# Does a dead werewolf become a vampire?



## Nesacat (May 31, 2006)

At the recent Eastercon in Glasgow, I bought by book edited by Brian J Frost entitled Book of the Werewolf. Mine's the 1973 edition and it's stories basically span about 130 years.

Anyway the curious bit is in the foreword. I'd always thought and read that a werewolf can be killed is shot by a gun loaded with silver bullets.

However, in Frost's foreword, he says that according to folklore dead werewolves become vampires.

Have not been able to find anything else that says this but am not extremely curious as I am fond of both the werewolf and vampire.

Any ideas anyone?


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## j d worthington (May 31, 2006)

Got to admit, that's a new one on me. Certainly Baring-Gould never mentions anything of the sort in his _Book of the Werewolf_, nor does Montague Summers in his _The Werewolf_ (nor do I remember anything of this in Dudley Wright's _Book of Vampires_ nor John Fiske's _Myths and Myth-Makers_). I've not yet read Summers' _The Vampire: His Kith and Kin_, though I have it set aside to read soon; if anything shows up there, I'll let you know. Pronzini doesn't mention it in his essay on the werewolf in his anthology _Werewolf: A_ _Chrestomathy of Lycanthropy_. Perhaps this was folklore limited to a certain region; but I'd think someone else would have picked up on it. It's an interesting idea, but I see serious problems with it. And weren't vampires usually formed by either a) suicides or other persons dying without the pale of the church (in Europe, anyway); b) infernal bargains (which was also originally the idea in Christian Europe with werewolves, I believe, though earlier, pagan origins are much different); or c) they were originally evil spirits or elementals (or things in that general category) and their victims might themselves become enthralled and become vampires in their turn post-mortem (lamias, some views of Lilith, and the like).

If you come across anything to substantiate this, I'd like to hear about it. Sounds like an interesting book, at any rate.

(Oh, and as for the silver bullets thing, that, I believe, was the invention of Kurt Siodmak when he wrote the original screenplay for Universal Pictures' _The Wolf-Man_ with Lon Chaney, Jr.; as was the "Even a man who is pure in heart...." verse. In earlier stories, the werewolf was killed by anything from a wound by a sword -- Petronius' _Satyricon_ -- to simple lead bullets to just about anything that would kill a human or animal. Its only advantage was -- occasionally, anyway -- speed and sometimes ability to heal quickly from non-lethal injuries, as in George W. M. Reynolds' _Wagner the Wehr-wolf_.)


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## Nesacat (May 31, 2006)

Have been looking around too both online and in all the books me and friends have and there's nothing yet. It is an interesting idea though and I would very much like to know how to came up. Ummm ... Wikipedia mentions it but needs a citation to back this as well.

Yes, it does contradict all the known vampiric lore and throws a spanner in the works of werewolf lore too.

Yes, have discovered that the silver bullet is not part of werewolf lore at all and seems to be as you say a creation of Hollywood. But then again they also had the vampires in the Blade movies being quite allergic to silver.


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## hermi-nomi (May 31, 2006)

This isn't really an answer as such. Yes the 'dead werewolf into vampire' is a new one on me too. But I do think I've heard something similar before. Not that that's any help as I think I heard the idea on a TV documentary thing about two years ago ~ and I haven't a clue what it was.

A lot of the more 'accepted' legends for vampires and werewolves (as far as I'm aware) do come from Hollywood because that is where all the various conflicted folklores have been condensed. And as far as I know, Hollywood took alot of its vampire 'history' from Bram Stoker. And I got the idea about there being loads of old folklores from the above TV programme (probably on Channel 4)

Terry Pratchett illustrates the problem of a multitude of folklore solutions in... umm Carpe Jugulum. I've been trying to find the exact extract on  http://www.lspace.org/books/index.html ~ but I can't.
Anyway  ~ SPOILER ~ Nanny and  Agnes want ways of killing vampires and we find out the vampires in ...Stoz can be killed by ...shoving a lemon in the mouth and cutting their head off. Elsewhere vampires can be killed by shoving carrots in their ear ~and cutting their head off ...

Sorry that doesn't exactly help *embaressment*


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## Hawkshaw_245 (May 31, 2006)

I've never heard of such a thing. I'd wager this is merely the author's own spin on the folklore.

