The Monstrefact: The Werewolf, Part 4 - Ancient Moon

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert continues his series on the werewolf of myth, legend and media with a look at the earliest clear depictions of the werewolf…

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters. In time,
we've been discussing the roots of werewolf traditions, both in

(00:28):
prehistoric human history and in ancient mythology and literature. Based
on my readings, I think it's safe to say that
werewolf traditions emerge from various elements in human history and
the human psyche, taking on different forms depending on time
and location, and most importantly influencing later traditions legends, folk tales,
and of course fictional takes as well. When we look

(00:50):
for specific examples of early or even the earliest literary
examples of werewolfs, it really depends on how narrowly or
widely we refine our search. For instance, the oldest surviving
work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, features the wild
man and possible beast men in Keitu, and there's certainly
some crossover from here into later werewolf traditions, but to

(01:12):
be clear, in Ketu, not a werewolf more interesting as
Daniel Ogden brings up in the werewolf in the ancient world.
The epic of Gilgamesh does feature reference to the goddess
Ishtar having turned humans into various beasts, including a wolf.
Much later, though still ancient to us, Homer's the Odyssey
from the eighth century BCE refers to the witch Circe

(01:35):
transforming humans not only into pigs her specialty, but into
wolves as well. These are both cases of transformative witchcraft,
and while Ogden contends that stories like this certainly feed
into werewolf traditions, we'd be going overboard to single either
out as a true case zero for literary or mythic lacanthropy,

(01:55):
focusing on the importance of temporary and even deliberate transformation
with connection between the two forms. Ogden points to a
tale that is often singled out as the most obvious
werewolf story from the ancient world, one appearing in the
satiricon of Gaius Petronius Arbiter from the late first century CE.

(02:16):
The Latin satire contains a story told by the character
Nicros at a banquet, and it roughly goes as follows.
Back when the freedman Nicros was still a slave he
fell in love with the wife of an innkeeper, and
would sneak off to her whenever he could. One night,
when the master of the house was away, Nicros persuaded

(02:38):
the current HouseGuest, quote a soldier as brave as Orcus,
to accompany him on the midnight journey. Shortly afterwards, they
found themselves in an acropolis amongst the tombs, where the
moon shone down in them like the midday sun. And
then Nicros observed the soldier in a most shocking and
remarkable act. He took off all his clothes, neatly, piled

(03:01):
them up urinated in a circle around them, and then
transformed into a wolf. The wolf howled and ran away,
and when Nekroes tried to touch the clothes that the
soldier had left within the circle of urine, he found
that the clothing had turned to stone. In fear, he
hurried on to see the innkeeper's wife, whose name was Melissa,

(03:22):
and she told him that if he'd arrived earlier, he
could have helped them, for a wild wolf had attacked
their livestock, draining their blood. Before they were able to
drive the beast away with a spear to the neck,
Nicros began his way home after that, passing where the
clothing had been stacked, but finding only splashes of blood there,
And when he finally reached his master's house, he found

(03:44):
a doctor attending to the soldier who had suffered a
grievous neck wound. Now we can easily identify the key
attributes of temporary deliberate transformation with connection between the two forms,
as well as various flourishes that would remain popular in
werewolf fiction up through modern times. Thus it's pretty definitive. Furthermore,

(04:06):
Ogden contends that this one is quote one really good
quirking story, which is key because the tale first and
foremost serves as entertainment with humorous wrinkles concerning the storyteller,
while also somewhat reflecting popular beliefs and the contemporary appetite
for fantastic tales infused with the supernatural. In short, it's

(04:27):
a werewolf story doing what werewolf stories have always done,
and that is entertained. Visual depictions are less definitive as
we often lack the full context of what we're looking at.
Is it a mere wolf, a human disguised as a wolf,
or merely wearing a wolf's pelt. There are various stopping
points before we arrive at full werewolf. Even as we

(04:49):
contend with images tied to known tales, such as the
Satiricon or the myth of Lycaean theory, anthropic figures can
likewise mean various things. Still acknowledging all of this, some
images do read strongly as werewolf, at least to us
Modern viewers across the Gulf of time consider the sixth
century Etruscan pontic plate, which seems to depict a furry,

(05:11):
bipedal humanoid with a wolf's head. The context is unclear,
though probably linked in some way to Hercules and the
centaur depicted elsewhere on the plate. The theoryanthropic figure here
may represent death or the wolf man combination here may
reference the god Faunas, who in Ovid's metamorphosis attempts to

(05:33):
rape Hercules while Hercules is dressed in his lover amphies clothing.
We're reminded in all of this that the werewolf is
a monster. It is a thing, a form that illustrates
various ideas, observations, and comparisons, and any of these ideas, observations,

(05:53):
or comparisons may essentially summon an image comparable to the werewolf,
completely on their own, detached in whole or in part
from any particular werewolf tradition. That's it for now, But
next week we will continue our journey and we will
turn our attention to the female werewolf. Tune in for
additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Anomilia

(06:16):
Stupendium each week. As always, you can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,