Does a dead werewolf become a vampire?

[Nesacat]

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?

 

[j d worthington]

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.)

 

[Nesacat]

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.

 

[hermi-nomi]

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*

 

[Hawkshaw_245]

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.

 

[CarlottaVonUberwald]

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)

 

[BookStop]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[Nesacat]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[steve12553]

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?

 

[cornelius]

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

 

[kyektulu]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[Nesacat]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[j d worthington]

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.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

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.