Vampirism, in every case I've ever heard of, in ficiton and folklore, is carried by the bite of a vampire.  The same with lycanthropy. I see no reasonable cause for a dead lycan to resurrect as a vamp.

In the 'Underworld' films, it was suggested someone bittten by both species, vamp and lycan, would die.

RE: Silver bullets....

In many arcane beliefs, involving myth and magic, silver appears as a pure substance that is harmful, if not lethal to a variety of evil beasties.  I see silver bullets as merely an update of that.


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## CarlottaVonUberwald (May 31, 2006)

ok....there are two ways to kill a werewolf...if you burn them so there is nothing but ashes left they die also if you kill thme as you would a conventional organism but using a silver murder weapon.

aalthough theoretically... you could vampirise a werewolf....but... as a creature must be alive then killed and vampirised by the bite it would be a vampire/werewolf comnbination ( i would assume)..unlikely but i would assume plausible ( assuming of course we say the creatures them selves are plausible)


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## BookStop (May 31, 2006)

In John Michael Greer's _Monsters An Investigators Guide to Magical Beings, _under the vampire heading _The Authentic Vampire _it says, 'According to the authentic sources, to become a vampire, it's enough to be a werewolf, practice sorcery, be excommunicated by whatever church is standard in the area, or commit suicide; no bite is necessary.'

I quickly scanned the rest of the vampire and werewolf sections, but that is the only reference to werewolves becoming vampires.  Interesting to think about though.


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## j d worthington (May 31, 2006)

As I've stated earlier, I've not come across this in any compilation of actual folklore sources I've read, so if anyone has some citations of such sources, I'd be very interested in reading them, as this is entirely new to me. I also think that -- with the concept being carefully thought out -- it could make for a very interesting novella/novel.


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## Nesacat (Jun 1, 2006)

What would happen though if it were true ... does the werewolf then stop being a werewolf and become a vampire?

Oh does he continue to turn into a werewolf but is also now undead? Would the means of killing one now be the same as that used to kill vampires?

Would it have all the powers usually attributed to vampires?

Have been looking everywhere I can think off but no one seems to have an explanation and no one seems to have used it in a story either.

I agree that it would a very interesting tale though if well worked out.


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## j d worthington (Jun 1, 2006)

Well....  I can see different scenarios on this. One idea may be that, as a werewolf is an unnatural creature (in most accounts, anyway), it already is in that shadowland so that it may not be able to die a "natural" death and find peace, but returns as a vampiric entity. Then again, perhaps this is one form of damnation and such a being would go through various others (vampire, zombie, ghoul, what have you) as a sort of purgatory or hell (purgatory in that, if it overcame its instincts in that phase, it would be cleansed; hell in that, if it failed to do so, it would be condemned to that phase until "killed" and then find itself in the next, increasingly difficult phase (for instance, how much of the will would remain in a zombie phase? and if none, wouldn't that forever damn it?)

Perhaps it would begin as a weaker form but, if it "fell", as its tendency to evil increased, so would its powers. Silver bullets might slay a werewolf, but it might take something else (perhaps silver in another form, perhaps something entirely different) for each of the other forms?

Also, as for how this all originated, it could be a reversal of the fact that, according to some sources (including Stoker) a vampire can itself be a shape-shifter and become a wolf, or rats, or a mist....

Just some thoughts on the subject.


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## steve12553 (Jun 1, 2006)

I see a lot of speculation and a lot of trying to establish authority in this thread as to what is true and what is created by Hollywood, but remember the nature of the beast(s). "Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain." "What if " is a beautiful thing. It is what has kept me sane (kinda) for most of my life. The ship that showed up in London with all aboard dead did have a wolf escape to land as soon as it docked and we all know what that was about, don't we?


