Since ancient times, the spectre of the lycanthrope, a creature half-human and half-wolf, has haunted the imagination of many peoples. From the sand dunes of Belgium to the icy Siberian wastes, tales of werewolves abound, striking terror into the hearts of their listeners. Some say the monsters inherited their powers, others that they drank from particular rivers; some say they are always men, others that women and children can be werewolves too.
What is a werewolf? To this there is no one very satisfactory reply. There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature and classification of werewolves, their existence is so keenly disputed, and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints, that any attempt at definition in a restricted sense would be well nigh impossible. The word werwolf (or werewolf) is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wer, man, and wulf, wolf, and has its equivalents in the German Wahrwolf and French loup-garou, whilst it is also to be found in the languages, respectively, of Scandinavia, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan Peninsula, and of certain of the countries of Asia and Africa; from which it may be concluded that its range is pretty well universal.
"Even he who is pure of heart,
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms,
And the noon is full and bright."
So runs an ancient rhyme describing the risk run even by good and honest people of becoming werewolves. What Vampires are to Transylvania, werewolves are to Northern and Western Europe. The werewolf legends may have sprung from myths of the Norse gods who were said to change into animal forms, such as the bear and the wolf. Later, during the 16th-century witch-hunts, the idea that a witch could change into a wolf was grafted on to the list of creatures-toads, cats and hares- whose forms witches were said to assume. In his human form, it is not easy to distinguish a werewolf from a Vampire, since they share many characteristics. These include eyebrows that meet, claw like fingernails, small ears that may be slightly pointed and hair growing on the palms. But there is one slight difference: a werewolf's third finger on each hand is supposed to be as long as, or longer than, the second finger. Transformed, the creature appears either as an extra large wolf, moving on all fours, or as an extremely hairy biped, retaining recognisable, although particularly repulsive, human facial features and clawed hands. In either of these shapes, it tears out the throats of its animal or human victims and then devours the flesh raw.
Internal Hair
In 16th-Century Italy, it was believed that some werewolves grew hair internally, and in 1541 at least one suspect died under the scalpels of his examiners. England's unpopular King John, who reigned from 1199 to 1216, was said to have been a werewolf. A Norman chronicle describes how monks, hearing sounds from his grave, dug him up and took his body out of concentrated ground: 'Thus the ill presage of his surname Lackland was completely realised, for he lost in his lifetime almost all the domains under his suzerainty, and even after death he could not keep peaceful possessions of his tomb.' There are many ways in which man may become a werewolf. The medieval churchman Gervase of Tilbury said that stripping naked and rolling in the sand under a full moon was an effective method. But in Italian folklore, being conceived at the time of a new moon or simply sleeping outdoors under a full moon on a Friday is enough to create a Vampire. In Ireland, St Patrick is said to have cursed an entire clan who displeased him by their lack of faith; every seven years, they turned into werewolves. Some European legends say that drinking from a stream from which a wolf has drunk, being bitten by a rabid wolf or simply eating the wolfbane plant will cause the transformation. The methods used to deal with werewolves are equally varied. French-Canadian lore advocates an exorcism by speaking the name of Christ, or calling the werewolf three times by his true Christian name. In France, it was said that the loupgarou, as the werewolf was known, could be defeated by taking three drops of blood from the creature during its wolf period. But by far the best-known method of freeing a human from the curse of the werewolf is to shoot the creature with a silver bullet, preferably consecrated silver, such as a crucifix from a church.

Were-leopards
Practically every nation has its lore of were-creatures. In Africa, some primitive people believe in men who become were-leopards, in Asia the were-tiger is feared by the superstitious, and Scandinavians believed in people who hunted as bears. Strangely, some of these weird stories may be founded on fact. Odd cases, fortunately rare, have been reported of people who believed they were animals, and who attempted to drink blood and eat raw flesh; this condition is known as Zoanthropic paranoia.