Of werewolves and wolf moons
The more we learn about the nature of wolves, the less we should fear that half of the monster.
Look up to the sky tonight and, if it’s clear, you’ll be treated to the first full moon of the year. It goes by several names across different cultures, but one of the most popular is the Wolf Moon. The origin of this name is a bit of a mystery, but according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it’s because wolves were often heard howling around this full moon.
Historically, wolf howls were taken as a sign that the animals were hungry, which was cause for concern if you hadn’t locked up your goats or were out in the dark on your own, but this sensible concern morphed into a more sinister belief as well. The belief that the full moon triggered men to change into shaggy-furred, huge-fanged, slavering monsters. Werewolves.
The idea of werewolves has its origins in ancient Greek and Roman texts. Ovid’s Metamorphoses was the first, in which Zeus transformed the king, Lycaon, into a wolf as punishment for trying to feed him human flesh. A little later, Petronius’ Satyricon told the story of Niceros, who witnessed a man turning into a wolf by the light of a full moon (after stripping naked and urinating in a circle around his clothes, which turned to stone as he transformed). The werewolf was wounded while attacking sheep and this wound revealed the man’s true nature when, the next morning, he returned to human form.
It was in Europe’s Middle Ages that the idea became particularly prevalent. This was a time when people fervently believed in heaven and hell, and when bad or strange deeds were readily explained by witchcraft, demonolatry, or other supernatural influences. In this cultural context, werewolves were thought of as real creatures: typically men, they were often thought to have made a pact with the devil, a crime that was taken extremely seriously. Take the infamous case of Peter Stumpf, a farmer in Cologne who was known as ‘The werewolf of Bedburg.’ In 1589, facing torture, Stumpf confessed that the devil had supplied him with a belt that allowed him to turn into a ‘greedy, devouring wolf.’ Under its influence, he admitted killing fourteen children and two pregnant women, and having sexual relations with his daughter. Of course, no belt was ever found, but Stumpf was made an example of: strapped to a wheel, he was skinned alive with hot pokers, beaten until his bones were broken, and then decapitated. There are reasons to think that the brutality of Peter’s death was shaped by other interests - see here for more - but his trial and punishment are still testament to the level of fear held by communities about werewolves.
In the other direction, there were also wolves that were brought to ‘justice’ for being werewolves. The most famous (and bizarre) is the wolf of Ansbach, a ‘werewolf’ that killed livestock and terrorised citizens of the Bavarian town in 1685. The townspeople believed the wolf to be the reincarnation of their vindictive, dead mayor, and the animal was hunted down. The baffling events that followed are described by Edmund P. Evans, who wrote the definitive book on animal crimes and punishment in 1906:
With great difficulty the ravenous beast was finally killed; its carcass was then clad in a tight suit of flesh-coloured cerecloth, resembling in tint the human skin, and adorned with a chestnut brown wig and a long whitish beard; the snout of the beast was cut off and a mask of the burgomaster's features substituted for it, and the counterfeit presentment thus produced was hanged by order of the court. The pelt of the strangely transmogrified wolf was stuffed and preserved in the margrave's cabinet of curiosities as a memorial of the marvellous event and as ocular proof of the existence of werewolves.
As a zoologist, my interest lies in the wolf’s characterisation as the evil part of the monster. The whole idea of the werewolf is that once the person transforms, they lose their human side; they are driven only by the red mist of the wolf within and its bestial urges for slaughter. Wolves have long been cast as villains (e.g. many of Aesop’s fables, including the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing), and so perhaps it was an easy step for Ovid and others to use them as the evil creature that overruled the human brain. But what’s the truth of this characterisation? Werewolves are fictional (sorry to the 7% of respondents to a 2022 US YouGov poll who believe them to be real), but what if some mad scientist somewhere did manage to create a bizarre mashup of human and wolf: what would it actually be like?
