog became balor, hobbit became halfling, mithril became mithral, etc. The same applies to "warg," Tolkien's term, which became "worg" in Dungeons & Dragons.

So where does this leave A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones, with the "wargs" that are "skinwalkers" who can "warg" (verb) into animals, etc, and see through their eyes? There were plenty of legends out there - from Norse myth and otherwise - wherein people could project their consciousness into the bodies of animals when they slept or otherwise entered a kind of trance (some legends that could be considered werewolves also worked this way), but the term "warg" was never used to refer to such acts.

Ultimately, the modern concept of wargs is yet another major fantasy element that Tolkien alone conceptualized into what it is now in broader popular culture. Yes, it is certainly based on Norse myth, but Tolkien is the one who gave us our popular concepts of them today.

That's it for a general overview! This is a vast topic into which I could delve far deeper, but now you should have some general idea.

If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for much more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, book previews, and my other sundry upcoming projects and works, such as plushes (including all your werewolf and wolf and mythology plush desires). Please also consider supporting me over on Patreon (link at bottom of post); I promise you'll get awesome rewards in return, and every little bit really does help me continue my work.

And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [character-driven werewolf/fantasy/adventure/horror/semi-epic] book release coming THIS NOVEMBER!

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Folklore Fact - Gryphons/Griffins

Gryphons, griffins, griffons, however you prefer to spell it (I personally use gryphon) - let's talk their folklore and mythology!

(Attic pottery depicting a satyr and a griffin and an Arimaspus from around 375-350 BC, Eretria.)

You probably already know the common popular culture concept of a gryphon: a big, vicious beast that attacks people and probably eats them and/or carries people away to its nest to feed them to its babies. Not much about it has changed in legend, though in a lot of popular culture today, it has seemed to lose its divinity. Gryphons - griffins, whatever you prefer - have quite the robust history, like so many creatures of myth and folklore. Unlike some, however, they have changed very little over time.

Note that this article a general overview of concepts, not a detailed history.

Let's start with etymology, because I just love that stuff. The word "griffin" comes from the Greek word "gryps," which referred to a dragon or griffin and literally meant "curved [or] hook-nosed." Late Latin spelled it "gryphus," a misspelling of grypus, a Latinized version of the Greek (source: https://www.etymonline.com/, one of my favorite websites).

Griffins are said to have the head and wings of an eagle and body of a lion. They may or may not also have pointed ears, depending on the depiction (they more often did, overall, though the griffin of Crete is a notable exception). They were said to guard the gold in the mountains of the north, specifically the mountains of Scythia. The one-eyed Arimaspian people rode on horseback and attempted to steal the griffins' gold, causing griffins to nurture a deep hatred of and hostility toward horses.

A Scythian pectoral, thought to have been made in Greece, depicting - among other things - griffins slaughtering horses. Griffins really, really hate horses.

The famous griffin in the palace of Knossos at Crete, from the Bronze Age (restored).

Griffins appear in truly ancient civilizations, not only Greece but also ancient Egypt and civilizations to the east, including ancient Sumeria. Griffins were later said to also dwell in India and guard gold in that region, and they continued to appear in art throughout ancient Persia, Rome, Byzantium, and into the Middle Ages throughout other regions such as France; they were depicted in ancient Greece with relative frequency and occasionally of considerable importance.

Griffins appeared in many ancient Greek writings, including Aristeas in the 7th century BC. Herodotus and Aeschylus preserved and continued these writings in the 5th century BC, including lines such as,

"But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspoi (Arimaspians) steal it from Grypes (Griffins). The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest." Herodotus, Histories 3. 116. 1 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.), source: https://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Grypes.html (a wonderful site)

Physical descriptions of the griffin were not commonplace until some later works, and even then, their appearance wasn't always agreed upon. Even the notion of griffins having wings was sometimes disputed. Some scholars even got pretty wild, claiming griffons had no wings at all but instead skin-flaps that they used to glide. They apparently hated awesome things, so it turns out there were always boring people who thought they knew everything, wanted to explain everything "logically," and generally assume they were the smartest ever while also ruining mystique. They would make great scientists today.

