Werewolves - Trials and Theoretical Demonology

Luego del políptico de La comunidad de los espectros, un nuevo comienzo se torna necesario. Un giro en el filosofar atento al espesor metafísico de la subversión epocal en curso en todo el orbe. Esa misma crisis revela ahora como insuficientes los métodos más osados de las Humanidades del siglo XX. Un punto de partida: el relato acerca de un supuesto proceso judicial por vampirismo acaecido en un remoto cantón de Hungría a principios del siglo XVIII.
Con el discurrir de las hipótesis aquí propuestas, las relaciones con la licantropía se volverán centrales y ambos fenómenos deberán ser objeto de una minuciosa ultra-historia que acompaña al lector hasta los tiempos paleolíticos del culto de la Gran Madre. Pero esto es sólo el comienzo de un viaje metafísico que, bajo las formas de la sangre, el sacrificio y la metamorfosis, nos conduce hasta el origen mismo de la vida-muerte sobre la Tierra como estación necesaria para una meditación sobre el futuro cosmológico de los seres hablantes. El Vampiro y el Hombre lobo son las figuras filosófico-conceptuales que, una vez desentrañadas, nos muestran la vía regia hacia una forma completamente nueva de rehabilitación del pensamiento especulativo bajo la forma de una “ontología analéptica”.
Desde los inmemoriales rituales del sacrificio antiguo, hasta la teología política inversa del vampirismo, pasando por una inédita filosofía de los virus, se delinea ante nuestros ojos el subsuelo a partir del cual se revelan las condiciones de posibilidad de todo pensamiento acerca del Ser y la actual obsolescencia de todas las formas en las que este último ha sido previamente mentado. De este modo, un tenebroso y enjundioso proceso judicial, hoy caído en el olvido, nos muestra que custodiaba, sin saberlo, los secretos supremos de todo lo existente que la inveterada tradición ha dignificado con el nombre de Cosmos. Se anuncia, así, el comienzo de la Segunda Era Metafísica.
Publicado por Miño y Dávila Editores, Buenos Aires / Barcelona, 2022.
www.minoydavila.com [envíos a todo el mundo]

First national study on these tragic incidents in a historical framework. At the time of the Enlightenment, one of the most remote areas of France was caught up in a traumatic situation which lasted for three years and caused feelings to run high. The 'Beast' of Gévaudan attacked and killed dozens of people, mostly women and children, and dragged their bodies off into the forests to devour. What was this monster, which the most skilful hunters in the kingdom were sent to track down ? The mass of differing theories have done just as much to obscure the events as to cast light on them; high time, then, for a proper historian to re-examine the facts. Jean-Marc Moriceau, a recognized authority on rural life and on the relationship between wolves and humans, has taken up the challenge. In the pages of his account, a forgotten land comes back to life: a society marked by harsh inequality, where strangers are treated with suspicion; a society in which people barely manage to eke out a living, and that only by dint of constant toil. As we read through the original archives, we get to know more about every one of the young individuals who were caught up, between the years of 1764 and 1765, in the greatest calamity in the entire history of the province.
ISBN : 978-2-03-584173-5) [http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00311927].

The sixteenth century was marked by a period of significant change from the Renaissance, Age of Discovery, and the Reformation that created instability and anxiety. Together with the popularity of prints and superstitious beliefs fuelled by repeated war and death from disease and famine, sixteenth-century Germany was ripe for iconography of hybrid and shape-shifting creatures that embodied curiosity and fear.

"Yes, they are coming and, yes, there are more of them: Ever since the first ghoulish proto-vampires, werewolves and zombies lurched from the preliterate shadows to stalk the cuneiform-on-clay myths of Mesopotamia, they remain undead despite the passage of four millennia, adapting endlessly to every time and every place -- perhaps none more than our own.
"

Почему и как Ш.Перро изменил народную сказку, превратив её в знаменитую «Красную Шапочку»? Почему он оборотня превратил в волка, почему выкинул сцены с каннибализмом, с ритуальным стриптизом и скатологическими мотивами? В статье даются ответы на все эти вопросы.

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

For this reviewer, an admirer of both Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln for a very long time, this book is an unmitigated joy. The case of the self-professed Latvian werewolf, Old Thiess, a deponent in a trial in October 1691, has been famous since Latvian historian Hermann von Bruiningk (1847-1927) “made it the centerpiece of his pioneering article, ‘The Werewolf in Livonia’,” in 1924 (p. 2). The Nazi Otto Höfler (1901-1987) used the text for other purposes in a study of the Männerbünde, which influenced many Religious Studies scholars, including Geo Widengren, Stig Wikander and Mircea Eliade. Ginzburg read Höfler’s book in the 1960s and Lincoln in the 1970s, and both were fascinated by Old Thiess. This volume takes the form of two Introductions (one by each author), two ‘primary’ sources (the trial transcript and the verdict, and an extract from Höfler), two substantial treatments of the story of Old Thiess in comparative perspective (one by each author), a response by each author to the other’s assessment, and a concluding chapter containing two conversations. There are two Appendices treating werewolves in Livonia beyond Old Thiess specifically, and a list of further reading.

