We've all heard of werewolves or werewolves. For many centuries, in different cultures around the world it was firmly believed in its existence. For us they are fantastic beings that populate scary novels and movies. Nevertheless, Do you know who Lycaon was, the king who gave his name to the LICANTROPÃ A? Join us to find out where the idea of werewolves came from as it has come to us.
For the dictionary, the lycanthrope is "the one affected by lycanthropy" and this is the mythological ability of a human being to transform into a wolf. This metamorphosis can be voluntary or involuntary and happen as a result of a curse or by the effect of an external agent. As a myth it is considered one of the most widespread and ancient of human culture. Up to us has come from the hand of Lycaon, the Greek king of Arcadia.
Licaón, the king who gave his name to the LICANTROPÍA
There are different versions of the myth of Lycaon or Lycaon, the most widespread that Ovid tells in the first part of his work " Metamorphosis " Although some of the versions of the myth differ in some points, in general the facts that relate are as follows:
Lycaon was the son of the hero Pelasgo , founder of Arcadia, and of an oceanic called Melibea, daughter of Ocean. He succeeded his father on the throne of Arcadia and founded the city of Lycosura. He was a good and just king who helped his subjects to abandon the wild life they had led until then and was also a very religious man. He raised a temple in his city Zeus Lyceum and on its altar offered sacrifices to the god. However, his extreme religiosity led him to make human sacrifices and almost no foreigner who came to the city left alive, as they were killed as an offering. This fact violated a sacred law: that of hospitality.
Zeus found out about this transgression and disguising himself as a pilgrim, he stayed in the palace of Lycaon to see what was happening. The king, advised by his subjects that there was something strange about the pilgrim, suspected that it could be a God in disguise and to prove it he mixed the flesh of one of his victims with the feast he offered the visitor. If he ate it, it was that he was not a god. Zeus to see what happened was angry and turned Licaón into Lobo and set fire to the palace in which such atrocities had been committed. That's where the word "lycanthropy" comes from, the transformation into a wolf that was the punishment of King Lycaon .
Despite that, the story does not end here. Licaón had more than 50 children with diverse women and all of them were ruthless, lazy, disbelieving and insolent. Zeus, aware, once again disguised himself, this time as an old beggar and came to the gates of the Palace of the Lycaonids to see what was true in the rumors. The sons of Lycaon decided to cook one of their brothers , the minor, called Níctimo and offer their entrails, mixed with other animal meats, to the beggar during a banquet. Zeus, enraged, fulminated some of the children with his thunderbolt, others turned them into wolves and exiled them to others. Finally, he resurrected Níctimo who became the next king of Arcadia.
This seems to be the origin of the myth of the werewolves in the Western world or at least the one that gave rise to the name by which they are known: licántropos . From there, it developed, especially during the Middle Ages, a European folklore around the figure of the werewolves that moved to America along with colonialism. At the same time as the terrible trials for witchcraft that took place in central and eastern Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries, Several "werewolves" were judged being the most famous cases the one of the "Manada Gandillón" , in Switzerland , of which we already spoke to you in Supercurioso and whose members were all burned at the stake or the one of the German Peter Stumpf from Bedburg , who was accused of murdering and swallowing more than 60 victims, including his own son. Stumpf was tortured and executed in an atrocious way with his daughter for the simple fact of having a stump in his left hand that was identified as the leg cut by a trap for wolves when he was transformed into a lycan.
Did you know the relationship between King Lycaon and lycanthropy ? Do you know other stories related to werewolves? Share them with us! If you want to delve deeper into the subject, we invite you to read the post about the clinical lycanthropes published in Supercurioso: Clinical lycanthropy: The real werewolves. What is it about?