Griffins were, however, often said to be holy in nature. They were referred to as the "unbarking hounds of Zeus" by Aeschylus, who warned others never to approach them. Gryphons were also considered sacred to several gods, including prominently Apollo, who was said to depart Delphi each winter, flying on a griffon (griffin, gryphon, etc, I keep swapping this around, I know; my brain spells it differently because I've read way too many sources), and he also is occasionally depicted as hitching griffins to his chariot in addition to riding one. This was particularly prominent in the cults of Hyperborean Apollo, one of the many endless and fascinating cults of ancient Greece.

Medieval bestiary depiction of a griffin slaughtering a horse.

Even by the Middle Ages, gryphons still hated and slaughtered horses and guarded gold, elements that certainly persisted throughout their legends. They also killed men and carried them away to their nests, similar to the manner in which Aeschylus warned people to stay away from gryphons even back when. We can obviously assume griffons were never cuddly, so that isn't much of a change.

Griffins also did not entirely lose their divine relations even into the Middle Ages. Christianity often used positive portrayals of griffins to represent and uphold certain positive tenets of Christian faith; likewise, they became important symbols of medieval heraldry, used to represent a Christian symbol of divine power, as well as general courage, strength, and leadership, especially in a military sense. The depiction of the griffin as a powerful and majestic creature - killing horses and men or not - throughout its history is no doubt because they are a combination of two beasts often considered noble symbols of bravery, power, and divinity: the lion and the eagle, kings of land animals and birds, respectively.

That's a general overview! As you can see, griffins aren't always so bad, at least not compared to some of the other creatures out there from folklore and myth.

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Folklore Fact - Wyverns

Another month, another folklore fact! Wyverns handily won the poll over on my Patreon this month (be sure to take a look if you'd like to vote in the next one or even suggest all new subjects!)...

(nearly all modern dragon designs seen in visual media, especially film and television but now quite often also video games, count as the traditional British heraldic classification of wyverns, really; see my post here for a discussion of that, although I could expand that post today and discuss things like Monster Hunter, etc, which I didn't really know much about at the time, and even further discuss some of the subjects already therein... Anyway, maybe I'll revise that sometime in the future and improve it)

Wyverns are often described as a dragon with two hind legs, two wings, no forelegs, and a barbed tail. There are varieties, of course; some say the wyvern has the head of a dragon, the legs of an eagle, and a barbed "serpent tail" or simply a long tail with no barb. There are many varieties. Traditionally, at least if you ask English heraldry, the requirement to be a wyvern is that it has no forelegs - unlike the dragon, which has four legs in addition to wings. However, this is a technicality that was obviously not always applied elsewhere, including the European mainland. More on that shortly.

The word "wyvern" is not in itself all that old; it originated around 1600, derived from "wyver" from 1300, so the term is not ancient. Like dragon, it essentially means "snake," though in this case it is derived from "viper." As mentioned, "dragon" itself is derived from "drakon" meaning serpent (and/or "giant seafish") [source: again, one of my favorite sites].

Stamp of Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 - 1676) [source], depicting a wyvern.

There was apparently some discussion around the rise of the heraldic wyvern in England, Scotland, and Ireland regarding what exactly classified a wyvern as opposed to a dragon. In 1610, the writings of John Guillim described a wyvern (then "wiverne") thus: "partake[ing] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs … and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile," and in 1682, John Gibbon agrees that a wyvern specifically has "but" two legs. It is noteworthy that both men in question were officers of heraldry, and these remarks are quotations from book on coats of arms, and thus it was specifically heraldry they discussed.

"Wyverns" as per monsters of myth and folklore were, for most intents and purposes of their time period, referred to as "dragons" and not thought of as their own sort of beast rather than just a variation of dragon for heraldry specifically or even exclusively. Were there any legends about something called a "wyvern?" I haven't found any in all my extensive research on dragon legends, and most all academic sources agree that a "wyvern" is a heraldic creature rather than something you'd find in a bestiary and/or folktale.

As mentioned, depictions of what we today might think of as "wyverns" were not always called "wyverns," of course, especially throughout a lot of Europe (as opposed to Great Britain). Here we see a depiction of what we would now think of as a "wyvern" referred to as a dragon ("drago"), from a work dated 1691, so during the same time period that heraldic wyverns were already being classified as such.