A werewolf is a human being believed capable of transforming into a creature resembling a wolf. Most people know the werewolf from legends dating to the European Middle Ages. Werewolves are also found, however, in the folklore of other cultures dating back thousands of years. In this paper, evidence for prehistoric werewolf transformations among Native American cultures of the Eastern Woodlands is considered. Physical evidence dating to the Archaic and Woodland periods includes wolf skulls modified to fit human skulls and human skulls modified with front teeth removed so as to accommodate cut wolf jaws. Drawing on recent advances in the cognitive sciences, the theories of conceptual blending and memorability of counter-intuitive concepts are used to explain this particular exemplar of the werewolf phenomenon.

What about some Good Wether? Witches and Werewolves in Sixteenth-Century Italy

This paper focuses on one hitherto unknown document from the archive of the Inquisition of Modena. In 1518 the noted demonologist Bartolomeo Spina (c. 1475-1546), then at the head of the local tribunal, received testimonies concerning one, very unusual male witch. A man from a nearby village was known for falling into a trance-like state closely resembling death, and was apparently also seen turning into a wolf and attacking a flock of wethers. Skeptical about the reliability of such reports, Spina decided not to investigate further, and thus the dossier did not develop into a full-blown trial. Even in its interrupted state, however, this case stands out as a very rare indication of the existence of local traditions on werewolves, and as an even rarer, tantalizing suggestion of the possible association between ecstasies and shapeshifting. The paper aims first to explore the meaning of such beliefs in the Modenese and northern Italian context of the time by connecting them with the characteristics of the “ride”, or “game” – two local names for the witches’ Sabbath. It then seeks to determine whether this case can really contribute valuable new evidence for the analysis of the myth of the wolf-man and of its implications, such as its supposed shamanistic core.

1691 m. Livonijoje vyko senojo Tyso byla. Vilkolakyste kaltinamas senolis ne tik prisipažino pats, bet krikščioniškosios demonologijos indoktrinuotus teisėjus ir gerokai suglumino – tai raganiai esą Velnio tarnai, o vilkolakiai yra Dievo šunys. Kasmet trissyk jie leidžiasi į pragarą, kur atkovoja derliaus skalsą, todėl Velnias jų suvis pakęsti negali. Ir taip toliau.

1924 m. publikuotas bylos protokolas iššaukė reakciją, netilstančią iki pat šių dienų. Tyso „gerieji vilkolakiai“ Europos vilkolakių kontekste atrodo gana anomališkai. Tačiau ar tokie jie buvo ir savo krašte? Čia Tyso recepcijos įdirbis yra toli gražu nepakankamas. Tam ir skirtas šis darbas – esminė revizija, remiantis naujai sutelktais pirminiais šaltiniais.

Siekiant patikrinti, kiek Tyso pareiškimai yra įsišakniję vietos tradicijoje, nuspręsta ryžtingai žengti ad fontes ir Tyso bylos duomenis amplifikuoti XVI–XVIII a. istorinių šaltinių ir XIX–XX a. tautosakos teikiamais vietinės tradicijos faktais. Patogumo dėlei Tyso bylojimą nuspręsta išskaidyti į prasminius vienetus (vaizdinius-mitologemas) ir kiekvieną jų amplifikuoti skyriumi, iš pradžių vietinės tradicijos duomenimis, tuomet tipologinėmis paralelėmis (kur ir kiek jų bus rasta).

Pirmoji darbo dalis skirta bylos tekstui – Tyso bylos pristatymui. Antrojoje dalyje glaustai apžvelgiama akademinė bylos recepcija kaip revizijos pretekstas. Trečioji dalis (darbo „stuburas“) skirta Tyso bylos kontekstui – XVI–XVII a. Livonijos vilkolakiams įvairaus pobūdžio istoriniuose šaltiniuose. Ketvirtojoje (analitinėje) darbo dalyje ryškinamos potekstės, t.y. atliekama Tyso bylos amplifikacija liaudies tikėjimais. Tai daroma pasitelkus praeitame skyriuje pristatytus istorinius šaltinius ir tik šiame skyriuje naudojamą tautosaką.

Prieduose pateikiamas bylos protokolo nuorašas originalo kalba ir byloje minimų vietų žemėlapis. Bibliografija rengta skaidrumo dvasioje ir taip, kad turėtų savarankišką vertę: visi esminiai pirminiai šaltiniai prieinami mygtuko spustelėjimu.

* * *

In 1691 the trial of the old Thiess was underway in Livonia. Upon the charges of lycanthropy, the old man not only confessed himself, but managed to perplex the judges, who were thoroughly informed by Christian demonology. According to Thiess, it is the sorcerers who serve the Devil, whereas the werewolves are the hounds of God. Three times every year they descend into hell where they recover the yield and that is why the Devil despises them. And so forth and so on.

