#gorlagon

[poparthuriana]

Neglected Siblings: Aglovale, Agravaine, Clarissant, Daniel son of Brunor, Dornar, Elaine of Cornwall, Ganieda, Gaheris, Hector de Maris, Kay, Lucan, Madog son of Uther, and Safir

The Queen and her Knights: Agravaine, Dodinel, Griflet, Guinevere, Kay, and Sagremore

Werewolves Anonymous: Alastrann, Bisclavret, Gorlagon, Marrok, and Melion

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

Arthurian non fiction recommendation list

I don't talk much about non fiction arthuriana because I usually don't read much of it but I have an immense love for some specific arthurian non fiction books.

I am not really interested in historical Arthur, but I love to see the evolution and addition of arthurian elements in literautre through time and space. For this reason, my absolute favorite is the series "The Arthur of the..."

Here are some:

Arthur of the Welsh (the one I always take with me! It has information of the triads, early Welsh texts and poems, Culhwch and Olwen and the Mabinogion arthurian texts)

Arthur of the French (in particular has a section about Arthur in modern French movies and fiction!)

Arthur of the Italians (this I did not check as I read the texts in Italian, but I know it has information on the Rustichello da Pisa text, the Tavola Ritonda and i Cantari, the ones with Gaia as a character)

Arthur of the Low Countries (one of my favorite because it has full summaries of some Dutch texts that are impossible to find in English like Walewein, Moriaen, Walewein ende Keye, Roel Zemel)

Arthur of the North (has some summaries of some really hard to find stuff arthurian like Ívens saga, Erex saga, Parcevals saga, various Nordic ballads, Hærra Ivan Leons riddare)

Arthur of the Germans (another good one! It has info on a bunch of German texts that are hard to find like Wigamur, various fragments, Tristan traditions)

Arthur of Medieval Latin literature (for the older stuff, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Nennius and Life of Saints)

Arthur of the English (if you are really into Malory)

Arthur of the Iberians (I have not fully delved into this, but the chapters seem to be about the reception of arthurian matter in Spain and Portugal)

Basically, different authors tackle the arthurian traditions (more or less obscure) from different areas and time periods.

In general, if you like Welsh arthuriana anything written by Rachel Bromwich will be your friend, especially "Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain".

For general information:

The Arthurian Name Dictionary (Bruce) - this used to be online, not anymore, but you can still access it through the archive here

The Arthurian companion (Phyllis Ann Karr)

The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend (Alan Lupack)

The Arthurian Encyclopedia (Lacy)

The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends (Coghlan)

If you are looking for more translated texts you can check here for free downloads, but if you would like books, here are some:

The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation (Wilhelm)

This book contains translations of:

Culhwch and Olwen Roman de Brut Brut Some Chretien de Troyes Some Parzival excerpts The saga of the mantle Beroul's Romance of Tristan Thomas of Britain's Romance of Tristan Lanval The Honeysuckle Cantare on the Death of Tristan Suite du Merlin Prose Merlin Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle De ortu Waluuanii nepotis Arthuri

The Book of Arthur: Lost Tales From the Round Table (Matthews John)

This book contains translations of:

(Celtic Tales) The Life of Merlin The Madness of Tristan The Adventures of the Eagle Boy The Adventures of Melora and Orlando The Story of the Crop-eared dog Visit of the Grey Ham The Story of Lanval

(Tales of Gawain) The rise of Gawain Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle The adventures of Tarn Wathelyn The Mule without a bridle The knight of the Sword Gorlagros and Gawain

(Medieval texts) The knight of the parrot The vows of King Arthur and his Knights The fair unknown Arthur and Gorlagon Guingamor and Guerrehes The story of Meriadoc The story of Grisandole The Story of Perceval Sir Cleges The Boy and the Mantle The lay of Tyolet Jaufre The story of Lanzalet And some final notes

[oneknightstand-if]

Heeeey, have you seen any of those ads for a mobile game about vampires around? Called Game of Vampires: Twilight Sun I think? I just found out that it has Morien and Gawain/Elaine in it! It has some other historical/mythical figures like Queen Elizabeth (which through me for a freaking LOOP), Genghis Khan, John Watson, and Gilgamesh; but seeing those too got a loud “WHAT” out of me 😂

You know, when you said "Morien" my brain automatically subbed in "Melion" and I was thinking that makes sense, they'd have one of the werewolf knights in that game. Nope. Morien. I guess no Gorlagon or Marrok either? Or Verdoana who was a Elizabeth of Bathory-esque vampire adjacent?

