Skip to main content

Did You See That........

Shapeshifters via crystalinks.com
It seems that the night is full of things that we do not see in the light. And it is those things, that it seems, we have been taught to fear, through the ages. All those bumps and thumps, all those shadows and whispers, even the creaks and moans of the night send shivers down our spines. Why is it that we fear the creatures of the night?

Even older than the tells of vampires and ghouls are the legends of were-creatures or shape-shifters. Creatures that by choice, design or fated curse have the power and or ability to change the form of their appearance. For those that were always shape-shifters the power to change their outward appearance is something they do at will. It seems that they usually take the form of an animal, bird or even sea creature, as suits their needs, at the moment. Those shape-shifters that seem to be merciful and or helpful seem to not take forms that would scare us. Yet, it has been known that others are not so kind.

There are creatures that have been cursed, usually by an encounter with a were-creature, that sentences them to a life of torture and solitude. According to some of the lore, one becomes a were-creature by being bitten or scratched by a were-creature. This of course raises the question of where the first were-creature came from, if you must be bitten or scratched by one to become one.

The Wolfman via The Independent
The most famous were-creature is the werewolf or lycanthrope. There are many legends from the Fox tribe of the Americas to the Epic of Gilgamesh that contain references to wolf-man or man-wolf creatures. In addition, Ovid and the Icelandic Sagas contain the werewolf within their lines. In some stories, such as the Fox tribe lore, the ability of man to become wolf was a gift; however, in other lore, such as with Ovid, it was punishment from the gods for bad behavior.

There are many accounts of persons be tried for being a werewolf. Some of these cases we can now more intelligently reassess as serial killers, which steals Jack the Ripper's fame as the first. And some of these cases were simply the over zealous furor of the witch hunters!

Another theory, as to the origin of the werewolf, is the affliction of rabies in humans that were attacked by rabid animals. There is also the relations between the behavior of the accused and the behavior of animals. Such as in the case of cannibalism. This behavior was one of the confessed behaviors of some of the executed werewolves of the Middle Ages. It was also cannibalism that was the act that punished King Lycaon (the origin of the word Lycanthrope) who offended the gods by serving human meat to them at dinner.

We may never know the true origin of the story, but it seems that if it were merely a tale that it would have lost its appeal by now. So what is the truth that keeps this legend alive? For, I believe there must be some truth, more than just the lure of a good tale, by the fire, in the dead of night, that keeps us looking up at a full moon and peering into the darkness, searching the shadows, for those things that go bump, in the night.....

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Join Us For The Journey

Cassi Merten So while I have not been doing a lot of writing in quite awhile, I have still been doing a lot of reading, research, and following of others' research and theories. I have, also, been working out my next pursuit in my head and on paper, so to speak. I have long thought that the "official" story of humanity has some major contradictions and errors in it. Even as a child, raised basically in a christian'ish belief system, I always had questions about things that made no sense to me or that did not seem to tell the whole story or answer all the questions that I had. Questions like; if Adam and Eve were the first people then why did Cain need to be marked? Didn't ALL the people (his family) already know who he was and what he did? And if everyone was going to descend from Adam and Eve then wouldn't they all know who Cain was already? Of course some versions say that God sent them out to find wives, again if Adam and Eve were the first then where
4 comments
Read more

The Undead.....Things that go bump in the night....

The Premature Burial by Antoine Wiertz One of the most prolific scares of the dark is that of encountering the undead ! The most famous of the undead is the vampire , but, they are not the only undead that lurk in our shadows and imagination. Several happenings caused the vampire to become widespread in history; not the least of which was the fact that people were accidentally burying the living. The methods for pronouncing a person dead were not accurate or reliable....matter of fact, so common was the misdiagnosis, especially, during cholera outbreaks, that a string was tied around the finger or foot of a newly buried corpse and attached to a bell above ground, so that if the person awoke and panicked they could be heard and hopefully dug up in time, giving birth to the phrases "Saved By The Bell" and "Graveyard Shift". Of the other undead roaming in the dark are ghouls and zombies, which seem not to mind the sun, unlike other undead. Ghouls are some of th
3 comments
Read more

Questions Most Pondered

As I stated in my previous post, I have always had questions about the facts that have been taught and that have been repeated over and over again for decades. Facts that didn't seem to make sense when combined with other facts. Or anomalies that got rejected for no other reason than at the time of discovery they were singular or supposedly singular finds. Add to this the arrogance with which modern scholars dismiss past stories as the ignorant imaginings of lesser men, judged such for no other reason than being from an earlier time. Coupled with the dismissing of oral histories and traditions simply because they are oral. And the dismissing of heroes and demi-gods and or times of gods living among men as not factual, more so based on our use and concept of those words than on any true evidence. So as the title implies, I am going to share with you some of my most pondered questions. They are not in any specific order. For I believe that they are all, in their own way, of equ
2 comments
Read more