There are also bestiaries and other things that depict two-legged dragons as "dragons" rather than ever referring to them as "wyverns" specifically, and the creatures depicted therein were in fact meant to simply be "dragons." Older eras lacked the picky categorization that exists more recently, particularly myth and folklore. This is why there are no "categories" of werewolf legends, either, for instance, or different "types" of werewolves - except as put on them retroactively by modern scholars.

A "wyvern" from 1380 in the Chester Cathedral in England; given its hooves and head of a man, it isn't exactly a "standard" wyvern.

So, again, the idea of the wyvern as a unique creature as opposed to another sort of dragon likely stemmed from heraldry - which in itself has a lot of unique creatures and specifics, such as the enfield and bagwyn - and specifically heraldry from Great Britain and Ireland, which meant that such defined notions of a wyvern came about in later centuries. There are certainly depictions of dragons and dragon-like creatures without forelegs from other centuries, such as the 1300s, but these are not explicitly as sourced "wyverns" during their own time period. Rather, they are described as such now by people retroactively applying the wyvern concept onto them. Such a concept became common starting around the 1600s, as mentioned earlier with the heraldic writings of Guillim and Gibbon. There are plenty of examples of "dragons" with two legs and, sometimes, even "wyverns" with four legs floating around out there.

But since modernity also thrives on technicality, categories, and specifics, things like D&D for a while there often referred to a "wyvern" as a two-legged dragon (which I personally find preferable, despite my usual aversion to categorization of mythological things) - at least, until a lot of media is today started changing that ever since Reign of Fire in 2003. These days, outside of a handful of fantasy things, like D&D with their older established rules and a few other fantasy games that originated before this sweeping design change occurred, dragons very often have two legs instead of four. I could say a lot more about that, but I won't get into it...

And that covers a general overview on wyverns! Until next time. For June, expect to see a brand new werewolf fact.

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Vampire Fact #14 - Association with Disease

Much like werewolves, vampirism is sometimes referred to now as a "disease" rather than a "curse" (although let's face it, werewolves face that far worse and more often than vampires do; they're often little more than a plague now). How accurate is that to folklore?

Well, it isn't if you're referring to the curse of vampirism itself, but vampires being associated with illness and disease in general - such as plagues of rats, illnesses spreading mysteriously, diseased air, swarms of flies, and many more examples - does indeed have a much older basis... Let's dive right in.

Firstly, just to get this off the table, no, being a vampire was not considered a "disease" in folklore, generally speaking. In fact, vampires in folklore generally came in two types: people who were cursed to rise from death - or demons, individuals that were never human in the first place. Neither of these were considered "diseased" in a traditional plague or illness fashion. The former were, however, considered cursed or even possessed in some way.

However, scholars often like to speculate what caused a belief in vampires in the first place, and much like they do with werewolves, this - especially in the mid to late 1800s - caused an uproar of the belief in vampires existing being attributed to individuals with certain diseases, like porphyria, among many, many others.

It, of course, isn't uncommon for scholars to point to diseases to "explain" and "justify" a belief in monsters and other legends. In later historical periods, especially starting around the 1500s and gaining more traction in the following centuries, perhaps reaching its height in the 1800s but still going on today, it became wildly popular for scholars to come up with all manner of "new" "explanations" for assorted legends and beliefs therein. Vampires are no different; same with werewolves and many other things.

Naturally, if you see an overwhelming amount of scholarship and publications linking something like vampires with disease, you're going to see that leak over into popular culture. That does not, however, make it "folkloric," if I may use such a term. That is to say, during the time periods in which they were believed in according to the legends we're drawing from, being a vampire was not associated with having a "vampire disease" or any disease at all.

Vampires in folklore, in fact, often couldn't "reproduce" or spread their curse. This was not always strictly the case, but by and large, that's a very modern pop culture concept.

That being said, however, vampires in folklore were not infrequently associated with causing disease (unrelated to causing "vampirism") or associated with the presence of disease or the concept of it in general. This doesn't mean a "vampire disease," as in spreading the state of becoming a vampire to others through disease, it means illness.

There are several examples of this...

