The Curse of the Wer.. - Site de Thomas - Free

WEREWOLVES AND SCHOLARS
The development of the field of folklore research can illustrate
the shifts in textual authority that occurred as a result of changes in
writing practice related to the growth of the universities. Many of the
works that built the discipline contained sections on lycanthropy, and
the use of language and themes in these passages chronicles the birth
of the modern disciplines of anthropology, comparative literature and
linguistics. The early folklorists were ‘literati’ or ‘men of letters’, and
were influenced by the lyricism of the romantics. As the philosophy of
science gained credence, however, folklorists sought to orientate their
work within an increasingly scientific framework. In his Preface to
Choice Notes from ‘Notes and Queries’: Folk Lore (1858) — a selection
of work from the journal in which the methodology of folklore research
was largely elaborated — William Thoms expressed the hope that ‘the
study of folklore would rise from a pleasant pastime to a science’. 62
The development of folklore research from a ‘pleasant pastime’
into a ‘science’ can be traced through the literature on lycanthropy.
Although knowledge of ancient werewolf myths and the early-modern
werewolf trials was already well established by the 1830s, relatively
little information about the werewolf in folk-tale traditions or mythological
systems other than those of Greece and Rome had been collected.
In 1843, for example, an article in the Anglo-American could
only state:
The wolf is an animal well known on our continent. But he is only known
in his natural shape and condition. In Europe, on the contrary, the
inhabitants of those countries, in which he abounds, have been in the
habit of supposing that the fiercest wolves are men, transformed by magic
into that shape for the purpose of devouring their fellows, or, at least,
their flocks and herds. 63
The author wondered about the occurrence of lycanthropy in ‘the
interior parts of Asia’, stating that it would ‘be desirable, if any one,
conversant with their opinions and habits, would make it known to us,
whether any, and what, similar ideas are to be found among those savage
communities. Any such communication would be gladly inserted.’ 64 By
1846, the term ‘folk-lore’ had been coined in the journal Athenaeum,
and interest in the subject was expanding rapidly, but until about
31