They ran off with the Knight of the Sun, huh. I guess Gawain would make a good dayguard for a vampire.

But basically no, this is the first time I've heard of that game. I went and looked up more info about it and the forums were full of people bewailing the grind if you didn't shell out $$$ for the extra boosts and... nope.

I'm finally free of FGO, not going back. Good luck, Gawain!

[isychiaa]

Fun literary fact: there was a boom in werewolf literature in the 12th and 13th Century in Britain and France, and the connecting thread of these tales was that the werewolves were liked!*

*by the King.

In ‘Arthur and Gorlagon’, ‘Bisclavret’ and ‘Melion’, the protagonist is consigned to being a wolf by their evil wife, but win the trust and care of the King, and are then restored to their human form once the king figures out that they are actually men. The moral of the story is that chivalric, courtly masculine relationships (specifically the deep friendship of king and liege) is of the utmost importance for ensuring the stability of the court and the King’s rule: it is this deep relationship that allows the King to read the body language of the werewolf, and thus return him to humanity. So historically, werewolves are very well liked, as they are usually benevolent nobles deep down.

(It is important to note that the king/liege relationship is used to devalue the importance of romantic love, as women are responsible for the unwilling transformation. So basically medieval bros before hoes)

(Also definitions of werewolf-hood have changed in the past 800 years. One could argue that by modern standards, Bisclavret is the only ‘true’ werewolf as he has the ability to voluntarily change into a wolf at the outset of his story, and the word ‘Bisclavret’ is Old Breton for werewolf. However, general critical consensus is that all three stories are werewolf stories)

No roo roo? :(

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #56 - Arthur and Gorlagon, pt 2

Wow, that last post was a hit, huh?

Here’s the riveting conclusion to Part 1, which you can find here.

And, as before, this is the translation from which I will be drawing quotes. Let’s get to it and see how this story ends!

I want to warn you THIS IS A REALLY BIG POST. So read the rest of this story under the cut - because otherwise this post will eat up my blog the moment I post it!

By the way? This is a GREAT werewolf story if you want to see a classic folkloric example of just how badass werewolves are really meant to be (and also get to see them using their paws as hands - or does he have clawed, hairy hands, as is implied by one particular passage where he takes a baby into his arms? who knows? - and breaking chains and generally being frelling awesome).

Here we go...

Well, we left off with our werewolf king ravaging the countryside, and then came a young king to hunt the beast and slay it. Our werewolf is not a fool, though, and this is yet another reminder that werewolves retain their human intelligence...

So one night when the wolf had gone to a neighbouring village, greedy for bloodshed, and was standing under the eaves of a certain house listening intently to a conversation that was going on within, it happened that he heard the man nearest him tell how the King had proposed to seek and track him down on the following day

The werewolf returned to the woods and wondered what to do. He didn’t really want to be killed by this hotshot king and his entourage of hunters. So when the king and his hounds and hunters arrived at the forest, the werewolf hid and waited for everyone to go by (hounds got nothin’ on him, good luck finding a werewolf)...

He waited until the king approached. And then he, in the spirit of Bisclavret... and I’m going to quote this entire section because I love it, so here we go--

he saw the King approaching (for he judged from his countenance that it was the King) he dropped his head and ran close after him, and encircling the King's right foot with his paws he would have licked him affectionately like a suppliant asking for pardon, with such groanings as he was capable of.

Then two noblemen who were guarding the King's person, seeing this enormous wolf (for they had never seen any of so vast a size), cried out, "Master, see here is the wolf we seek! see, here is the wolf we seek! strike him, slay him, do not let the hateful beast attack us!"

