Werewolf - Eric - Fourth Hour

In this dark unsafe world there are lots of things that go bump in the night. One of those things that makes a big bump, is the Lycan. Many people compare lycans with werewolves, but the biggest difference is that werewolves transform under the full moon, while the lycans transform at will. Also, the two species originated in different parts of Europe. I believe that lycans aren’t real and are just another myth that is kept alive with uncertain “sightings” in the media and the people who think they are lycans themselves.

The origins of the lycans date back to ancient Greek mythology. It is said that a legendary Arcadian king named Lycaon tried serving Zeus human flesh. Zeus was very angry at this and turned him into a wolf as punishment. There are many ways to be turned into a lycan, such as wearing certain magical items such as belts or fur suits, a curse, being bit by a lycan, viewing your reflection in a broken mirror, or swimming across a certain lake in Arcadia. There are also many pieces of history that reference the existence of lycans, such cave-drawings depicting leopard men hunting. There traces of werewolf beliefs written down in the Odyssey. The Arcadian Damarchus who won the boxing medal at the Olympics in 400 BC was said to be a lycan. In 600 AD there were reports of heretical monks being attacked by wolves. In 1334 it was said that a women gave birth to a wolf child. In the 1400’s wolf creatures were mentioned during a witchcraft trials at Basel. Many movies have been made involving lycans/werewolves such as Jekyll & Hyde, Werewolf of London, Wolf Man, house of Frankenstein, An American Werewolf in London, I was a Teenage Werewolf, Teen Wolf, and Underworld. There is also a clinical condition called lycanthropy that involves a delusional belief that you are or have transformed into an animal. The people with this condition than spread the idea that they are lycans and that lycans are real, then do things lycans would do as part of it, essentially keeping the lycan myth alive.

A lot of this evidence is still very unreliable though. Almost everything mentioned in Greek mythology is considered to be false in today’s world, the lycans should be no different. The cave drawings depicting leopard men hunting isn’t very credible because cave men used to wear the skin of the animals they killed. The Odyssey was a work of fiction, so the lycans were probably fictional too. The biggest piece of credible evidence to their false existence is that no one has truly seen lycans out in the open admitting and physically showing they are lycans, just people saying they’re lycans on internet forums. If lycan sightings were somewhat common 1,000 years ago than the sightings should be a lot more frequent today with the population being so high. There should be at least one lycan that spun out of control and created enough havoc to get serious media attention. The people that are diagnosed with lycanthropy are probably the ones who go out and attack people because they truly believe they need meat, which attracts some media attention, keeping the idea alive.

Lycans are an ancient myth, and I believe they’re kept alive by uncertain “sightings” that attract media attention and the people who believe they are lycans themselves. The credible evidence supporting their existence can be disproved by the evidence against their existence. The idea of lycans will always create interesting stories, but always stories of fiction.

References

“Where Do Lycans Come From”, April 6, 2009. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_do_lycans_come_from
“Truths of Darkeness”, April 7, 2009. http://jak-shodows.tripod.com/id3.html
“What Makes A Lycan A Lycan”, April 7, 2009. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_makes_a_lycan_a_lycan
“Clinical Lycanthropy”. April 7, 2009. http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Clinical_lycanthropy/id/1983852
Figure 1: “Lycan”, April 6, 2009. http://media.photobucket.com/image/lycan/be_fit/Lycan005.jpg