Famous Werewolves

LYCAON


Stories of men turning into beasts go back to antiquity. In parts of ancient Greece, werewolf myths, stemming from prehistoric times became linked with the Olympian religion.
Lycanthropy (werewolfism) was named for Apollo Lycaeus, "Wolfish Apollo," who used to be worshipped in the famous Lyceum or "Wolf-temple" where Socrates taught. Apollo was mated to Artemis as a divine Wolf Bitch at Troezen, where she purified Orestes with the blood of nine sacrificial victims. Pausanias said Apollo was originally an Egyptian deity, deriving his name from Up-Uat (Ap-ol), a very ancient name of Anubis.
In another myth, Lycaeus, or Lycaeon, was a Pelasgian wolf-king who reigned in a nine- year cycle as spouse of the Ninefold Goddess, Nonacris. Lycaon, decided to trick Zeus. He fed Zeus a banquet of meats in which he had included human flesh. Zeus became incensed and turned Lycaon into a wolf, but allowed him to keep his human mind so to be always aware of his doom.
In Arcadia, Mt. Lycaeus was the place for the cult of the Wolf-Zeus. Every year, gatherings took place at which the priests were said to prepare a sacrificial feast that included meat mixed with human parts. According to legend, whoever tasted it became a wolf and could not turn into a man unless he abstained from human flesh for nine years.
Virgil said the first werewolf was Moires, spouse of the trinitarian Fate goddess (Moera), from whom he learned secrets of magic, including the necromantic knack of calling up the dead from their tombs. Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves. In the novel Satyricon, written about year 60 by Gaius Petronius, one of the characters recites a story about a man who turns into a wolf during a full moon.
The Roman Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthus' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then, if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former shape. Probably the two stories are identical, though we hear nothing of participation in the Lycaean sacrifice by the descendant of Antaeus. Herodotus in his Histories tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia were annually transformed for a few days