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## cornelius (Jun 1, 2006)

I'm working out a little plan about "undead stalkers, skeletal warriors, vampires and demon carriers"  and how one could evolve into the other, but I haven't figured it out yet


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## kyektulu (Jun 1, 2006)

*I have never heard of Lycons becoming Vampires before... 
As a lover of folklore and mythology I think it is just one persons explanation of the 'existence' of the two beings. 
The legend of werewolves and Vampires span centurys and although I have read much text on them both this is one aspect I have never come across.... I dont believe it. *


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## j d worthington (Jun 1, 2006)

I think that's the point, really. As Kye says, according to the original folklore, which I think was Nesacat's point, I don't remember ever having come across this before, and I've read quite a lot of folklorists on the topic. Also, as I recall, they originated in different regions, didn't they? The vampire dates back to Sumeria, I believe, while the earliest tales of lycanthropy that I'm aware of begin showing up in Greece quite a bit later. I know that shape-shifters are scattered throughout most cultures, and take the form of one of the most familiar predators of that region, but werewolves _per se_ began with Greece, were (sort of) systematized by Roman culture and blended with a Northern European version which was of a bit darker, more savage cast, and in fact the origin of the words for this shape-shifting in the North (according to several scholars, anyway) are from the same root as berserker.

As far as what one does with such things in one's own fiction -- of course that's open; though even if staying with some of the traditional views, there are so many different takes on such beasties that it leaves a fair amount of leeway. It's just that, to my knowledge, the claim by the writer that this idea is _from folklore_ seems to be without basis -- not that the idea itself is without merit.


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## Nesacat (Jun 2, 2006)

Have just finished an old story called The Werewolf of Ponkert by H. Warner Munn (1925) and it's quite a curious tale.

In it a man kills a werewolf that runs with a pack headed by something they call "Master". In return the man is forced to take the dead werewolf's place. Apparently there need be 7 members. The Master bites him through the big vein that runs just inside his elbow and drinks the blood. He faints, has what he thinks are fever dreams of killing and eating his horse and wakes in his own bed.

Several nights later he finds himself being called by the Master and unable to resist, removes his clothes, drops to the floor and becomes a wolf. This is what the story goes on to say: 

"The master had drunk my blood, and the old story that I had never quite believed, to the effect that if a vampire drinks one's blood, he or she has a power over that person that nothing  can break, and eventually he also will be a _wampyr_, was coming true.

"Although I have called myself a _wampyr_, I was not one in the true sense of the word, at the time of which I speak... although we ate human flesh, drank blood ... we did so to assuage our hunger more than because it was necessary for our continued existence.

"We ate heartily of human food also, in the man form, but more and more we found it unsatisfying appetite, which only flesh and blood would conquer.

"Gradually we were leaving even this for a diet consisting only of blood. This, in my firm belief, was all that which the master lived on. His whole appearance bore this out. He was incredibly aged and I believe an immortal."

It would seem that in the older stories at least, there appears to be a strong bond and here ... the gradual changing of one into the other as if the vampire were a sort of higher being.


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## j d worthington (Jun 2, 2006)

Lord, and here I even mentioned the *Tales of the Werewolf Clan,* of which this story was the first, to someone on another post -- been so long (about 30 years) since I last read some of the old stories, I guess some of the information got dumped. Read "The Werewolf of Ponkert" back about 1971, I think; I'd completely forgotten about that.... Thanks for reminding me, even if it does call up questions about my memory! 

However, I'm still not too certain about this being more than Munn's own addition; Munn was a pulp writer who often disregarded folklore for a good yarn -- not necessarily a problem, but not a good guide to existing folklore traditions, either. I've still to come across any authenticated source from folklore; but glad to be reminded of at least some fictional precedent. (Now I'm going to have to re-read Munn again at some point. (And for the person to whom I suggested *Werewolf Clan*, obviously it's Munn, not Manly Wade Wellman, who wrote them; sorry.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Jun 2, 2006)

I am sure I read something to that effect when I was researching werewolves -- but that would have been back in the 1980's when I was writing about my werewolf hero, so there's little chance I'd recall or be able to trace the source.


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## j d worthington (Jun 2, 2006)

If anyone does have an authentic folkloric source, let me know. I'd love to read about this, see how far back it goes, where it's from, etc. Getting new spins on things I've known for so long is always an exciting thing.


