Howling for the Moon: Werewolves and other Transformation Creatures

I know I like howling at the moon...

As mentioned last week with my post on gore, one of the most common bloody types of gore is transformation and nothing says transformation more than werewolves or other human to creature transformations. It is easy to see why this would cause terror, one minute you’re talking with a good friend, and the next they are trying to eat you. Not to mention on the other side of things, being forced to do horrible things after a major injury you barely survived or a curse brought about by your family history. In either case, it runs into fears of loss of control, change, and betrayal. We will explore these werewolf themed fears today, along with a few other examples of near similar legends, in order to understand the concepts they bring to the forefront and how we can take ideas of fear from these half man, half beast monsters.

Let us first start on the loss of control, for nothing is more important to werewolf legends than that. Once the curse is upon you, you’ll be subject to the whims of the moon, a celestial object already connected with insanity (luna = lunacy). When it is full, you must go hunting and those closest to you are at the highest risk. Yet there are other creatures that have even crueler transformations from Ojibwe folklore that do not depend on the moon, but the weather. Wendigo are created when a man has, due to threat of starvation and death, committed cannibalism. This is often due to cold weather as the area where the Ojibwe are from is deathly cold in the middle of winter. When a man has done this, he is possessed by the spirit of the Wendigo, and is transformed into a beastly creature that is emaciated, with large claws and an even larger hunger. Anything that the Wendigo finds is dinner for the creature, yet no matter how much it eats, it will always be full. Plenty would rather starve, myself included, than become a cursed monster that eternally eats with no more control granted to the man once within.

Change is something we all fear at some point in each of our lives. No matter it going to a new school, starting a new job, or more drastic life changes such as disease or death, we all fear change as it disrupts the norm of our lives. The Selkie of Scotland emphasize this change more than most, though often their change in life is not due to their shapeshifting. Selkie are women who can change into seals by putting on a special seal skin. They usually live carefree lives, swimming within the seas and coming onto land on occasion, but according to a few tales, men have changed their lives for the worse. For if you wish to capture a Selkie, all you need to do is steal her seal skin, and then she has no choice but to follow your commands because she cannot go home to the sea. In these tales, she is often forced to marry the man who took her skin and becomes his wife and the mother of his children. She does what she is told and looks after them, until she one day finds her seal skin of her own volition or is given it by her children who don’t know what it is. As soon as she has it though, she leaves for the sea, never to return to her captive land life. The tragedy is that while sirens and mermaids will often doom the men that approach their waters, the Selkie are kind hearted creatures, so to kidnap one like in these stories is to change into a monster yourself.

Then there is the betrayal, the betrayal of your friend or the person you just met that suddenly turns into something monstrous and harms you. An odd version of this betrayal comes from Brazil in the form of the Encantado, a river dolphin that shapeshifts into a man. These creatures cause a betrayal of a different kind than the werewolf would pull off, as their goal when they go on land is to find a partner. When they transform into men, they will put on some clothes including a straw hat to hide their blowhole (which would give them away), and walk to the nearest party. There, they will be the life of the party, able to dance and charm all the ladies at the party, with his favorite leaving with him when the time comes for the Encantado to head back home. What happens to her depends on the legend, sometimes she and the Encantado have sex before he leaves for the water, leaving her alone with a child in her belly. Others tell of a slightly darker tale, that she is kidnapped and taken to their underwater city where she lives with him, and if she escapes, she is often bearing his child. Much like the Selkie, the human women in these stories are often helpless against their captor as he often has seductive powers. In some cases, when she is finally found, she is nearly dead. Such is the price of loving an Encantado.

These themes, echoing across different stories, are often told as a reason to be wary of strangers and odd people, not to mention the Wendigo's very specific morale of not eating other people even when food is scarce. Cruel tales like these can easily be used in a horror setting, I for one would like to see the results of having a child of an Encantado, for while people claim it will be a normal human, will it really? Let me know what sort of ideas these legends give you in the comments below and tell me your favorite transformative horror tales. I can’t wait to hear them and I will see you next Food Thursday.