What is a werewolf?
A: In folklore, a werewolf is a human with the ability to shapeshift into a
wolf.
The werewolf is a widespread concept in what?
A: European folklore, existing in many variants.
What is lycanthropy?
A: The supernatural transformation of a person into a wolf, as recounted in
folk tales.
From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also
spread to what?
A: The New World.
Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the
belief in what?
A: Witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern
period.
Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of
supposed werewolves emerged in what is now what?
A: Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) in the early 15th century.
It spread throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the
17th and subsiding by when?
A: The 18th century.
During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy
(transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of what?
A: Wolf-riding or wolf-charming.
The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant
peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily
where?
A: In French-speaking and German-speaking Europe.
Where did the phenomenon persist the longest?
A: In Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until
well after 1650.
The European motif of the devilish werewolf devouring
human flesh harks back to a common development during what?
A: The Middle Ages in the context of Christianity, although stories of
humans turning into wolves take their roots in earlier pre-Christian
beliefs.
Their underlying common origin can be traced back to
what?
A: Proto-Indo-European mythology, where lycanthropy is reconstructed as an
aspect of the initiation of the kóryos warrior class.
A few references to men changing into wolves are found
in what?
A: Ancient Greek literature and mythology.
Herodotus, in his Histories wrote that the Neuri, a
tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were all what?
A: Transformed into wolves once every year for several days, and then
changed back to their human shape.
In the second century BC, the Greek geographer
Pausanias related the story of King Lycaon of Arcadia, who was what?
A: Transformed into a wolf because he had sacrificed a child in the altar of
Zeus Lycaeus.
Pausanias also relates the story of an Arcadian man
called Damarchus of Parrhasia, who was turned into a wolf after what?
A: Tasting the entrails of a human child sacrificed to Zeus Lycaeus.
He was restored to human form 10 years later and went
on to become what?
A: An Olympic champion.
This tale is also recounted by whom?
A: Pliny the Elder.
Werewolves were said in European folklore to bear what?
A: Tell-tale physical traits even in their human form.
These included what?
A: The meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved
fingernails, low-set ears and a swinging stride.
One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form
was to cut the flesh of the accused, under what pretense?
A: That fur would be seen within the wound.
A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be
recognized by what?
A: Bristles under the tongue.