The wolf, utterly fearless of their cries, followed close after the King, and kept licking him gently. The King was wonderfully moved, and after looking at the wolf for some time and perceiving that there was no fierceness in him, but that he was rather like one who craved for pardon, was much astonished, and commanded that none of his men should dare to inflict any harm on him, declaring- that he had detected some signs of human understanding in him; so putting down his right hand to caress the wolf he gently stroked his head and scratched his ears.

Groanings, not barking. These people knew what a wolf actually sounds like. If It was a modern story, I bet they’d have said he barked... Anyway.

Then the werewolf went home with the king! He even rode on a horse. So with his new werewolf friend, the king ordered everyone home. But he didn’t get very far before a great stag appeared. Wanting to test “his wolf” and see if it would obey him, the king ordered the werewolf to go after the stag. The werewolf caught and killed it instantly.

So the king said,

"Of a truth you must be kept alive and not killed, seeing that you know how to show such service to us."

And here, yet again, we get another small interruption of Gorlagon beseeching King Arthur to eat. And again, Arthur stays true to his word and refuses. Gorlagon then resumes the story...

So the wolf remained with the King, and was held in very great affection by him. Whatever the King commanded him he performed, and he never showed any fierceness towards or inflicted any hurt upon any one. He daily stood at table before the King at dinner time with his forepaws erect, eating of his bread and drinking from the same cup. Wherever the King went he accompanied him, so that even at night he would not go to rest anywhere save beside his master's couch.

However, we come to the twist in the story...

The king had to go away for a long time, so he left “his wolf”/the werewolf with the queen. But this queen hated the wolf and told the king that she was afraid of the wolf, saying he might attack her in the night. To which the king said,

"Have no fear of that, for I have detected no such symptom in him all the long time he has been with me. However, if you have any doubt of it, I will have a chain made and will have him fastened up to my bed-ladder." So the King gave orders that a chain of gold should be made, and when the wolf had been fastened up by it to the steps, he hastened away to the business he had on hand.

And here again we are interrupted for Gorlagon to ask Arthur to dismount and eat - which he still refuses to do. So back to the story...

The king left, the werewolf remained chained up, and the queen didn’t care for him as she should have. The king ordered that he be chained up at night only, but she kept him chained constantly. And then she did something, uh, not great - she cheated on the king.

In fact, she cheated on the king with a guy in that exact bedchamber that the werewolf was in. Can you imagine - this poor werewolf. Well, he didn’t like that much...

And when the wolf saw them rushing into each other's impious embraces he blazed forth with fury, his eyes reddening, and the hair on his neck standing up, and he began to make as though he would attack them, but was held back by the chain by which he was fastened. And when he saw they had no intention of desisting from the iniquity on which they had embarked, he gnashed his teeth, and dug up the ground with his paws, and venting his rage over all his body, with awful howls he stretched the chain with such violence that it snapped in two.

When loose he rushed with fury upon the sewer [the lover] and threw him from the bed, and tore him so savagely that he left him half-dead. But to the Queen he did no harm at all, but only gazed upon her with venom in his eye. Hearing the mournful groans of the sewer, the servants tore the door from its hinges and rushed in. When asked the cause of all the tumult, that cunning Queen concocted a lying story, and told the servants that the wolf had devoured her son, and had torn the sewer as they saw while he was attempting to rescue the little one from death, and that he would have treated her in the same way had they not arrived in time to succour her. So the sewer was brought half dead to the guest-chamber. But the Queen fearing that the King might somehow discover the truth of the matter, and considering how she might take her revenge on the wolf, shut up the child, whom she had represented as having been devoured by the wolf, along with his nurse in an underground room far removed from any access; every one being under the impression that he had in fact been devoured.

Werewolf stories are so cool, you guys. I love werewolves. Have I ever mentioned that? I bet I haven’t.

And now again Gorlagon tries to get Arthur to eat something - and Arthur refuses. Thus the story is resumed.

