Werewolf Lore

Because you need something to stop the monster from previaling and most of the readership with suspend disbeleif for this one?

Silver goes well back into werewolf lore. It is about purity. Moons are tidal; studies show the full moon effects plants, animals and nature--so it actually adds a believable quality.

However, I've read a number of books that do not follow this cliche line of reasoning. They should have a wider variety of source facts, though:

1) Winter, statistically, is the time of year when most werewolf sightings have been reported.

2) There are a number of ways to become a werewolf--exchange of fluids (any fluids), Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Bastard child of a priest, a magic girdle, sleeping next to a powerful wolf, drinking from a powerful wolf's pawprint, a pact with the devil or wearing of a ceremonial skin.

3) Legends of werewolves are so widespread that only areas that have never heard of a wolf don't have them; they have werecats.


I also find it STUPID to have a rave full of werewolves. Hmm, better seeing and smelling but not hearing...duh.

Most forms of lycanthropy were created by Lilith, the Daedra Lord of Nature, who has been engaged in a quest for the ultimate predator for at least the last 12,000 years.

The usage of silver bullets is Hollywood myth, a were creature (wolf, lion, bear, spider, etc) is in liege with demons and can be turned and killed using traditional demon bane methods.

Smiles
Bob

fullbookjacket said:

Just curious as to why so many horror writers insist on being bound by the whole silver bullet, full moon canon. That stuff was not traditional werewolf lore, but was cooked up by Universal Studios for its 1941 flick, The Wolf Man.

Good stuff, to be sure, but nothing to base an entire mythos on.

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Everything old is new again. It worked for the Lone Ranger, might as well use it for The Wolf Man.

I don't use any of it in my tale, and I'm still meeting resistance. I don't even use the term "werewolf" in my manuscript. But I guess the meaning is implied.

Tri

Probably for the same reason that "Santa Claus" is that round, rosy cheeked fellow -- a REALLY successful marketing campaign, in this case, a series of old movies.

And, once they are as ingrained in the public conscience as these are, you go against them at your peril. Doesn't mean you can't. Just means you have to bring your best chops to the task, you know?

One other note: Veinglory's point is a very important one. Before you discount the whole silver thing, I should think you would want to make sure you've come up with "bad guy limitations" of your own.

Obviously, the silver bullet is a myth created by werewolves. Why would they give away the secrets that might kill them?

Yes, Campbell describes belief in werejaguars. Shapeshifting and all that.

That stuff takes me out of the story completely, it's so cliche it borders on caricature. I think the mythos for any monster, be they vampires or werewolves, have to change with the times. The most successful werewolf stories, to me, reinvent the figure somehow, they makes them relevent and plausible again.

In my own werewolf tale I used silver but avoided the full moon. And some of my werewolves have grown a slight immunity to silver just to make things harder.

I think the beast of Gevaudan was supposedly killed with a silver bullet. But as far as I know at that time (18th century?) silver was considered sort of generic repellent against all evil, and a werewolf was only one theory for what the beast was.

Kristiina said:

I think the beast of Gevaudan was supposedly killed with a silver bullet. But as far as I know at that time (18th century?) silver was considered sort of generic repellent against all evil, and a werewolf was only one theory for what the beast was.

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The silver combines the purity of smelting with Christ being betrays for 30 pieces of silver.