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## j d worthington (Jun 5, 2006)

On a somewhat related note, there is a fairly well-known story of the _grandson_ of a werewolf becoming a vampire: "The Shunned House", by H. P. Lovecraft. In this, we have the grandson of Jacques Roulet, of Caude (a real case of someone accused of lycanthropy in 1598, by the way; see John Fiske, *Myths and Myth-Makers*, 1872, p.84 and Sabine Baring-Gould, *The Book of* *Werewolves*,1865, pp. 81-84), one Etienne Roulet (fictional) becoming, after his death, a vampire -- not the usual rising at night to stalk, but nonetheless falling within the older traditions of sending out "emanations" to absorb the life of those still living. For those interested, Jacques Roulet was convicted and sentenced to death, but the Parliament in Paris, deciding he was actually insane rather than involved in diablerie, had him committed to two years' imprisonment in a madhouse.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Jun 5, 2006)

In "The Tomb of Sarah" by F. G. Loring (first published 1900), the vampire first manifests as a werewolf, before she gets enough of her strength back to resume human form.


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## j d worthington (Jun 5, 2006)

Teresa Edgerton said:
			
		

> In "The Tomb of Sarah" by F. G. Loring (first published 1900), the vampire first manifests as a werewolf, before she gets enough of her strength back to resume human form.


Thanks! Where did you come across this, and is it currently available; if so, where?


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## Nesacat (Jun 5, 2006)

Would like to get a copy of it too Teresa ... if it is currently available.

Have read the Lovecraft tale you mention j.d. ... it does seem as if this theme runs through the older tales and not the newer ones.

The Frost collection did have another interesting tale calle Eena of a wolf that turns into a woman when the moon is full.

I would really love to read any proper folk lore on this werewolf into vampire theory though if any come up and I'll post here any that I do find.


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## j d worthington (Jun 5, 2006)

Nesacat said:
			
		

> The Frost collection did have another interesting tale calle Eena of a wolf that turns into a woman when the moon is full.
> 
> I would really love to read any proper folk lore on this werewolf into vampire theory though if any come up and I'll post here any that I do find.



I would appreciate it. Also, if you don't mind giving the title, editor, and publisher of the book that started this, I'd like to look into it. At very least, it sounds like a book I'd very much like. And if "Eena" is not in this one, could you tell me where you read it? And again, thanks for calling this to our attention.


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## Nesacat (Jun 5, 2006)

The book is edited by Brian J Frost and is entitled Book of the Werewolf. Mine's the 1973 edition.  Published by Sphere (London). 

Eena is part of the same collection.  

here's some of what's online ... but none of them gives proper references ... quite frustrating

http://www.arkanefx.com/unpred/were/trans.html
Werewolf and vampire / undead lore become inseparably intertwined in places, a topic more fully covered in vampires. Slav and Greek werewolves were damned to return as vampires after their deaths, and in Normandy a damned person would first eat the winding sheet which covered his face, and then rise. The grave would heave and moan, and amid a foul smell and a phosphorescent glow the undead would take away as a wolf. Again, the role of the wolf as grave-robbing carrion eater appears.


http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D588183&entry=10270
Werewolves and Vampires
In Slavic lore, the werewolf is closely related to the vampire; the name of the Serbo-Croatian Vukodlak vampire means "wolf's hair." Vlokoslak, a Serbian term, and Vyrkolaka, a Greek term, are among the names applied to either a vampire or a werewolf. Many European superstitions about vampires hold that they can shape-shift into various animal forms beside wolves.

In Greek and Serbian lore, werewolves are doomed to become vampires after death.

http://www.playspoon.com/twi/history.html
And what happens when a werewolf dies? Easy: he becomes either a lubin (a French word for wolf shaped ghoul, living on corpses he digs in graveyards) or a vampire. Such fear was so great that special laws were approved to deal with suspected dead werewolves : in Germany and Serbia their corpses were burnt and in Normandy the priests oversaw the beheading of the dead suspects.


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## j d worthington (Jun 5, 2006)

Thanks. I'm going to have to see if I can track down a copy of that.

In connection with the Norman belief, I quote the following:

"It is an opinion which prevails much in Germany, that there are corpses which chew in their graves, and devour whatever lies near them. Some go so far as to say, they may be heard munching, like hogs, with a sort of grunting, grumbling noise.

