The process of transmogrification is widely supposed in both film and literature to be painful; the resulting wolf is typically cunning but merciless, and prone to killing and eating people without compunction, regardless of the moral character of the person when human. People can supposedly be turned into werewolves either by a curse or by being bitten by another werewolf; supposedly the only way to kill a werewolf is with a silver object (usually a bullet).
Werewolves have been dealt with in many movies, short stories, and novels, with varying degrees of success. The genre was made popular by the classic [Universal Studios]? move [The Wolf Man]? in 1941, starring [Lon Chaney Jr.]? as the werewolf Larry Talbot. It was this movie that made popular the rhyme: "Even a man who is pure in heart / And says his prayers at night / May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms / And the autumn moon is bright."
A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ergot?, which causes a form of [food poisoning]?, is a fungus that grows in place of rye? grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or at least poor areas of towns and results in hallucinations, mass hysteria, and paranoia, as well as convulsions and sometimes death. (LSD is derived from ergot.) Ergot poisoning has been proposed as both a cause of an individual believing that he or she is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had seen a werewolf. Ergot has also been suggested as a cause for the "bewitchings" and mass hysteria leading to the [Salem witch trials]?.
There is also a (rare) mental disorder called Lycanthropy, in which the afflicted person believes him- or herself to be a werewolf.
A few of the films dealing with werewolves:
see also vampire
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