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Lycanthropy-related reads
Apr. 28th, 2004 04:14 pmThese articles are exhaustive but fun to read all of the way through (despite the typos).
(a small excerpt from http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jfiske/bl-jfiske-myth-3.htm):
"With regard to the Arkadian legend, taken by itself, Mr. Cox is probably right. The story seems to belong to that large class of myths which have been devised in order to explain the meaning of equivocal words whose true significance has been forgotten. The epithet Lykaios, as applied to Zeus, had originally no reference to wolves: it means “the bright one,” and gave rise to lycanthropic legends only because of the similarity in sound between the names for “wolf” and “brightness.” Aryan mythology furnishes numerous other instances of this confusion. The solar deity, Phoibos Lykegenes, was originally the “offspring of light”; but popular etymology made a kind of werewolf of him by interpreting his name as the “wolf-born.” The name of the hero Autolykos means simply the “self-luminous”; but it was more frequently interpreted as meaning “a very wolf,” in allusion to the supposed character of its possessor. Bazra, the name of the citadel of Carthage, was the Punic word for “fortress”; but the Greeks confounded it with byrsa, “a hide,” and hence the story of the ox-hides cut into strips by Dido in order to measure the area of the place to be fortified. The old theory that the Irish were Phoenicians had a similar origin. The name Fena, used to designate the old Scoti or Irish, is the plural of Fion, “fair,” seen in the name of the hero Fion Gall, or “Fingal”; but the monkish chroniclers identified Fena with phoinix, whence arose the myth; and by a like misunderstanding of the epithet Miledh, or “warrior,” applied to Fion by the Gaelic bards, there was generated a mythical hero, Milesius, and the soubriquet “Milesian,” colloquially employed in speaking of the Irish.[66] So the Franks explained the name of the town Daras, in Mesopotamia, by the story that the Emperor Justinian once addressed the chief magistrate with the exclamation, daras, “thou shalt give”:[67] the Greek chronicler, Malalas, who spells the name Doras, informs us with equal complacency that it was the place where Alexander overcame Codomannus with dorn, “the spear.” A certain passage in the Alps is called Scaletta, from its resemblance to a staircase; but according to a local tradition it owes its name to the bleaching skeletons of a company of Moors who were destroyed there in the eighth century, while attempting to penetrate into Northern Italy. The name of Antwerp denotes the town built at a “wharf”; but it sounds very much like the Flemish handt werpen, “hand-throwing”: “hence arose the legend of the giant who cut of the hands of those who passed his castle without paying him black-mail, and threw them into the Scheldt.”[68] In the myth of Bishop Hatto, related in a previous paper, the Mause-thurm is a corruption of maut-thurm; it means “customs-tower,” and has nothing to do with mice or rats. Doubtless this etymology was the cause of the floating myth getting fastened to this particular place; that it did not give rise to the myth itself is shown by the existence of the same tale in other places. Somewhere in England there is a place called Chateau Vert; the peasantry have corrupted it into Shotover, and say that it has borne that name ever since Little John shot over a high hill in the neighbourhood.[69] Latium means “the flat land”; but, according to Virgil, it is the place where Saturn once hid (latuisset) from the wrath of his usurping son Jupiter.[70]"
(a small excerpt from http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jfiske/bl-jfiske-myth-3.htm):
"With regard to the Arkadian legend, taken by itself, Mr. Cox is probably right. The story seems to belong to that large class of myths which have been devised in order to explain the meaning of equivocal words whose true significance has been forgotten. The epithet Lykaios, as applied to Zeus, had originally no reference to wolves: it means “the bright one,” and gave rise to lycanthropic legends only because of the similarity in sound between the names for “wolf” and “brightness.” Aryan mythology furnishes numerous other instances of this confusion. The solar deity, Phoibos Lykegenes, was originally the “offspring of light”; but popular etymology made a kind of werewolf of him by interpreting his name as the “wolf-born.” The name of the hero Autolykos means simply the “self-luminous”; but it was more frequently interpreted as meaning “a very wolf,” in allusion to the supposed character of its possessor. Bazra, the name of the citadel of Carthage, was the Punic word for “fortress”; but the Greeks confounded it with byrsa, “a hide,” and hence the story of the ox-hides cut into strips by Dido in order to measure the area of the place to be fortified. The old theory that the Irish were Phoenicians had a similar origin. The name Fena, used to designate the old Scoti or Irish, is the plural of Fion, “fair,” seen in the name of the hero Fion Gall, or “Fingal”; but the monkish chroniclers identified Fena with phoinix, whence arose the myth; and by a like misunderstanding of the epithet Miledh, or “warrior,” applied to Fion by the Gaelic bards, there was generated a mythical hero, Milesius, and the soubriquet “Milesian,” colloquially employed in speaking of the Irish.[66] So the Franks explained the name of the town Daras, in Mesopotamia, by the story that the Emperor Justinian once addressed the chief magistrate with the exclamation, daras, “thou shalt give”:[67] the Greek chronicler, Malalas, who spells the name Doras, informs us with equal complacency that it was the place where Alexander overcame Codomannus with dorn, “the spear.” A certain passage in the Alps is called Scaletta, from its resemblance to a staircase; but according to a local tradition it owes its name to the bleaching skeletons of a company of Moors who were destroyed there in the eighth century, while attempting to penetrate into Northern Italy. The name of Antwerp denotes the town built at a “wharf”; but it sounds very much like the Flemish handt werpen, “hand-throwing”: “hence arose the legend of the giant who cut of the hands of those who passed his castle without paying him black-mail, and threw them into the Scheldt.”[68] In the myth of Bishop Hatto, related in a previous paper, the Mause-thurm is a corruption of maut-thurm; it means “customs-tower,” and has nothing to do with mice or rats. Doubtless this etymology was the cause of the floating myth getting fastened to this particular place; that it did not give rise to the myth itself is shown by the existence of the same tale in other places. Somewhere in England there is a place called Chateau Vert; the peasantry have corrupted it into Shotover, and say that it has borne that name ever since Little John shot over a high hill in the neighbourhood.[69] Latium means “the flat land”; but, according to Virgil, it is the place where Saturn once hid (latuisset) from the wrath of his usurping son Jupiter.[70]"