The moment the king returned, the queen dressed herself up in blood and torn-up clothes and cut her hair short to pretend she’d been mauled by the werewolf, and she rushed to the king beseeching him to do something about it - and telling him that the werewolf had devoured their infant son. However, the werewolf heard all this and ran out of the bedchamber and into the king’s embraces--

jumping about joyfully, and gambolling with greater delight than he [the wolf] had ever done before. At this the King, distracted by contending emotions, was in doubt what he should do, on the one hand reflecting that his wife would not tell him an untruth, on the other that if the wolf had been guilty of so great a crime against him he would undoubtedly not have dared to meet him with such joyful bounds.

Happy werewolf!

Anyway, the werewolf invites the king to follow him...

the wolf sitting close by him touched his foot gently with his paw, and took the border of his cloak into his mouth, and by a movement of the head invited him to follow him. The King, who understood the wolf's customary signals, got up and followed him through the different bedchambers to the underground room where the boy was hidden away. And finding the door bolted the wolf knocked three or four times with his paw, as much as to ask that it might be opened to him.

The werewolf knows where the queen hid the son. Well, when he can’t get inside, he just busts the door down - “the wolf, unable to endure the delay, drew back a little, and spreading out the claws of his four paws he rushed headlong at the door, and driving it in, threw it down upon the middle of the floor broken and shattered.” - because you can’t expect a silly door to hold back a werewolf.

And then he picks the child up - “Then running forward he took the infant from its cradle in his shaggy arms, and gently held it up to the King's face for a kiss.”

This is such a great werewolf story, lemme tell you - noble werewolf bowing and asking for mercy, werewolf breaking golden chains, busting down doors, using his paws as hands, cradling infants in their shaggy arms-- my goodness, I’m swooning over this werewolf, here. This werewolf is the best werewolf.

So the king goes to the sewer (the lover) and talks to him about it, the werewolf wanting to tear the guy’s face off (again) the entire time. Eventually, the sewer confesses to his crimes.

And... thus follows very graphic descriptions of how the queen and the sewer both were put to death because this young king was a real fiery dude. So anyway, now they’re dead.

And now again Gorlagon asks Arthur to eat... and again Arthur refuses. He’s holding fast here. Haha. Get it? Holding fast, because he’s fasting. Anyway...

After that, this king really began to wonder about this incredible werewolf with all his intelligence and nobility. He asked his wise men what they all thought about the situation, and he tells them that he couldn’t possibly be a beast. When he says this, the werewolf gets very excited and licks the king’s hands and does everything he can to gesture that the king is telling the truth.

The king catches on, and he declares that he well and truly wants to restore this wolf to his human form, “’even at the cost of my worldly substance; nay, even at the very risk of my life.’” What a bro, this king, after all the werewolf has done for him.

So he lets the werewolf go and will follow him wherever he leads, hoping the werewolf can lead him to the source of this curse and the king can help him find a cure. He immediately went to the ocean and indicated he wanted to cross - so this king launched an entire fleet and took the werewolf across the ocean, back toward his own land.

And yet again, Gorlagon tries to get Arthur to eat. Arthur refuses.

At last, they land in the werewolf’s kingdom. There, the werewolf signals them “by his customary nod and gesture” that this was his country. The king sets off with an army - and the moment they arrive in a town, the king realizes that this particular land is under very cruel and tyrannical rule by an evil king. And somebody nearby, too, was helpfully “lamenting their master, who by the craft and subtilty [sic] of his wife had been changed into a wolf, remembering what a kind and gentle master he was.”

So now we draw to the close pretty quickly here - the king finds out the truth and attacks this kingdom very suddenly, conquers the place, and captures both this king and the queen and makes them his subjects.

Woo! Victory for him! He’s getting a lot of good stuff out of this, this king.

AGAIN Gorlagon tells Arthur to eat, and Arthur gets pretty annoyed: “You are like a harper who almost before he has finished playing the music of a song, keeps on repeatedly interposing the concluding passages without anyone singing to his accompaniment.“

So Gorlagon finishes the bloody story at long last. He tells of how the king ordered this evil queen to undo the wrong she’d done to her werewolf husband. After, you know, torturing her with all kinds of horrible things and getting a confession out of her.

Until, finally, she gives the king the sapling that started all this mess. The king then undoes the werewolf curse-

The wolf became a man as he had been before, though far more beautiful and comely, being now possessed of such grace that one could at once detect that he was a man of great nobility.

