A lot of people assume they know what werewolves are. And at one time I thought I knew. Or I thought I did until I started doing research for the Jordan Abbey Series.
Almost every culture on earth has a mythology about people who are able to transform themselves into animals. To lay some parameters, I’m going to talk mostly about Western European myths. I don’t have the right or knowledge to speak on non-Western cultures, although I am have a very minimal understanding of some of their shifters.
Let’s start with the very basics. What is the first thing that you think of when you think of a werewolf? Most people picture something roughly human shaped, usually coded male, covered with fur, and with a wolf’s head. It transforms involuntarily at the rise of the full moon. It has a deadly weakness to silver. And you can thank pop culture for that image. Because when you do research, how you become a werewolf gets really, really interesting.
How interesting? Here are some of the options
- Drinking water that gathers in a wolf’s paw print.
- Applying magical ointments.
- Wearing a wolfskin belt.
- Being born on Christmas Day
- Being cursed by the gods.
For my werewolves, I decided to play with the curse option. Only it’s not the humans who are cursed, or at least no directly. The Wolf, or the first werewolf, participated in a crime that involved the death of one of the first humans. And as a punishment, she was turned into one. But because she showed contrition, she was allowed to regain her wolf-shape on the nights of the full moon. Unfortunately, the curse was passed down to her children.
Or at least that’s what my werewolves tell themselves.
Next question – how do you kill them? Silver bullet, right?
Again, that’s not quite as simple. Or it actually is.
There are references to silver bullets as far back as the 18th century, but they used to kill all supernatural creatures. The idea that silver is the werewolf’s specific weakness was popularized by screenwriter Curt Sidomak and the move The Wolf Man (1941). He wanted something explain why the villagers couldn’t kill hapless Larry Talbot earlier. So he had Sir John bludgeon the werewolf to death with a silver-headed cane.
Before that, killing werewolves was similar to killing wolves for the most part. There were a few exceptions. The Beast of Gévaudan, a man-eating animal purporting to be a wolf, was shot by the hunter Jean Chastel in 1767. Some people claim he used silver bullets. Other claim he was able to shoot the Beast because he was wearing a blessed saint’s medal made of silver. Other options for destroying werewolves are treatments of wolfsbane, exorcisms, fire. There is even an old story about stopping a werwolf attack by shaming it and saying the monster’s human name three times. Yes, you read that right, you scolded it until it shifted into its human form.
I decided to go with a more pop culture approach. For my werewolves, while they can cautiously handle silver, their blood reacts violently to it, so anything that cuts or makes a penetrating wound is potentially fatal. They have heightened healing abilities related to shapeshifting, so as long s they aren’t overwhelmed by a severe wound, they can survive contact with silver. They won’t like it.
Figuring out pack politics was a little bit tricker. I’m very aware that the original research about social dynamics between wolves incorrect, and that influenced what most people consider an alpha werewolf. But I needed some of that tension, so I chose to try to weave it into what is currently known about how wolves live in packs.
And that’s really what we do as writers. We try to weave knowledge we have into something believable. Or at least as believable as werewolves can be.
Chaos Kin is available on January 14, 2025!