Firstly, Montague Summers offers some examples in his book Vampires and Vampirism. Summers is one of the foremost scholars on vampires, but more on him another time. He mentions the fact that vampires are often associated with turning into mist, and he draws a connection between them such as...

all mists and gaseous marsh-lights are connected with the belief in vampires and spectres which convey disease. Since the effluvia, the vapour and haze from a swamp or quaggy ground are notoriously unhealthy and malarial fevers result in delirium and anemia it may be that in some legends the disease has been personified as a ghastly creature who rides on the infected air and sucks the life from his victims. [...] Of the same nature is the notion that vampires can command destructive animals and vermin such as flies, and, in the East the mosquito, whose bite may indeed convey some fever to the veins" (198, Summers, Dover Occult; I am not arsing with proper MLA citations for this post)

There are other cases in which vampires are associated with spreading illness, such as Summers mentioning that several vampire victims were killed by the same illness, some becoming vampires, themselves. He also mentions many other cases in which vampires were blamed for causing illness, including in some patients in whom doctors could find no real illness at all - yet the patients still claimed to be sick, sometimes blaming a vampire, and then even wasting away and dying from their mysterious disease.

Matthew Beresford also mentions several other vampires and disease instances in his excellent work From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth, a work I highly recommend. He mentions multiple cases throughout the book, such as how vampires were often blamed for various illnesses and conditions, such as diseases and even less identifiable conditions such as general lethargy.

Something else Beresford mentions is that Dracula, as in the historical Vlad the Impaler (now irreparably associated with vampires, especially in the Western mind), is sometimes speculated to have used "germ warfare." According to Beresford, it's rumored that Vlad paid people infected with illnesses to dress as Ottomans and enter their camps, spreading their diseases. This is just another potential connection between vampires and disease, given popular culture has turned Vlad the Impaler into the infamous Dracula, and we all know how important Dracula is to our modern day vampire concepts. Talk of Vlad using disease in warfare easily could have retroactively led to yet another link between vampires and disease.

We also can look at Nosferatu for another connection between vampires and disease, as in the film, Nosferatu is associated with swarms of rats and plagues heralding his arrival. Of course, Nosferatu is popular culture and even a massive takeoff of Dracula, but it did have some of its own concepts too. Even Nosferatu's appearance can be argued as almost rat-like, with his teeth.

Otherwise, in popular culture, we now associate vampires with bats - specifically vampire bats, of course - also due to Dracula, wherein vampires were popularized as having fangs (not a trait in folklore), like their vampire bat counterparts. Bats are also associated with disease, so there are a lot of things pointing back to the disease association.

So, were vampires in folklore ever directly associated with disease? Absolutely. However, it was not really the disease of vampirism that they spread - it was other illnesses, often linked with plagues of flies, rats, and other vermin, as well as diseased air or mysteriously causing diseases through other means. Being a vampire in itself was not an illness. Like with werewolves, however, labeling vampirism itself as "a disease" is a very later-age concept recently put upon vampires by popular culture. Vampirism was not a disease vampires were spreading - but plenty of them spread other diseases.

In folklore, as with werewolves, becoming a vampire was generally considered a curse of some kind (if the vampire was human in the first place, anyway) or even possession. If the vampire was human, the person would have to die before they could become a vampire, rather than catch a particular illness and not technically die at all.

That's all for this time! See you again next month for more folklore, this time about werewolves once again!

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Vampire Fact #12 - How to Identify a Vampire

I’m back with another vampire fact! In fact, all folklore facts are now back, so expect to see more of these!

The winner of the last vampire fact’s Patreon poll was “how to identify a vampire” (that was a hot minute ago because I had to take a break from these), very much like my previous werewolf fact on how to identify a werewolf.

I won’t be covering pop culture vampires in detail/providing a list of how to identify vampires in pop culture. I’m not so deeply versed in vampire pop culture as I am werewolf pop culture; I only study vampire folklore, not their modern media, unlike with werewolves. I familiar with some of it, for sure, but I’d never pretend to be any kind of expert on broader vampire pop culture.

Please note the following is not to be considered a 100% complete list, as there are many, many vampire legends out there! This is just several of the more “popular” methods of identification and perhaps some of the better-known.

Some Folklore Vampire Identifiers

Pale - There are some stories in which vampires actually are pale in folklore, and in which being particularly pale might be a sign of vampirism.

Reddish or purplish skin - Conversely, vampires can also be identified - especially in Eastern European regions - by having “reddish” or “purplish” skin and perhaps even a swollen appearance. All of this comes from drinking too much blood. It’s basically the opposite of being pale: they look flushed and reddened instead of pallid. This one was not uncommon.