"A German writer, named Michael Raufft, has writ a treatise upon this subject, which he entitles, *De Masticatione mortuorum in tumulis*. He supposes it to be a certain fact, that dead corpses have devoured their linnen, and whatever else was within reach of their mouths, and that some have even eat their own flesh from their bones. He observes that it is a custom in some parts of Germany to prevent this practice by putting a lump of earth under the chin of the corpse, and that in other places they make use of a piece of money, or a stone, for this purpose, or tie the throat close with a handkerchief. He quotes several German authors that mention this ridiculous custom, and makes extracts from several others, who speak of corpses that have devoured their own flesh in the grave. This work was printed at Leipsick in 1728; and the author frequently refers to another writer, named Philip Rehrius, who published a treatise in 1679, with the same title, *De Masticatione mortuorum*. To the facts he has collected, he might have added the story of Henry Count of Salm, who, being thought dead, was really buried alive. The night after, a great cry was heard in the church of the abbey of Haute-Seille, where he was buried; and his grave being opened the next morning, he was found with his face downwards, instead of lying upon his back, as he had been buried.

"A few years since, a man being buried in the churchyard at Bar-le-duc, there was a noise heard in the grave; and the next day the man, being dug up, was found to have eat the flesh off his arms. This I had from several eye-witnesses. The man, it seems, was stupefied by drinking a great quantity of brandy, and was taken for dead. Raufft mentions a woman of Bohemia, in the year 1345, who devoured half of her burying-linnen. In Luther's time, there was a man and woman, that eat their own bowels in their graves; and in Moravia, a man devoured the linnen belonging to a woman that lay in the next grave."

This is from the *Dissertation upon the Apparitions of Angels, Daemons, and Ghosts, and Concerning the Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, by the Reverend Father Dom Augustin Calmet, a Benedictine Monk, and Abbot of Senones in Lorraine*, as cited by William Scott Home in his article on "The Lovecraft 'Books': Some Addenda and Corrigenda". I've heard something similar several years ago in a documentary on premature burial; apparently it's a fairly widespread belief, or was (may still be, in some areas, for all I know).


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## Teresa Edgerton (Jun 5, 2006)

I came across "The Tomb of Sarah" in an elderly tome of vampire tales I checked out of the library:  _The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories_, edited by Lucius Shepard.  It was published in 1977, so I doubt it is readily available, but of course the Loring story may have been collected elsewhere.

Edit:  I just found it here online http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/loring.html   Although they cite an earlier date for first publication than the anthology does.


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## j d worthington (Jun 5, 2006)

Thanks, Teresa. I recall seeing that one around several years ago, but didn't pick it up, as I had the majority of stories in there. I'll have to see if I can't locate it.


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## j d worthington (Jun 17, 2006)

Read "The Tomb of Sarah" -- quite nice; thanks again for bringing it to my attention. I would argue, however, that Sarah wasn't truly "dead", as she had been strangled, not staked or beheaded; what kept her in the tomb was that mortar or paste laced with the Host, I think. Nonetheless, yes, there's a strong connection between werewolves and vampires, but I think it may, in this case (and *Dracula*) be the other way around: vampires can become wolves at will (or need).


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## Nesacat (Jun 17, 2006)

Read Tomb of Sarah online and it was odd to find a vampire that had not been staked or beheaded and the 'host' being used in the mortar. I thought that was quite an interesting idea. That the host would be able to hold a vampire  across all those centuries. And the dog roses. Didn't know that vampires were averse to those either. 

It would seem that in this case the wolf was a form, she as a vampire could assume and that she was not really a were-wolf. Dracula could assume the form of a wolf as well and he got off the ship in that form. Quite similar to Sarah in the sense that he too would have been weakened by the long voyage. It would appear to be an easier form to assume to maintain.


