SUMMA DÆMONICA BIBLIOGRAFIA

BYSTRICKY 2015 (7SDB2018)

Peter Bystrický

„The image of the werewolf in medieval literature”, în

Historický časopis, vol. 63, nr. 5, 2015, pp. 787-812. (pdf.)

Abstract

The subject of the study is the transformation of humans into wolves in medievalchivalric romances, rhymed tales (lais), educational works, Norse sagas, Russianliterature and Serbian folk songs. The medieval idea of a werewolf was anatomi -cally an ordinary wolf, but it retained human memory, mind, habits and upbring-ing. People, almost always men, became wolves either voluntarily with help from magic, wolf skin or enchanted objects such as rings, or involuntarily whensomebody cursed or betrayed them. In medieval chivalrous literature, the traitor was always a woman, either a malicious wife or jealous step-mother. One of the conditions for a werewolf’s return to human form was clothes, a motif alreadyfound in the antiquity. Werewolves with cyclical transformations hid their clothes, because without them they would remain wolves  until the end of their lives. Thedetails of transformation into wolves in the Primary Chronicle, Russian heroic  poems (byliny) or Serbian folklore are not known, but the circumstances indicate that this ability was attributed to wizards and heroes.