A History Of Werewolves: From Cave Paintings To The Hunters Saga – A Guest Post by Heidi Angell

At the start of the week, I introduced you to Heidi Angell, author of the Hunters Saga, and fellow urban fantasy writer. Today I bring you the second of two stops I’m hosting on The Hunted tour.

I originally offered to host this particular post, because it’s a subject very close to my heart, writing about shapeshifters myself. It’s also a topic Heidi and I have discussed from time to time, and our discussions have always left me with new insights into the whatever topic we’ve covered. So, when Heidi said she had this idea for a stop on her blog tour, I jumped at the chance to host it.

What you’re about to read is a very insightful piece that covers many aspects of mythology, medical diagnosis, and legends from ancient times right up to modern day. Please read until the very end, and visit some of the other stops on the tour.

A Brief History of Werewolves: From Cave Paintings to The Hunters Saga

The “History” of werewolves is a strange thing indeed. It might even predate written history. There are many ancient cave paintings that appear to depict werewolves and other human/ animal composites.

Every culture has a variation on the theme of shapeshifters, werewolves, and other were-creatures, but the oldest written tale of actual men turning into wolves goes back to ancient Greece and the tale of King Lycaon, who Zeus turned into a werewolf after the man was foolish enough to try and trick Zeus by feeding him human flesh.

Tales such as Little Red Riding Hood show our fear of wolves eating humans, and may explain many “Werewolf serial killer cases” throughout European history, such as the 1589 case of Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg. Indeed, many of the werewolf cases where the men (why is it always men? It certainly isn’t in legend.) were convicted based on evidence that these men did indeed kill and consume the flesh of their victims. Were they truly Werewolves, or were people linking the two fears?

There is even a rare psychological diagnosis of clinical lycanthropy, in which a person is afflicted with the delusion that they are or have changed into an animal. The patient will exhibit animalistic behaviors, but no physiological change has ever been noted.

There is a genetic condition, often referred to as Werewolf Syndrome that causes massive growth of hair in unusual parts of the body, and is known to be hereditary.

And with all of this to muddle about in, there comes into play the legends. The oldest legends involved it being a curse on the man in some cultures (like King Lycoan) or the work of the Devil. Perhaps this is why people throughout history tended to have a softer spot for werewolves than for vampires. Other tales have it that the afflicted was harnessing the animal power through a magic girdle made from a wolf’s pelt, through spirit magic, ( such as in Norse mythology, the legends of Ulfhednar, who were similar to berserkers, but dressed in wolf pelts and channeled the fighting power of the wolf during battle.) or even through Saintly Divine intervention ( such as the story of St. Natalis, who cursed an illustrious Irish family with the result that each member of it was doomed to be a wolf for seven years).

The stories of werewolves being forced to change with the moon, and only being able to be killed by silver are relatively modern concoctions of fiction, with little reference prior to the 1600s. But the idea of some being born as a werewolf, and made as a werewolf have deep roots.

And of course, in modern paranormal romance, the idea of shifters who’s transitions are not as agonizing and who’s forms are more true to their animal counterparts, also brings a whole other wealth to pull from.

In The Hunters Saga, the Weres are of two groups: Made-Weres (based on the legends of those bitten by a werewolf, who are changed because of it.) and Born-Weres (families of genetically born werewolves who transition in puberty) and I pull from all the legend and history, twisting it all into the tale, which in future books we will see in more depth as we learn the origins of vampires and werewolves.

Want to learn more? The Hunters Saga is an urban fantasy series for those who believe that vampires should be killed not kissed. The tour for the second book in the series, The Hunted, is in full swing, and we would love for you to join in. See the tour master list here.

You can get a free copy of the first book in the series, The Hunters, by subscribing to my weekly e-newsletter full of bookish news from all genres.  Subscribe Here

The Hunted releases February, 18 th. Join the release party Here on February 17th-19th on Facebook.

This is your brain – This is your brain on writing…

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/science/researching-the-brain-of-writers.html?_r=2

This is a fascinating article that talks a lot about HOW writers think. The studies show that some writers are more active in the visual processing areas of the brain, while writing. Others are more active in the speech processing areas while doing the same exercises. For me the important statements came at the very end of the article, where they speculate on possible issues with the study.

I personally get very tied up with the emotions of the scene, and often find myself visualizing my more important scenes.

