49 Fun Facts About Werewolf

'Werewolf' descends from wer(e)wulf, a compound from which historical language in which wer meant 'man'?

Old English werwulf joined wer, 'man', to wulf, so the word is literally 'man-wolf'; it is cognate with Middle Dutch weerwolf and German Werwolf.

The word 'lycanthropy' comes from an Ancient Greek term meaning what?

Lykánthrōpos joins lýkos, 'wolf', and ánthrōpos, 'man', so lycanthropy literally means wolf-man; the same root appears in the name Lycaon.

Which ancient historian reported that the Neuri were said to turn into wolves once a year?

Herodotus recorded the claim in Book 4 of his Histories, attributing it to the Scythians and to Greeks settled in Scythia, and said he did not believe it himself.

Which Roman work has a soldier urinate in a circle around his clothes and turn into a wolf?

In Petronius' Satyricon the freedman Niceros tells the tale at Trimalchio's dinner; the soldier's clothes turn to stone until he returns to them.

In Marie de France's 12th-century lai Bisclavret, how does the knight's wife trap him in wolf form?

Bisclavret cannot change back without his clothes, so his wife steals his hidden clothing with a knight's help; the king later takes the strangely noble wolf into his court.

When Bisclavret finally gets revenge on his treacherous wife, which body part does the wolf tear off?

The wolf bites off her nose, and the lai adds that many of the wife's female descendants were born without noses afterwards.

What were the Norse warriors who fought in wolfskins, cousins of the berserkers, called?

Ulfheðnar, literally 'wolf-coats', were Odin's wolf-skinned warriors, named alongside berserkers in the 9th-century Norse poem Haraldskvæði.

Peter Stumpp, the 'Werewolf of Bedburg' executed in 1589, said the Devil gave him what to transform?

Stumpp said a magical belt, or girdle, from the Devil turned him into 'a greedy, devouring wolf'; after his execution his head was displayed on a pole beside a wooden wolf.

Gilles Garnier, the 'Hermit of St. Bonnot', was convicted of lycanthropy in the 1570s in which French town?

Garnier was tried at Dole, in Franche-Comté, in 1573 after claiming a spectre's ointment turned him into a wolf, and was burned at the stake.

The Beast of Gévaudan terrorised south-central France between 1764 and which year?

Attacks ran from June 1764 to June 1767; a 1987 study counted 210 attacks and 113 deaths in a region that is now largely the department of Lozère.

Which local hunter is credited with shooting the final Beast of Gévaudan at Mont Mouchet?

Jean Chastel shot the last beast at Mont Mouchet on 19 June of the final year of attacks; the royal gunbearer François Antoine had killed a huge grey wolf in 1765, but attacks resumed.

Which writer is credited with inventing the Beast of Gévaudan's silver-bullet legend?

Henri Pourrat's 20th-century retelling introduced the silver bullets cast from Virgin Mary medals; accounts of the Beast from the 1760s say nothing about silver.

Wolfsbane, traditionally used against lycanthropy, is a common name for which flowering genus?

Aconitum, also called monkshood, carries the alkaloid aconitine, so toxic that about 2 mg can be fatal; the species name lycoctonum means 'wolf-killer'.

In psychiatry, clinical lycanthropy is classified as which kind of symptom?

Clinical lycanthropy is a delusion, a fixed false belief of turning into an animal; a 1988 study reviewed 12 such patients at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.

In the penny dreadful Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, the title character agrees to be a werewolf for how long?

Faust offers the old shepherd Wagner youth, wealth and knowledge for 18 months of lycanthropy, turning wolf on the last day of each month in a story that ranges across Renaissance Italy.

Whose 1857 novel The Wolf Leader follows Thibault, a shoemaker who makes a pact with an upright-walking wolf?

Alexandre Dumas set The Wolf Leader around 1780 in Villers-Cotterêts, his home town, building it on a folk tale he heard as a child from the gamekeeper Mocquet.