Red eyes - This didn’t always mean red eyes as in red irises, like in a lot of popular culture. Often, it could also mean similarly to the flushed appearance: it meant bloodshot eyes, eyes full of blood. But some might also be interpreted as having red irises, and let’s face it, red irises are very cool.

Unnaturally beautiful - This one isn’t uncommon in legends, either: unnatural beauty. Vampires in many stories seduced their victims, and it wasn’t too unusual for things to get steamy, either. Again with the conversely, though...

Unnaturally hideous - Vampires can also be unnaturally hideous. We’re talking like really nasty, because they’re monsters - often these are the monster vampires, demons, not vampires that were ever actually human. However, sometimes signs of being a vampire could also be just human traits that are considered hideous, such as having a caul, being exceptionally hairy (judgmental much?), etc.

Only comes out at night - This is an obvious one in both popular culture and folklore. Often in folklore, however, vampires also only came out at night because it was the only time they actually left their graves. Vampires didn’t come out only at night because they were burned by the sun in folklore (they actually weren’t!), but because they were nocturnal.

Signs of undeath in coffin - Often, vampires were identified via actually unearthing the coffin and taking a look at the corpse. There were many signs that might show a corpse was actually leaving the grave as a vampire, such as growth of the hair or fingernails, the eyes being open or partially open, blood around the mouth, reddened eyes, or a swollen reddish or purplish appearance, as if the corpse is engorged with blood.

Well, there’s a few, at least! There are so many vampire legends I won’t cover “all” of them until, you know, I write the Vampire Facts book someday (maybe? Werewolf Facts the book is definitely on the way, though). At any rate, be sure to tell all your friends how to find vampires today by reblogging this post!

Oh, and no, fangs are not included in folklore.

Also, if you are curious about vampire weaknesses, be sure to check out my post on that, too, as well as the vampire masterlist (linked at the bottom of this post)!

Until next time!

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Vampire Fact #13 (oh no) - The Importance of Dracula

It's another vampire fact this month! Next month will be a Werewolf Fact again for October, of course, in time for Halloween.

But for now, let's talk about a very important topic when it comes to vampires... the importance of everyone's favorite count: Dracula.

Much like my Werewolf Fact "The Importance of The Wolf Man," this Vampire Fact will discuss the importance of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, published in 1897, and the almost-impossible-to-overstate importance of how it shaped all popular conceptions of vampires afterward - and even retroactively affected vampire legends through scholarship and study.

I want to open by saying that this post is not setting out to discuss the historical context of Dracula itself as a literary work, neither in terms of when/how Bram Stoker wrote it (and to what degree it was influenced by things like Varney the Vampire and John Polidori's The Vampyre), nor in terms of how much it relates to Vlad the Impaler. I am aware of the conversation around Bram Stoker and his work and the many discussions thereof, but that isn't what I'm here to cover today. Right now, I'm focusing only upon the undeniable, massive influence the novel Dracula in itself has had upon vampires in popular culture essentially from the moment it was published all the way until today - and it will continue, as well.

I may, however, talk about all those kind of things in a separate post, as I have spent a great deal of time studying them and even publishing upon them (including an article diving deep into how Polidori doesn't get enough credit overall in vampire study). But more on that later! For now, let's talk about what Dracula did for vampires.

First off, for those unfamiliar with Dracula, you should be. If you enjoy vampires at all and haven't read this book, that's a big blind spot! First of all, you'd enjoy the heck out of it, and second of all, it's the vampire book. That's possibly even worse than having not seen The Wolf Man if you love werewolves (although it's rather hard to say; they're pretty much on par, even if Dracula is considered more important historically, as it's a work of classic literature and movies don't often get that level of respect, which I disagree with).

Tangent. Anyway.

In Dracula, we see the foundational aristocratic, blood-sucking, pale, red-eyed, fanged, clean, finery-wearing vampire with civilized manners (until he suddenly lacks them because he's turned into a monster) - plus he's a count, of course. He lives secluded in his grand castle high in the mountains of Eastern Europe, and he is seeking to rejoin society. Many vampires are/were also influenced by the romantic - twisted or not - angle in the story and Dracula's obsession with one woman. Not everything of Dracula's was picked up by popular culture, of course - primarily what was reused, appearance-wise, were the elements later found in film adaptations. For instance, his white hair and mustache (the latter no doubt influenced by Vlad the Impaler) from the book are generally turned to black hair and clean-shaven, thanks to films that followed. But still, it all started with this book.