The king and the werewolf have all the best bro-hugs and the king gives the werewolf back his kingdom. Then the king yote back to his own place and they all lived happily ever after!

There’s some more, too, like how Gorlagon was actually the werewolf all along. And how he hated his ex so very, very badly that he literally kept her around and made her kiss the severed and embalmed head of her lover every time Gorlagon kisses his new wife.

Yeah. Wow. Harsh, huh? I’ve heard things about people and their exes, but... yeesh.

When I became a wolf it is evident that the kingdom to which I first went was that of my middle brother, King Gorleil. And the King who took such great pains to care for me you can have no doubt was my youngest brother, King Gargol, to whom you came in the first instance.

So now we know why there were three kings in the story, even if I skipped over the first two to get to the fun werewolf stuff!

And then Arthur FINALLY dismounts and has something to eat, at Gorlagon’s beseeching, with Gorlagon and his new wife.

The end! Wild, huh?

But we can’t deny that the werewolf in this story, Gorlagon himself, is freaking awesome.

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[djunk411]

If Beryl Gut is a werewolf, I’m betting he’s is a descendant of the Welsh clan of Dog Heads that King Arthur had Bedivere fight in that one legend. Possibly even of their champion, Gwrgi Garwlwyd. Would explain why he’s causing such a mess in his own Lostbelt and why he broke into Mash’s room in the past (ie Galahad).

Side note, there’s two other werewolves in Arthurian lore he could be related to, Sir Marrok, a knight in Arthur’s court cursed by his lover, and Sir Gorlagon, another knight in the court whose family was cursed by a magic relic. My money’s on the Dog Heads though since that’d make more sense for a vendetta against Camelot and the knights of the round.

[tyrantisterror]

Ok, so, I'm going to do some GENERALIZATIONS about mythology and folklore here, and in my experience when you make a GENERALIZATION about mythology and folklore there is always some PEDANTIC SHITHEAD who tries to treat it as though you made a UNANIMOUSLY TRUE STATEMENT ABOUT THE ENTIRE BREADTH OF MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE IN ALL CULTURES AT ONCE, and then tries to "Um, actually!" you with one obscure counter-example so they can get that sweet endorphin rush of feeling smarter than someone else on the internet. It is also one of my biggest pet peeves when someone does that, so I'm typing this paragraph to preemptively tell anyone who does that to this post that I am personally sending a demon from hell to eat your toenails tonight. As soon as you sleep he's going to slip his clammy fingers under your sheets, tenderly caress your feet, envelop one toe at a time with his grimy mouth, and slowly suck the nails off your toes. And they'll never grow back, either.

Ok, now to actually answer this question. The Wolf Man popularized what is currently the most popular take on werewolves - namely, that a werewolf is a person who involuntarily transforms into a wolf (either a normal wolf, a wolf/human hybrid, or a monstrous wolf beast) based on some sort of stimulus/trigger, such as the full moon or excessive emotional turmoil. By day they're a normal person, by night they're a ravenous beast.

While there are examples of this take on werewolves appearing in fiction before The Wolf Man came out (The Werewolf of London is a werewolf movie with the same rough premise that came out about a decade before), they were by no means the most popular/dominant take on the monster. There are, of course, dozens if not hundreds of variations on the werewolf concept in mythology and folklore (like that one that went memetic on here a while back, the Wulver, who turns into a wolf-headed man at night that gives people anonymous gifts of free fish), but GENERALLY SPEAKING, two were the most common: the Garwolf, and the Bisclavret.

(I am using these terms because when I first heard this distinction articulated at an academic conference, those are the two terms the speaker used, so don't come at me with the "Um, actually, that only refers to one specific story" bullshit or some other pedantic nitpicky criteria).

The Garwolf is the most common take on a malevolent werewolf in literature, and is explicitly a witch who transforms into a wolf in order to commit violence more easily. The witch does so by wearing a belt or cape of wolfskin, or by spreading a special salve on their body - either way, these transformation trinkets are generally provided by The Devil or some other evil spirit. The Garwolf is conscious of their actions while in wolf form, a murderer who commits their crimes in beast form both to hide their identity and to increase the gruesome spectacle of their kills.

