The Monstrefact: The Werewolf, Part 3 - Lycaon

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert continues his series on the werewolf of myth, legend and media with a look at the Myth of Lycaon…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
We continue this week with our look at werewolves, having

(00:26):
previously discussed purported prehistoric origins of the were wolf in
the experiences and observations of early humans, as well as
the earliest known usages of the words were wolf and lacanthropy.
The former were wolf emerges in the early second millennium CE,
while the latter lacanthropy, has an older but complex history

(00:48):
as a second century CE catch all for various mental illnesses,
which came to be conflated with the Greek myth of
Lacaan Licaan was the legendary king of Arcadia who dare
to try and trick the high god Zeus into eating
human flesh. His ploy was unsuccessful, however, and Zeus inflicted
a fitting divine punishment for one so savage, which Avid

(01:12):
describes as following in the Metamorphosis Henry Thomas Riley translation. Alarmed,
he himself takes to flight, and, having reached the solitude
of the country. He howls aloud and in vain attempts
to speak. His mouth gathers rage from himself, and through
its usual desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep,

(01:34):
and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed
into hair, his arms into legs. He becomes a wolf,
and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His
hoariness is still the same, The same violence appears in
his features. His eyes are bright as before. He is
still the same image of ferocity, and just to be sure,

(01:56):
all responsible parties are punished, Zeus follows us up with
the Great flood. But Laikayan himself is indeed transformed into
a wolf, and, like the biblical Caine, as Riley points
out in his notes, he is forced to live as
a cast off outsider, a lone wolf. In some tellings,
his sons are transformed as well. While the myth of

(02:18):
Likaan is sometimes held up as an ancient key to
understanding subsequent werewolf tales, Daniel Ogden in twenty twenty one's
were Wolves in the Ancient World maintains that the tale
is a quote metaphorical derivative of the ancient folkloric traditions
that are indeed the key. He devotes an entire later
chapter in the book to Laichan and the complex interplay

(02:41):
there of three key categories. One historic evidence for a
lupine transformation right of passage for young men of the
Antet clan. Two various related myths of lupine transformation and
sacrilegious acts of human sacrifice in cannab and three a
supposedly historical tale of an individual changing into a wolf

(03:05):
after eating part of a human sacrifice at the Likekaea
festival on the slopes of Mount ly Chaan aka Wolf Mountain.
I won't attempt to summarize the entirety of his analysis,
but Ogden does contend that the story is more werewolf
adjacent than anything. Lykaan is a man punished with transformation

(03:25):
into a wolf, a transformation that occurs only once outside
of his control, making him no more a true were
wolf than Aracting, another victim of divine transformation punishment in
Greek myth is a were spider, so an unsatisfying were
wolf and by no means the key trendsetter that some
make him out to be, but still an important and

(03:47):
influential myth in the Grand Tradition of werewolves. As discussed
in the last episode, he's not key to the understanding
of the word lacanthropy, but his myth eventually becomes conflated
with the term to some degree. Now. One of the
tales interwoven in the Arcadian myth is that of the
Olympic athlete DeMarcus, a boxer who is said to have

(04:08):
been transformed into a wolf for a period of nine
to ten years at the Festival of Lykaa, possibly due
to ritual consumption of human flesh, thus, as is common
in all Ichaean myths, blurring the line between man and beast.
But Ogden stresses that the quote unquote werewolf ism of DeMarcus,
if we may call it, that, is more directly related

(04:31):
to his status as a superb athlete. In keeping with
various other supernatural stories of the time about athletes, including
other accounts of lupine transformation, this would seem a tale
as old as time. Multiple contemporary mma fighters, for example,
and professional sports stars have been nicknamed werewolf. The Batman

(04:52):
villain known as Werewolf was also an Olympic athlete, and
let us not forget teen Wolf cousins Scott and Todd
Howe Howard, known for their lycanthropic basketball abilities. This brings
us back to a continuing point of contemplation in werewolf traditions,
there is a certain bit of the beast that we
admire and crave to manifest in our strength and speed,

(05:16):
or even in our savagery. We'll have more to explore
concerning ancient loacanthropy in the next episode, including the best
cases for the earliest written and visual depictions of werewolves.
Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Factor, The
Artifact or Animalist Dependium each week. As always, you can
email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

(05:38):
dot com.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
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