If you ever wanted a quick and easy introduction to werewolf-lore, this post from Just the Juicy Bits is a pretty good place to start. (H/T: Werewolves.com)

From it’s first written appearance in 1.A.D to the present day we have never lost our morbid fascination with this most changeable of creatures. Almost every established culture features tales of Werewolves, simply replacing the ‘wolf’ with the dominant apex predator of that society. The Egyptian God Anubis for example had the head of a jackal and there are Chinese legends depicting cursed individuals transforming into tigers at will.

Despite our familiarity with the Werewolf, our contemporary understanding of a creature transforming with the full moon howling at the night sky, is very different to the perception of the Werewolf in the 15th-17th centuries. During this period Werewolves were not a fairytale, but a real and present threat- unnatural beings associated with Satan in a time when religious persecution was rife. The accounts of the Werewolf Trials, which ran parallel to the Witch Trials, present us with insight into a politically unstable world shaped by religion, politics and fear.