Which 1933 novel by Guy Endore is often called the most renowned lycanthropy novel of the 20th century?

The Werewolf of Paris, set around the 1871 Commune, was adapted as Hammer's 1961 The Curse of the Werewolf, which moved the story to Spain to reuse sets already built.

Which werewolf bit Remus Lupin as a child in the Harry Potter series?

Fenrir Greyback attacked Lupin as a small boy to punish his father; Lupin's schoolfriends later became Animagi to keep him company and nicknamed him Moony.

Which actor played Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter films?

David Thewlis played Lupin from Prisoner of Azkaban onward, the year Lupin taught Defence Against the Dark Arts and coached Harry to cast a Patronus.

Twilight's Jacob Black, the wolf shapeshifter played by Taylor Lautner, belongs to which tribe?

Jacob is Quileute and lives on the tribe's reservation at La Push, Washington; Stephenie Meyer said she originally intended him as a minor plot device.

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the werewolf Angua von Überwald serves in which organisation?

Angua joined the Ankh-Morpork City Watch in Men at Arms, keeps a strict vegetarian diet in human form, and falls in love with Carrot Ironfoundersson.

The 1985 werewolf film Silver Bullet is based on a novella by which author?

The novella is Cycle of the Werewolf. Corey Haim's Marty names his souped-up wheelchair after the film's title.

In Werewolf of London (1935), where is botanist Wilfred Glendon bitten while hunting a rare flower?

Glendon is bitten in Tibet while gathering the mariphasa, a plant said to bloom by moonlight and the only thing that can hold off his transformations.

Which actor played the botanist-turned-werewolf in Universal's Werewolf of London (1935)?

Henry Hull played Glendon; Jack Pierce, who created Karloff's Frankenstein look, designed a lighter makeup for him, and Pierce's fuller design was used for The Wolf Man in 1941.

Who played Larry Talbot in Universal's The Wolf Man (1941)?

Lon Chaney Jr.'s Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales, and is finally beaten to death by his father with his own silver-headed cane.

Which screenwriter invented the 'Even a man who is pure in heart...' verse for The Wolf Man (1941)?

Curt Siodmak wrote the verse and most of the film's 'lore', including the pentagram sign and the silver cane, and also scripted Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

Who played Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)?

Bela Lugosi, who had passed on the Monster in 1931, finally played it here; the plot revives Talbot when grave robbers open his crypt under a full moon and remove the wolfsbane.

Which pub do the American backpackers enter on the moors at the start of An American Werewolf in London?

The Slaughtered Lamb's exteriors were shot in Crickadarn, in the Black Mountains of Wales, standing in for the Yorkshire village of East Proctor.

Whose transformation effects in An American Werewolf in London won the first Oscar for Best Makeup?

Rick Baker's transformation work won the inaugural Best Makeup award, a category introduced for 1981 films; the soundtrack is built almost entirely from songs with 'moon' in the title.

Who wrote and directed An American Werewolf in London?

John Landis wrote the script in 1969 and finally shot it in 1981; a sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, arrived in 1997 from Hollywood Pictures to poor reviews.

In The Howling (1981), Karen White is sent to recover at a secluded rural retreat called what?

Dr. Waggner's retreat, the Colony, hides a werewolf community; Rob Bottin built Eddie Quist's transformation with air bladders under latex, and the film adapts Gary Brandner's 1977 novel.

In Teen Wolf (1985), Scott Howard uses his werewolf powers to star in which sport?

Scott turns his school's hopeless basketball team, the Beavers, into winners; the film opened in August 1985, the same summer as Back to the Future.

In MTV's Teen Wolf (2011-17), Tyler Posey's Scott McCall protects which fictional California town?

Beacon Hills is the show's fictional town; developed by Jeff Davis as a supernatural reimagining of the 1985 film, it ran 100 episodes and got a Paramount+ movie in 2023.