Which brings me to the big question for those of you reading this.: When you write, do you hear, feel, or see what you’re writing about?

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow

This is actually very true, as I recently discovered. Having been working on a number of short stories, I found myself with more characters than the collection of stories could adequately support. Each and every single one of them is sat there in my mind, clamoring for space on the page. I find myself writing copious notes, trying to pin these voices to the page, while capturing the essence of their personality, and nuances of my perceptions of them.

The question I keep coming back to, is how any one writer can silence those voices not required by their current project? For me, it’s a solution that I think Douglas Adams would appreciate. A big mug of tea, a big note pad, and an eternal quest for that metaphorical elusive perfect cup of tea. Okay, so I do tend to write with a mug of tea by the computer, but the perfection I am seeking is the right words, phrases, or comments to nail down the essential information about each character. Even while I am writing on a project, I’ll stumble across new voices, demanding attention, waiting for the right project, and their time in the spotlight.

How do you deal with the multitude of voices?

Guilty about stressing over genre? Read this.

http://litreactor.com/columns/stop-stressing-over-genre-and-just-write?utm_medium=App.net+Broadcast&utm_source=PourOver

This is a very true, very humorous way of looking at how people treat writing genres. I like to think of my work as urban fantasy, because it’s a term I’ve seen used in respect to a number of authors who write similar tales to mine. I’m not talking about people who want to be published, but people like Laurel K Hamilton, Stephany Myers, Jim Butcher, and several others.Now all these authors include elements of the supernatural, and paranormal into their works, but they are not considered writers of those genres. This has always made me curious about how genres are defined. When I worked in my local library, we had categories for books: Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Westerns, Horror, General Fiction. That was pretty much the scope of how the books broken down into genres. Over the years there has been an increasing number of terms appearing that attempt to define how a book should be classified, all in an attempt to tempt a certain kind of audience to pickup those same books.Would Laurel K Hamilton have had as much success if she’d marketed the Twilight series as romance books? Or was it the supernatural elements that made them successful. Would Jim Butcher’s books have sold as well, if he’d sold them as old fashioned gumshoe books? Harry Dresden really is an old-school private investigator, who just happens to be a wizard.Is it time to start removing genre biases all together? Can books be marketed successfully without all these genre/sub-genre labels, in a world where thousands of new books hit the shelves every day?

I write like… (pt 2)

I write like
Anne Rice

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

 

I write like Anne Rice? Proof: http://iwl.me/b/fdfaad03

This result comes from an analysis of a short story I just finished editing, and am considering entering into the Bridport Prize competition, which ends at the end of this month.

This result is a little more like my expectation for a writer in the urban fantasy or paranormal fiction fields. I know that Anne Rice is a very successful writer, and that her Vampire Chronicles books are very popular, but I will admit to not having been able to complete reading the entire set. I think the main reason was that I had a hard time getting through the first two books, and reading each successive book took longer and longer, until I gave up before even starting “Memnoch the Devil”.

Now, if only I can get one of my stories to read a little more like Jim Butcher, I might be happy with the final results. Of course, if I want to compare my main character (Richard Parsons) to Harry Dresden, he’s going to need a personality transplant. I think the reason my work reads more like Anne Rice, at least in this case, is that Richard often comes across as feeling sorry for himself. And to be fair, that is part of the context for the story, which follows on from “Under a Hunter’s Moon”. Now I just have to find a title for this story that feels right.

I write like… (pt 1)

I write like
Arthur Clarke

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

 

I write like Arthur Clarke? Proof: http://iwl.me/s/a19b4b4

This result comes from an analysis of the short story I submitted to the Laurel Highland Publishing contest, “Under a Hunter’s Moon”. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Arthur C. Clarke’s work, and used to speed through his books.

What surprised me most was that the results indicated that I write like a speculative science fiction author, and not a fantasy author. The story is set in a Seattle museum, and the Washington wilderness, so I know it’s not the story itself that influenced the results. The main character is a lupine, as my wife and I have decided to call the werewolves in our shared setting.

That means the software must analyze elements of writing style, and word usages. If nothing else, it is nice to know that it considers my writing to be similar to one of the great writers of our time.

My Personality Type: The Good-natured Realist

My Personality Type: The Good-natured Realist.

The link above leads to a very interesting personality test. Just five steps leads to an evaluation of character, and a description of your personality type. While I might not agree wholeheartedly with the results, there are some truths hidden in there.