The character of Dracula would impact literally all vampires to follow, in some fashion or another. The influence is all-encompassing and undeniable.

Please note that not all of this influence came from the novel Dracula alone - it also comes from ripoffs and adaptations thereof, especially in film, as mentioned. I'm talking things like Nosferatu and all the many Dracula film adaptations thereafter. Some concepts didn't originate in Dracula itself - but they did come from things created from or otherwise heavily influenced by Dracula, so without Dracula, one can easily argue we wouldn't have any of those things, either. Like werewolves with The Wolf Man (1941), a lot of these influences also come from film. Obviously it all originated with the novel and adaptations thereof, however, so the novel deserves the credit, ultimately.

Your average Halloween vampire has the classic Dracula concept; whether one wants to argue it was popularized directly from the book or from later film adaptations, you can't deny the high-collared, well-dressed, tall dark and handsome pale vampire that became ubiquitous in recent decades. You know them, you love them - you've seen them every Halloween and on every bit of vampire merch afterward (except perhaps a few things after the Twilight renaissance, which I also won't cover in this post).

Other than obvious design influences, Dracula and its film adaptations of course influenced the vampire "lore" afterward. Perhaps the biggest impact on vampires is simple: fangs. Vampires in folklore didn't actually have fangs! Dracula completely popularized that. Many more details in the linked post as to where the fangs came from, etc.

What were some other things? Well, other than what I already mentioned, Dracula popularized the association of vampires with various kinds of animals (based in folklore), and it even popularized many concepts about vampire hunters, thanks to the ever-popular Abraham Van Helsing.

What else did it influence? Everything. Weaknesses, as well as how to become a vampire and vampires being a curse that the creature could spread to others, to humans, instead of a demonic being - and even the term "vampire" itself certainly saw a rise in the public eye from Dracula.

In truth, Dracula didn't just influence vampire concepts - it influenced all vampire stories to follow and the entire worlds built around their concepts, both vampires, vampire hunters, the general feel and setting of the stories, the plots themselves - absolutely everything.

Please note too, of course, that Bram Stoker was not a slouch on research. He was very heavily influenced by folklore and elements of history, even if he put his own spin on it and made many additions. The fangs in particular have become just a part of vampires as a whole, concept, image, everything. Without fangs, is a vampire even a vampire these days? Not really, especially in the modern mindset - and let's face it, vampires are made a million times cooler by the fangs.

If you want to read one of Bram Stoker's biggest folkloric inspirations, check out a little book called Transylvanian Superstitions, Scripta Minora by Emily Gerard and Agnes Murgoci. This is a good publication of it, and the one I have always used.

So what do I mean when I say that Dracula retroactively affected vampire legends, study thereof, and scholarship on such matters? Well, it's similar to what happened to werewolves over time. By creating interest in a particular "brand" of vampire, scholars began to scrape and search for legends that fit that "brand." Did they really exist? How many "legends" were retroactively twisted around to suit a scholar's needs/desires and/or how many were just created on the spot from thin air in order to say that the scholar "discovered" a legend wherein, for instance, a vampire has fangs?

This isn't unheard of in scholarship, by any means - especially when it comes to folklore. It's widely known that scholars will do such things, especially when it comes to academic argument. Am I saying I know of any in particular that were spawned from an interest in Dracula?

Not necessarily, but it's certainly true that a lot of scholars and certainly most people in general assume things about Dracula or its spinoffs and adaptations that followed come from folklore, and some even use that when writing their academic work, when in fact they did not. It still pervades across the internet that vampires that don't die in the sunlight are immensely silly and untrue to the folklore. Gosh, how ridiculous! Well, I hate to tell you, but that didn't even originate with Dracula, either, nor did it come from folklore. For more details on where the "burning/dying instantly or quickly in the sunlight" concept for vampires came from, see my previous Vampire Fact on Sunlight.

And that gives you a nice overview, I think! There's so much more to say, but an internet post isn't really the place. I do plan to write some nonfiction publications on this and other topics, because werewolves won't be my only nonfiction books, lemme tell you. Hope you enjoyed the post!

Until next time! But wait, there's more (yes, I really just said that)...

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