Werewolves, Ghosts, and the Dead

Abstract

This chapter traces the persistent association between werewolves, ghosts and the dead in the ancient world. As to werewolves proper, Herodotus’ application of the word goētes to his werewolf Neuri, in addition to saluting their ability to transmute their form, probably also implies that they engaged in ghost- or soul-manipulation. Virgil’s werewolf Moeris is a raiser of ghosts. Petronius’ werewolf story is richly decked out with the imagery of ghosts and the underworld. Marcellus of Side’s medical ‘lycanthropes’ roll around in graveyards, and indeed it would appear to be on the basis of this symptom in particular that the victims of the disease are considered to be werewolves: their projection as such is essentially metaphorical, and they should not be seen as the origin-point or the key to ancient werewolfism. Pausanias’ Hero of Temesa is a ghost or a revenant dressed in a wolfskin, whilst Philostratus’ pestilential beggar of Ephesus, revealed to be a terrible dog in his true form, is also projected as some sort of ghost or revenant.