The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of lycanthropy being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.

The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until well after 1650, the final cases taking place in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.

[2][3][4] An alternative reconstruction, *wazi-wulfaz ('wolf-clothed'), would bring the Germanic compound closer to the Slavic meaning,[2] with other semantic parallels in Old Norse úlfheðnar ('wolf-skinned') and úlfheðinn ('wolf-coat'), Old Irish luchthonn ('wolf-skin'), and Sanskrit Vṛkājina ('Wolf-skin').

[3] An Old Frankish form *werwolf is inferred from the Middle Low German variant and was most likely borrowed into Old Norman garwa(l)f ~ garo(u)l, with regular Germanic–Romance correspondence w- / g- (cf.

*dlaka, "animal hair", "fur"),[2] can be reconstructed from Serbian vukòdlak, Slovenian vołkodlȃk, and Czech vlkodlak, although formal variations in Slavic languages (*vьrdl(j)ak, *vьlkdolk, *vьlklak) and the late attestation of some forms pose difficulties in tracing the origin of the term.

[21]In the second century BC, the Greek geographer Pausanias related the story of King Lycaon of Arcadia, who was transformed into a wolf because he had sacrificed a child in the altar of Zeus Lycaeus.

Pausanias also relates the story of an Arcadian man called Damarchus of Parrhasia, who was turned into a wolf after tasting the entrails of a human child sacrificed to Zeus Lycaeus.

[32] In prose, the Satyricon, written circa AD 60 by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs.

Famous examples include Gerald of Wales's Werewolves of Ossory, found in his Topographica Hibernica, and in Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperiala, both written for royal audiences.

Gervase reveals to the reader that belief in such transformations (he also mentions women turning into cats and into snakes) was widespread across Europe; he uses the phrase que ita dinoscuntur when discussing these metamorphoses, which translates to "it is known".

Pseudo-Augustine, writing in the 12th century, follows Augustine of Hippo's argument that no physical transformation can be made by any but God, stating that ...the body corporeally [cannot], be changed into the material limbs of any animal.

While Baring-Gould argues that references to werewolves were rare in England, presumably because whatever significance the "wolf-men" of Germanic paganism had carried, the associated beliefs and practices had been successfully repressed after Christianization, or if they persisted, they did so outside of the sphere of literacy available to us.

[54] As late as in 1853, in Galicia, northwestern Spain, Manuel Blanco Romasanta was judged and condemned as the author of a number of murders, but he claimed to be not guilty because of his condition of lobishome, werewolf.

This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche; werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India,[46] as well as werepumas ("runa uturuncu")[56][57] and werejaguars ("yaguaraté-abá" or "tigre-capiango")[58][59] in southern South America.

[61] This is argued against by Woodward, who points out how mythological werewolves were almost invariably portrayed as resembling true wolves, and that their human forms were rarely physically conspicuous as porphyria victims.

Lycanthropy can also be met with as the main content of a delusion, for example, the case of a woman has been reported who during episodes of acute psychosis complained of becoming four different species of animals.

The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whomever it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.

It is most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves, except for the fact that it has no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), is often larger, and retains human eyes and a voice.

[46] Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described).

In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his or her face.

Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad, have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Before the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the corpses of werewolves, if not destroyed, would return to life in the form of wolves or hyenas that prowled battlefields, drinking the blood of dying soldiers.

[66] Among the South Slavs, and among the ethnic Kashubian people in present-day northern Poland, there was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark, or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shape-shifting abilities.

Belief in the loup-garou present in Canada,[70] the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan,[71] and upstate New York originates from French folklore influenced by Native American stories on the Wendigo.

In Haiti, there is a superstition that werewolf spirits known locally as Jé-rouge (red eyes) can possess the bodies of unwitting persons and nightly transform them into cannibalistic lupine creatures.

[72] The claim that the Beast of Gévaudan, an 18th-century wolf or wolflike creature, was shot by a silver bullet appears to have been introduced by novelists retelling the story from 1935 onwards and not in earlier versions.

Count Dracula stated in the novel that legends of werewolves originated from his Szekely racial bloodline,[80] who himself is also depicted with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf at will during the night but is unable to do so during the day except at noon.

The main werewolf of this film is a dapper London scientist who retains some of his style and most of his human features after his transformation,[83] as lead actor Henry Hull was unwilling to spend long hours being made up by makeup artist Jack Pierce.

[83] Sympathetic portrayals are few but notable, such as the comedic but tortured protagonist David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London,[87] and a less anguished and more confident and charismatic Jack Nicholson in the 1994 film Wolf.

[89] Werewolves are often depicted as immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects, such as a silver-tipped cane, bullet or blade; this attribute was first adopted cinematically in The Wolf Man.