This is where science comes in. To really know the wolf, we need to study it, and fortunately a wealth of research exists. What’s more, it points towards our chimera having some extremely favourable traits. For example, in one study, conducted by scientists at the Wolf Science Center at the University of Vienna, wolves and dogs were tested for their ability to cooperate on a task that required both to pull a rope at the same time. Wolves were very good at this, even when a delay was introduced so that one animal had to wait for its partner to arrive before pulling. Dogs, on the other hand, well, see for yourselves…
Wolves are extremely social animals (‘lone wolf’ is a misnomer), and they have strong family values. Their packs aren’t seething hotbeds of conflict for alpha status; rather, they’re family groups - the alpha pair is just mum and dad. Within their families, they are closely bonded and cooperation is key to their success: for hunting (as it allows them to take on things like moose and bison, which a single wolf could never manage), defending their territory, and babysitting. Wolves work together for the good of their pack, just like Kipling said.
They hunt other animals because they’re apex predators and they need to survive, not because they revel in the act of killing. There’s no evidence that wolves cheat their victims, nor that they torture other creatures before they kill them. As pursuit hunters, they work together as a family to chase down the very old, very young or injured individuals in a herd who are too weak to survive the chase. Even then, they often go hungry - studies have found that, on average, only 14 per cent of attempted hunts are successful.
Wolves can pose a threat to people, particularly in countries like India and Pakistan, where they’ve been forced into uncomfortable proximity with human settlements and can contract rabies from feral dogs. Here, annual wolf-related fatalities number the hundreds. Yet, even this doesn’t make them evil, for the simple reason that a wolf is not a person. Humans created the terms for what constitutes moral behaviour and therefore only humans have the capacity for immorality - our rules have no relevance to the lives of other creatures. As I wrote in Aesop’s Animals, regarding Aesop’s portrayal of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing:
We need to remember that we created these stories about the wolf by channelling our own fears and behaviours into them: we created the ‘Big Bad Wolf’ as the antithesis of all that is good in our world. It’s the darkest form of anthropomorphism.
In fact, there’s no scientific evidence to suggest that wolves are anything other than highly loyal, cooperative, intelligent predators, who work hard to survive and put the family at the heart of all that they do. In other words, wolves demonstrate many of the qualities that we hold in high esteem in our own societies, and few of the negative traits that have been associated with them over centuries of persecution.
Given that we are living in a world dominated by human greed and thirst for power, and marked by wars, disease, poverty, and destruction, it’s time to stop thinking about the werewolf as a creature ruled by its animal side. Like wolves, our evolution was built on enhancing cooperation, and we are capable of the greatest acts of kindness, generosity and altruism. Our capacity for giving and caring for people that we do not know or may never meet is unparalleled in the natural world. But we’re a species of extremes, and we also intentionally inflict terrible suffering and cruelty on others. Again, no other animal comes close in this regard, including wolves.
So, look up to the moon tonight, and if you happen to hear the soulful howls of a (were)wolf, consider that in this melding of man and beast the wolf only provides the hardware: the sense of smell; the strength and stamina to chase; the claws and teeth to kill. When it comes to the depraved mind of this monster, it could only ever reflect the dark side of humans.
Facts of the fortnight
Over my last two weeks of research, these facts have stuck in my mind:
Turkey vultures can be used to identify gas leaks. In the 1930s, engineers noticed that the birds congregated around pipeline leaks, because ethyl mercaptan, the odorant added to natural gas to help people smell it, is also a key compound in the odour of carrion. E.g. Smith & Paselk, 1986.
Next time you suffer a nasty wound, you may be patched up with a dressing containing greenbottle maggots. During ‘larval therapy’, the maggots eat infected tissue and neutralise any bacteria in the wound, providing an effective alternative option to antibiotics - essential when antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Summary article here.
Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster? In a 2018 YouGov survey of 3830 UK adults, 14% said ‘I do’.
#NaturePhotoADay
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see that late on New Year’s Day I decided to set myself the challenge of starting a nature related Project365 (this year, #Project366), meaning I have committed to sharing one nature/outdoors photo every day for the whole of 2024. You can follow along on Instagram if you like, but I share my favourite from the previous fortnight here anyway.
This time, a cheery photo of a female blackbird taking a break from guzzling berries. Alas, no waxwings spotted yet, but I’m enjoying the incredible photos I’ve been seeing of them from all around the UK. Have you seen any?
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Loving the intertwining of nature, mythology and interesting scientific facts!