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## j d worthington (Jun 17, 2006)

Hi, Nesa -- I read your pm before seeing you'd already read my previous post... Yes, I'm not quite sure I'd consider this as a werewolf either, though it's certainly close enough to qualify unless one applies a rather stringent classificaiton (hello, Chris!), which, being the stick-in-the-mud pedant I often am, I tend to do.... Perhaps the wolf form is easier to maintain because, symbolically, it's closer to the animal nature within the human? I realize this is more of a psychological idea, but that does seem to be a thread running through much early religious thought; that those who allow their baser nature to predominate tended to show it in changes in their physiognomy; perhaps the same was true of a vampire? It's a curious thought, anyway. As for the "dog roses" -- I've run across that now and again ... I'd have to drag out the story to make certain, but I seem to remember that has a part to play in either F. Marion Crawford's "For the Blood is the Life" or E. F. Benson's "Mrs. Amworth"; I'll try to get around to reading the rest of this *Dracula Book* in the next week or so, and see if my memory's playing tricks again. If I find any other references to this, I'll let you know. My copy of the werewolf book should get here in the next few weeks (it's coming form the UK) -- so I'll let you know my impressions on that as well. Thanks to both of you for the recommendations!


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## Philip Harris (Jun 19, 2006)

Can't see it happening! The Dogs of Isis and Vie pyres are opposite sides of the same coin. Can't see how one could become the other. They would have  to trade places. Like yin becoming yang and vice versa.


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## steve12553 (Jun 20, 2006)

Philip Harris said:
			
		

> Can't see it happening! The Dogs of Isis and Vie pyres are opposite sides of the same coin. Can't see how one could become the other. They would have to trade places. Like yin becoming yang and vice versa.


 
But isn't that what it's all about. Transformations. Yin becomes yang. Man becomes wolf. Wolf becomes bat. Fantasy does have rules but aren't they evershifting transient things.


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## j d worthington (Jun 20, 2006)

And, despite the scepticism in my early posts on this, the evidence seems to be mounting up that this really is well-grounded in authentic folklore and older, more traditional stories. And here I thought I knew this subject so well.... I love learning new stuff! (even if it's actually old and I was just unaware of it)


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## Philip Harris (Jun 26, 2006)

Another question to consider is weather or not any such transformation is voluntary.


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## j d worthington (Jun 26, 2006)

In the stories I've been coming across lately, it varies. Some have yes, some no. "The Werewolf of Ponkert" I'd class as a no.


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## Jodi (Jun 26, 2006)

Have to say I have heard of this somewhere before - but I can't remember where.  It wasn't in Frost's book so obviously its not a completely new idea


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## creslin_black (Jun 29, 2006)

I think I read something about a Medieval belief in that sort of thing.  Needless to say, it's just one more example of Medieval imagination at work.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Jun 29, 2006)

These beliefs are actually quite rational, IF you proceed from the same set of basic assumptions they did.

And once you accepted that a man could transform himself into a wolf, or a dead man rise from the grave, it wouldn't be a big leap to assume that the werewolf becomes a vampire after he dies. 

Particularly if you considered the similarities.


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## j d worthington (Jun 29, 2006)

And, as we've seen from both medical and historical research (as well as the blending of the two in pharmacopaleontology and archaeology), there were actually good reasons for believing in many of these things; diseases that we didn't begin to understand until many, many centuries later (vampires date back to at least ancient Babylon, and werewolves to probably roughly the same period, though I think the earliest recorded is around Roman times). Hyperpilosity, certain aspects of porfiria, various types of catalepsy, certain poisons that tend to make it difficult to tell someone's still alive without modern techniques, etc., can easily explain many of the origins of the belief in the beings themselves; the various surrounding tropes are a bit more ambiguous, but many of them we've grown up on are Hollywood material, and not based in traditional folk beliefs. So it wasn't so much medieval imagination (as said, these date back much, much further) as it was the lack of knowledge of physics and anatomy and medicine, biology, things that we've only begun to understand within the last 2-3 centuries (remember how recently it became legal to use cadavers for medical schools, once Christianity became the rule with its taboos against mutilating the dead -- or burning, for that matter, thus preventing "bodily resurrection"; much of what the Greeks and Romans had learned about anatomy had been lost during those intervening ages, kept locked away with so much other knowledge in monasteries that at least preserved the knowledge, even if they didn't always add to it -- though sometimes they did). It was knowledge, not imagination per se, but it was knowledge based in a different understanding of the rules of the universe, one they simply could not possibly have known with the tools at their disposal.


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## creslin_black (Jun 29, 2006)

Well said.


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