Werewolves

mythological human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature

A werewolf (Old English: werwulf, "man-wolf"), wolfman, or occasionally lycanthrope, is a creature found in folklore, a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a wolflike creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or scratch from another werewolf) with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon.

German woodcut 1722

Quotes

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  • WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.
  • Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."
  • The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy.
  • A domesticated girl that's all you ask of me
    Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy
    Moon's awake now, with eyes wide open
    My body is craving, so feed the hungry.
  • I'm going to repay you for betraying me; I'm going to give that brain of yours a new home in the skull of the Frankenstein monster. As for you Strauss, I'm going to give you the brain of the wolfman so that all your waking hours will be spent in untold agony awaiting the full of the moon... which will change you into a werewolf.
  • He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amok in Kent.
    Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair.
    You better stay away from him! He'll rip your lungs out, Jim!
    Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor.

See also

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  •   Encyclopedic article on Werewolves on Wikipedia
  •   The dictionary definition of werewolf on Wiktionary
  •   The dictionary definition of lycanthropy on Wiktionary
  •   Media related to Werewolves on Wikimedia Commons