In Wolf (1994), Jack Nicholson's Will Randall is bitten by a wolf while working in which profession?

Randall works in book publishing as a senior editor in New York; he is bitten on a Vermont country road after hitting the animal with his car, and Michelle Pfeiffer and James Spader co-star.

Ginger Snaps (2000), which ties lycanthropy to puberty, follows the Fitzgerald sisters in which country?

Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins play Ginger and Brigitte in Bailey Downs, a fictional suburb in Ontario, Canada; a pair of sequels were shot back-to-back in 2004.

In which country was Dog Soldiers (2002), set among werewolves in the Scottish Highlands, actually filmed?

Tax deals and a Luxembourg-based company's crew and student facilities drove the choice. Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd star.

In Underworld (2003), what do the vampires call the werewolf species they have secretly warred with for centuries?

The vampires call them Lycans; Kate Beckinsale's Selene is a Death Dealer and Michael Sheen plays the Lycan leader Lucian in a film that grossed over $95 million on a $22 million budget.

Who played Lawrence Talbot in the 2010 remake The Wolfman, opposite Anthony Hopkins as his father?

Benicio del Toro, a lifelong fan of the 1941 film, starred; the remake won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, but reshoots pushed the budget from $85 million to $150 million.

Which director of The Invisible Man and Upgrade made Blumhouse's 2025 Wolf Man?

Leigh Whannell took over after Ryan Gosling and director Derek Cianfrance left in December 2023; his version, released in January 2025, is set at an Oregon farmhouse.

In What We Do in the Shadows (2014), which comedian plays werewolf pack leader Anton?

Rhys Darby, of Flight of the Conchords, leads the pack whose polite motto is 'werewolves, not swearwolves'; co-directors Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement play vampires.

Marvel's 2022 special Werewolf by Night was the directing debut of which film composer?

Michael Giacchino, composer of Up and The Incredibles, directed and scored the special; Gael García Bernal plays Jack Russell and Laura Donnelly plays Elsa Bloodstone, and a colour version followed in 2023.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, how does Oz (Seth Green) become a werewolf?

Oz is bitten by his young cousin Jordy, who nips his finger in the episode 'Phases'; the guitarist for Dingoes Ate My Baby later leaves Sunnydale to learn to control the wolf.

Which actor played the werewolf George Sands in BBC Three's Being Human?

Russell Tovey played George from the 2008 pilot until his character's death at the start of series four; the house moved from Bristol to Barry, Wales, after series two.

Which actor's guest role as werewolf Alcide Herveaux on True Blood was expanded to series regular?

Joe Manganiello joined in season three and was promoted to regular for season four; in Charlaine Harris's novels Alcide is a Shreveport surveyor who eventually becomes packmaster of the Long Tooth pack.

The party game Mafia was invented in 1986 by Dmitry Davidoff at a university in which city?

Davidoff devised the game in the psychology department of Moscow State University; Andrew Plotkin added the werewolf theme in 1997, and commercial versions include Ultimate Werewolf.

What are the player-character werewolves called in Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1992)?

The Garou see themselves as the planet's immune system and can shift between five forms, from human to full wolf.

Which Skyrim expansion expands the abilities of vampire and werewolf players?

Dawnguard (2012) added the Vampire Lord form and a werewolf perk tree; Bloodmoon, by contrast, was the werewolf expansion for the earlier Morrowind, set on Solstheim.

In the film-within-a-film opening Thriller, Michael Jackson transforms into what creature?

Jackson becomes a werecat, not a wolf: the makeup artist, fresh from An American Werewolf in London, wanted something different; in 2009 Thriller became the first music video in the National Film Registry.

Warren Zevon's 1978 hit 'Werewolves of London' features the drummer and bassist of which band?

Mick Fleetwood and John McVie of Fleetwood Mac played drums and bass; the song, from Excitable Boy, peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, Zevon's only Top 40 hit, and Kid Rock sampled it in 2008.