The Bisclavret is the most common benign take on werewolves in literature, being a person who, for reasons that often aren't explained, has to transform into a wolf routinely. To do so, they take off their clothes, and they can't transform back into a human without first getting back into said clothes. The two main Bisclavret stories I know - Marie de France's "The Bisclavret" and the Arthurian tale of King Gorlagon - concern bisclavret werewolves whose wives discover their secrets, steal their clothes, and leave them trapped in wolf form. In both tales, the bisclavret is discovered by a king while hunting, and the king takes note that while the bisclavret may be a wolf, it acts more tame and intelligent than any trained hunting dog, and quickly adopts them as a loyal pet. In time the wife of the bisclavret goes to visit the king/noble at court, at which point the bisclavret acts predatory for the first time ever, snarling and biting at her. Realizing there must be some reason for it, the king/noble uncovers the truth, returns the clothes to the bisclavret, and punishes the unfaithful wife. What we take away from this is that a bisclavret werewolf is still human in mind while in wolf form, transforms reluctantly/against their will, and wishes to be purely human (or at least not lose humanity while in wolf form).

The Wolf Man essentially combines these two modes of folkloric/literary werewolves into one, giving us a human who is reluctant to transform because their wolf self is a vicious, dangerous monster. Like the Garwolf, they are a terror and a blight upon the world, but like the Bisclavret, their transformation is not by choice and they are trying to keep their humanity despite it. What The Wolf Man adds is the lack of conscious control in wolf form - there is no human intelligence behind the modern werewolf's actions, just a vicious, malevolent beast bent on killing as much as possible. It's a take that combines the dramatic elements inherent to the two main folkloric werewolves and heightens it by mixing them together with an extra new ingredient, and the result is incredibly compelling - I think there's a reason this mode of Werewolf story became the dominant one, to the point where werewolves who work differently than The Wolf Man feel like they're subversive and new even if they're explicitly in the older mode.

The Wolf Man is also the first really prominent story about a werewolf who infects others with werewolfism that I know of, but there's so much overlap between werewolf folklore and vampire folklore (and also witch folklore) that I'm not entirely sure there isn't a significant amount of folkloric precedent for that aspect.

Who's your favorite of the classic universal monsters and why? (based solely on their portrayals in the universal movies, sequels and crossovers included, not their original book counterparts.)

The Wolf Man, because the character was both written and performed so well that he basically redefined what werewolves are in Western culture. None of the other Universal monsters can claim that impact, and since they never recast him, he also remains the most consistently well characterized and acted monster from film to film. Dracula and Frankenstein got their characters shaved down in sequel after sequel, but Lon Chaney Jr. made sure Larry Talbot was never less than his best.

[mediaeval-muse]

Hey, do you have any medieval reading recs feauturing human-to-animal transformation? I'm writing an essay on it. So far I've got the Mabinogion, Bisclavret, and Melion. I'm including a part on the influence of Ovid too. Werewolf stories are preferred but not necessary. Thanks!

Here are some ideas! @cedrwydden

Marie de France’s Yonec (though the person appears as a bird first, so it’s like a bird-to-human transformation)

Guillaume de Palerne

Gower’s Confessio Amantis

Arthur and Gorlagon (I can’t remember if there’s transformation in there, but there’s werewolves)

Perceforest

I think Gerald of Wales’ Topography of Ireland has a story about a werewolf couple in it

the tale of Tam Lin in Scottish mythology/ballads

Irish myth: Some versions of the Tain (the cowherds change into animals), Tuan mac Cairill (in Book of the Dun Cow), Wooing of Etain (I think she turns into a butterfly?), The Children of Lir, Finn MacCool’s wife gets changed into a deer (I think)

Poetic Edda and Prose Edda (if the gods count as humans/humanoid)

Volsunga Saga

I think Boccaccio’s Decameron has some things, but I haven’t read it in forever

[little-pisces-dreaming]

things to do with werewolves and Gévaudan

Catherine Simon of Andermatt

versipelle

Gerald of Wales

Hannah Priest (She-Wolf:A Cultural History of Female Werewolves)

