In my last post I was debating internally whether I would write about food or mythology. Both my own inclinations and those of the commenters seemed to point towards the latter, and far be it from me to swim against the current.

This post is going to discuss one of the most consistent themes throughout mythology; that of the man that turns into an animal. The modern term for this is a therianthrope, therian meaning mammal and thrope meaning man (although the meaning of the word is not limited to mammals; a therianthrope can be any animal). Now, the most common example of this which i’m sure all of you will know about is a lycanthrope, or werewolf. Pop culture has sold us on the idea of cursed men and women who turn on the full moon into slavering beasts, but this is a far cry from how the legends started.

The idea of a werewolf can be traced back thousands of years in multiple countries, but the closest origin to the modern strain is probably the story of Lycaon. Lycaon was a Greek king who hosted the god Zeus at a banquet. He either did not believe Zeus was a god or he wanted to insult him, so he killed his own sons and tried to feed them to the god. Upon discovery Zeus was understandably furious, and cursed Lycaon to turn into a wolf. This is also where we derive the term lycanthropy.

There are also many myths that do not include a wholly physical transformation into an beast, but rather a mental or spiritual one. The classic example of this is a berserker. In Norse the word berserkr literally translates into bear-coat (and that’s not a typo, it was actually spelled berserkr in Old Norse). These warriors actually believed themselves to be channeling the spirit of an animal, typically a wolf or bear, when they went into battle.

By all accounts berserkers actually existed; there are numerous historical reports of berserkers fighting in battles and being the deciding factor (although not always in their favor, they were known for killing allies as well as enemies in the heat of battle). Current theories are that the feeling of berserkergang or “going berserk” was actually induced by some combination of hallucinogenic mushrooms, alcohol, and henbane. This would account for many of the myths surrounding berserkers such as their change in skin color, insane rage, feats of strength, and inability to tell apart friend and foe.

Interestingly enough, lycanthropy is not only a mythological condition but also a clinical one. It is a psychiatric disease characterized by the afflicted believing that they have transformed into an animal, although not necessarily a wolf. This is one of numerous syndromes that can result in the afflicted behaving like an animal. Taken together, they could easily have inspired some amount of therianthropic myths.

Overall it is somewhat doubtful that any humans physically changed into ravening beasts on a full moon. Go figure. But there were in fact actual reasons why ancient civilizations would have believed this to be true, ranging from shrooms to clinical diseases.