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THE ORIGIN OF THE WEREWOLF SUPERSTITION.[1]
[1] NOTE.—After the author had written the following article, she gathered most of the material contained in the notes. That the origin and development of the use of masks as given in the Annual Report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, p. 73 fol. (see note 32) is similar to the origin and development of the werewolf superstition itself, as given in the following pages, was an unexpected coincidence. The author has italicized some words in the quotations.
The belief that a human being is capable of assuming an animal’s form, most frequently that of a wolf, is an almost worldwide superstition. Such a transformed person is the Germanic werewolf, or man-wolf; that is, a wolf which is really a human being.[2] So the werewolf was a man in wolf’s form or wolf’s dress,[2] seen mostly at night,[3] and believed generally to be harmful to man.[4]
[2] According to Mogk, in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie III. 272 _wer_ means “man,” found in Old Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Old High German, and werewolf a man in wolf’s form. Kögel connects _wer_ with Gothic _wasjan_ “kleiden.” “Darum bedeutet _werwolf_ eigentlich Wolfsgewand úlfshamr; ähnlich bedeutet vielleicht _berserkr_ Bärengewand,” therefore werewolf according to Kögel means a wolf’s dress. See also Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde.
[4] Encyclopaedia Britannica, XV. 90 fol., 1883:—Beastform in mythology proper is far oftener assumed for malignant than for benignant ends. See note 52.
The origin of this werewolf superstition has not been satisfactorily explained. Adolf Erman[5] explains the allusion of Herodotus[6] to the transformation of the Neurians (the people of the present Volhynia, in West Russia) into wolves as due merely to their appearance in winter, dressed in their furs. This explanation, however, would not fit similar superstitions in warm climes. Others ascribe the origin of lycanthropy to primitive Totemism, in which the totem is an animal revered by the members of a tribe and supposed to be hostile to their enemies.[7] Still another explanation is that of a leader of departed souls as the original werewolf.[8]