Arthur and Gorlagon

[poparthuriana]

Cador’s Cornwall Gang: Aalardin du Lac, Cador, Caradoc Briefbras, Guinier/Tegau, and the Maiden of the Pavilion

Lancelot Stans: Bellangere, Blamore, Bliant, Blioberis, Bors, Ector de Maris, Lavaine, Lionel, Palamedes, Safir, and Urre of Hungary

Werewolves Anonymous: Alastrann, Bisclavret, Gorlagon, Marrok, and Melion

[thexvelvetxroom]

I just remembered you had mentioned one of the Knights of the round table was a werewolf- Would it be possible for them to be a persona?

Here you go

[allaboutparanormal]

Off With His Head!!

An Arthurian Legend

King Arthur had extra ordinary adventures, This story is a bit more over the top. 

An unknown origin of a Welsh tale,  King Arthur take his wife into his arms, snuggled and gave her a very passionate kiss. during a feast.  His wife Guinevere got embarrassed  and got angry of this public attention, he accessed him of not knowing anything about women. Well after this King Arthur said he's not going to eat anything until he discovered the nature of women SO he got this two knights and went out to search for answers.

His first stop was King Gorgol, a King known for his wisdom.

King Gorgol asked him to sit down and assured him that he'd explain everything about women the next day. The next day, he send King Arthur to his brother, the other brother did the same thing send him to the other brother and on and on. Arthur refused to eat until he has been told about women So Gorglon told him the story of a king who had a special tree if the tree was cut, he used to strike to King, he would turn into werewolf

The King was guarding the tree and the secret of the tree, until his wife got him to reveal his weakness. Just like Delilah, the Queen was unfaithful. She was having an affair with their steward and used the sapling to turn the king into a wolf. She had forgotten the spell that gave the thoughts that he's a werewolf.

The King ran off to the woods and started killing his wife's relatives. He has been forced to flee by the hunters.

He came to the land of a good and wise king and threw himself at his feet. The king, sensing something peculiar about the wolf, kept him as a pet.

The King also had an unfaithful wife, After the wolf-king learned about the Queens infidelity, he beat up the steward that the Queen was having an affair with.

The Queen hid her son in the basement and told her husband that the steward got injured while trying to protect the son from the were wolf.   So the werewolf proved to this master that the Queen was lying, and the steward confessed..

The queen, however, hid her son in the basement and told her husband that the steward had been injured trying to protect their son from the wolf. Having the mind of a man, the wolf-king just led his master to the child to prove that she was lying.

He was excoriate alive and the queen was quartered—roped to four separate horses and torn apart when they ran in opposite directions.

In the middle of all this,  The King realised the wolf was really a man. 

He allowed the transformed King to get his Kingdom back,  he tortured the Queen until she revealed the secret of how to turn his wolf back into a man.

The king had his wife’s lover executed but let his wife live on the condition that she carried the bloody, decapitated head of her lover on a platter wherever she went.

At the end of the tale Arthur learned that Gorlagon was the king in the story Arthur sit down and ate, considering what he had learned about women from the tale. Unfortunately, the legend doesn’t tell us what he got out of it.

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[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #63 - Werewolf Women

There’s a common - and very silly - misconception that there are “no female werewolves” in folklore. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, there are certainly far more werewolf men than women, but let’s go over the why of that and also cover how there are certainly werewolf women, too.

I’ve given a few talks about this, as a woman who loves werewolf legends, so you might imagine it’s pretty important to me for people to understand that a werewolf woman isn’t a uniquely modern concept.

There are actual arguments out there claiming that all werewolves are male and, oh no, there’s never been any female werewolves in folklore so we have to make our own in popular culture. That’s a ridiculous statement made by people who clearly have never bothered reading the legends.

The werewolf curse is in itself defined as “a man or a woman who turns into a wolf” in some of our oldest sources. There’s no exclusion of women.

