The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves (7 page)

The neighboring country was ruled by a kind and wise king. That night, as the wolf arrived, he overheard a conversation that this king planned to hunt and catch the wolf-king immediately. The wolf-king was greatly troubled, as he did not wish to bring harm to so honorable and kind a man as this king was said to be. Still having the sound mind of a man, he soon came up with a plan.

 

The next day, the wolf-king hid as the king’s hunting party passed by. Once the king was in view, he calmly walked up to him and began to circle his legs and lick him gently, as would a tamed, domesticated dog. The king was so impressed that he told his hunters and bodyguards to hold their weapons. When a large stag came into view, the king commanded the wolf-king to fetch it. The wolf-king killed the stag and returned it to the king’s feet. The king, being a wise and honorable man, knew that this was no ordinary wolf and decided to bring the wolf-king to stay with him in his castle. When the king had to go away on a long journey, he left the wolf-king behind to guard his queen. The queen refused to have the wolf near her unless it was chained. Therefore, the king had a gold chain constructed and fastened to the bed-ladder. Against the king’s order that the wolf only be chained at night, the queen left the wolf chained up at all times.

Unfortunately, it would appear that both kings had the same issues with women. The king’s wife was having an affair with one of the king’s serfs. She brought him into their bedchamber, barely paying any attention to the wolf-king. Seeing what was happening and realizing how this woman was so much like his hated ex-wife, the wolf-king went mad, broke free, and mauled the serf, almost killing him. However, out of loyalty to the king, he did not harm the queen. Soon the ruckus brought the castle’s servants to the room. The queen, not wanting to be exposed as an adulteress, claimed that the wolf had eaten her infant son and that, while trying to save the boy, the serf had been terribly hurt by the wolf. The servants took the serf to a guest room. While they were gone, the queen locked her young son away so that no one would ever know that she had lied about the infant’s death.

 

When the king returned, the wife told him her concocted story. Being a wise man, the king refused to believe it immediately and pondered the matter for days. The whole time, the wolf-king remained calmly by his side. Soon, the king realized the wolf was nudging him a certain way, and he decided to follow. The wolf-king led him to the catacombs of the castle, where the queen had their son locked up. The king found the baby alive and well. He now knew that the queen was lying about their son’s death and, therefore, likely was lying about the wolf’s actions as well. The queen refused to speak, but after a bit of “coaxing,” the serf was more than happy to admit the truth of their affair and of the wolf’s actions.

One day, just by chance, the king brought the wolf with him to the neighboring country where the wolf-king had once ruled. The people now lived a wretched existence under the tyrannical rule of the foolish young man who had been made king when he’d married the wolf-king’s deceitful ex-wife. There the honorable king learned the truth of what had happened to the wolf and discovered the method of his transformation. He then located the sapling and returned the wolf-king to normal by striking him on the head with it and saying, “Shape of a man, mind of a man.” The wolf-king returned to his human form.

The newly restored king divorced his wife, had her lover executed on the grounds that he was a pagan, and bestowed many gifts upon his new friend, the king of the neighboring country, before returning him to his home.

There is an Armenian belief that any woman who commits a cardinal sin risks being the target of a lycanthropic curse. According to most versions of this belief, this especially applies to women who commit cardinal sins such as adultery or murder. A dark spirit will visit the woman in the night and demand that she put on a garment of wolf skin. For unspecified reasons, the woman is unable to refuse the spirit’s commands. Once she has put on the garment, the curse turns the woman into a wolf for exactly seven years.

Upon this transformation, the woman is overcome by the desires of the wolf. These animal urges take over, and her human nature is consumed by them. Desire overtakes reason, and she will first turn on her own children if she is a mother. After eating her own children, night after night she will turn on the children of her relatives. Once they have been eaten, she will make all of the other children in the village her nightly prey. Locking doors is useless, since it is said that any lock or door will magically open at her arrival.

On the morning of her seventh year in this state, the woman will return to her human form and is allowed to take off the wolf skin.

 

Chapter 4

Therianthropes of the East

You may notice that this chapter is not entitled “Werewolves of the East.” This is because true lycanthropes, as they are generally understood, are not a common part of the mythical lore of the world’s Eastern regions. Wolves are not indigenous to many parts of Asia, which may at least partially explain the absence of werewolf lore in this part of the world. However, there are at least a handful of ancient legends, recent news stories, and mythical creatures from the East that bear some similarities to parts of known werewolf lore and are worth mentioning.

The fate of the people of Lou Lan is a mystery that has baffled scientists for a great many years. The ruins of this once vast and prosperous ancient city offer little to no explanation as to why the inhabitants eventually abandoned it. The city of Lou Lan is thought to have been founded sometime around 175 B.C.E., and the civilization is known to have prospered for close to eight centuries.

 

No one knows for certain what happened, but most evidence seems to support the fact that, sometime around 625 C.E., the entire city of Lou Lan was afflicted by some terrible, yet still unidentified, cataclysmic natural event. After well over 800 years of prosperity, the people of Lou Lan seem to have vanished overnight. The once-fertile landscape became an unforgiving desert wasteland that now bears the frightening title “Sea of Death.”

 

Some of the artifacts uncovered in the ruins of Lou Lan have given rise to some interesting lore regarding what became of the city’s inhabitants. For example, one artifact is a frightening wooden mask. It is red with a large snoutlike nose and long fanglike teeth. Such finds have led to fantastic urban legends about Lou Lan.

There are some regional legends, for example, that claim the people of Lou Lan were turned into wolves. Some legends claim the people of Lou Lan were cursed for some affront to the gods. Other stories insist that the Lou Lan inhabitants had always been wolves, but had assumed human form in order to reign over a kingdom. Eventually, these stories assert, the wolves grew tired of humans and returned to their wolf forms, taking their blessings of fertility for the land with them.