There are two big reasons why most werewolf stories are about men: first of all, stories of these various time periods focused on men more than women. Women appeared in many, many werewolf legends, but they were not often the werewolf in question, as they were usually reactionary instead of being the protagonist. This is because werewolves were generally someone in the role of a warrior, a knight, a guardian, a ruler/king, an outlaw, etc., roles at that point in time not regularly attributed to women (though some of these were too, at times! But we won’t get into historical discussion beyond the matter at hand).

Is it true that some werewolf legends were quite unfair to women, as were many stories and legends of all these time periods? Yes. Take the “werewolf husband” folklore element, for example. These stories are all about the treachery of unfaithful wives, like Bisclavret (no one can make me dislike Bisclavret, though, despite that), Melion, Arthur and Gorlagon, etc.

Anyway, getting back on track, let’s talk about actual werewolf women...

In the werewolves of Ossory story, which I detailed here, one of the werewolves who talks to the priest is an old woman.

There are plenty of werewolf grandmas out there, as detailed here.

There are other Chinese werewolf women; a good source on them is this book here, which is a translation of stories instead of retellings or someone’s interpretation, which is always preferable. One of my personal favorites features a werewolf woman betrothed to a guy, turns out she doesn’t like him, so she eats him and her entire werewolf entourage eats his entourage and all their horses and they get away scot free.

There’s one obscure Armenian story in which the werewolf is specified to be a woman who wears a wolf skin. You can find it mentioned in one of my favorite werewolf sources, The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould.

A 1615 treatise by Jean de Nynauld mentions a story about a woodsman who was attacked by a wolf, cut off its paw, and then later found a woman missing a hand - that woman was then burned alive for being a werewolf (bearing in mind this was during the time when werewolves were now seen as evil, as I discuss at length in various werewolf facts). This story was retold and adapted in various forms in various  places. You can find Nynauld’s variant of the story in Baring-Gould’s book as well.

I’ve been asked before about good sources for female werewolves. Truth is, you need to just use the same sources as you do for all werewolf folklore. Here are many good sources. These are absolutely the ones I recommend.

‘Cause the fact is, there are no good sources specifically on female werewolves. If you find one that claims to be, it’s almost certainly going to be a gimmick. Just being honest. There are so many people out there right now trying to get in on the werewolf fever that started really going after Twilight was first  published. I remember loving werewolves for so long and them being obscure, I was so “weird” for being so passionate about them, then suddenly they became mainstream. They even became a subgenre of romance fiction. It was all very weird and sudden to me.

At any rate, as a result, there are tons of trashy little books out there with non-information in them that are sold based purely on gimmicks, and you really need to watch out for those. The writers of said books basically just googled werewolves and compiled all the bad nonsense “information” and somehow got it published. Or else it’s literally just a parody piece where it pretends to be written by a monster hunter and talks about their weird werewolf headcanons with no real-world folklore involved at all. And then people made an actual Wikipedia article called “Werewoman.” What is even-- “were” means “man.” It has nothing to do with “being a shapeshifter.” You can’t just cut the prefix off werewolf and have a thing that means “shapeshifter,” that removes all connotation of actually turning into something else. If you say “weres” to refer to werewolves, or “werewomen” to refer to werewolf women, you are effectively removing any sense of shapeshifting or animal of any kind. “Were” means “man” so... man-women? Human-women. They are people women. So they are... ordinary women! That doesn’t work at all. Just like how if you say “weres,” you are just saying “people,” with no concept of shapeshifting involved whatsoever.

Anyway! Pet peeves galore.

If you were ever under the impression that there were no werewolf women in folklore, I hope this set you down the path of clearing that up! There are more out there, of course, but these are some of the prime examples in my opinion.

(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff and consider supporting me on Patreon!

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[ofwolfandmanbook]

Courtly Anger, Beastly Violence

The Animal-Affective Prosthetic

Curtis Thomas project is an examination of four medieval romances that feature human-animal contact:

Marie de France’s Lai of Bisclavret

the Latin Narratio de Arthuro Rege Britanniae et Rege Gorlagon lycanthropo

Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion

the Middle English Richard Coer de Lyon.

In imagining the human-animal contact found in these texts as an…