Proceedings of the trial were published in 1924 and brought about a reaction that does not die away to this day. The “benevolent werewolves” of Thiess look quite anomalous when viewed in the context of werewolves of Europe. But were they perceived as such in their own land? Here the existing studies on Thiess and his werewolves are not nearly sufficient. Hence this paper, which essentially is a revision in light of newly gathered primary sources.

In attempt to examine the extent to which the statements of Thiess are rooted in the local tradition, it was decided to firmly go ad fontes and amplify the data of the trial with folkloric facts extracted from the XVI–XVIII c. historical sources and XIX–XX c. folklore. To ease the process it was decided to break up the narrative into independently meaningful units (so called mythologems) and to amplify each of them separately, first with data from the local tradition, then with comparanda of typological nature (where found).

The first chapter introduces the text of the Thiess trial. In the second chapter a brief overview of the academic reception is given, presenting it as a pretext for the current revision. The third chapter (the “backbone”) is dedicated for the context of the trial – XVI–XVII c. Livonian werewolves as portrayed by various historical sources. In the fourth and final (analytical) chapter the subtexts are elucidated, i.e., the amplification itself is performed. This is done with local beliefs as found both in the historical sources (introduced in the previous chapter) and in the folklore (introduced only here).

Two appendices are added: the original transcript of the trial and the map showing locations that are mentioned therein. The bibliography was arranged to have a value of its own and in spirit of transparency: all of the essential primary sources are accessible in a click.

Feral children narratives have provided the opportunity for many authors to explore the boundary between civilization and nature and what gives some the special ability to cross it. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, interest in such stories grew and a cluster of related stories circulated in Western Europe. The most detailed account in this “first cluster” was the wolf-boy of the Ardennes, first published by Louis Guyon in his 1603 Les diverses leçons. In recalling a story about a young boy lost in the woods, raised by a she-wolf, and later reintegrated into human society, Guyon explored issues related to witchcraft trials and the scholarly debate over demonology that they produced. The attention given to the wolf-boy of the Ardennes and other early modern feral children narratives reflected the intellectual interests of the time, illuminating changing ideas about the supernatural as well as contemporary concepts of motherhood.

In this article summing up the arguments presented during the conference he gave at the University of Geneva on June 8th 2015 at the invitation of the Society of History of Religions of Geneva, the historian of religions Bruce Lincoln examines the trial transcript of a Livonian peasant known as «Old Thiess» accused in 1692 of being a diabolical werewolf. In so doing Lincoln on the one hand offers a detailed analysis of the trial, its religious representations and their context, and on the other, argues against those scholars who have extracted the transcript from its environment to document the existence of a Eurasian pre-Christian religion. Close reading of the sources allows Lincoln to show that far from revealing a coherent, pre-existent religion, the defendant’s declarations are embedded in a social conflict between a German elite seeking to legitimate its dominant status and the dominated fraction of Livonian society, the Baltic peasants. The description given by Old Thiess of werewolves represent an attempt to subvert the elite’s definitions by reconfiguring werewolves, himself included, as bitter enemies of the Devil and agents of God, whose task it is to regain the prosperity stolen by the Devil’s agents, agents who bear an uncanny resemblance to the German elite confiscating the fruits of the peasants’ labor.

Werewolves and physicians experienced their closest contact in the context of early modern witch and werewolf trials. For medical critics of the trials, melancholic diseases served as reference points for medical explanations of both individual cases and werewolf beliefs in general.
This paper attempts to construct a conceptual history of werewolf beliefs and their respective medical responses. After differentiating the relevant terms, pre-modern werewolf concepts and medical lycanthropy are introduced. The early modern controversy between medical and demonological explanations forms the main part of this study. The history of werewolves and their medical explanations is then traced through to present times. An important point of discussion is to what extent the physicians’ engagements with werewolves can be characterized as rationalization.

The work was presented at the "FOLK NARRATIVE IN REGIONS OF INTENSIVE CULTURAL EXCHANGE" conference in Interim Conference of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) 2018 Ragusa, Italy, June 12-16, 2018
Mythologem shapeshift-human turning into an animal (bird, plant, object, etc.) is the most developed in the Belarusian tradition motif represented in wolf/werewolves transformation / shifter. And some motives have parallels in the Belarusian traditional interpretation of dreams: to see the wolf is prognostic of the coming guests, matchmakers, wedding. The most popular nominations of werewolf fixed by the Belarusian folklore-ethnolinguistic atlas (hereinafter BFELA) are (volkolak volkolaka, vovkolaka, vavkulak, avkalaka and under.), at least-a vauchar, voukun (vavkun), even less fixations of type known as volkolatniki, voukulay. A separate group of verbal nominations is formed on the basis of motive transformation: piarevaratsen, vyvoroten, obaratsen, vyvyritsin, peravertsen, perakrutsen. As a characteristic of avoidant person, it was found determining the metaphorical nature of the type of vaukavaty and vavkachecha. Analysis of BFELA records about werewolves (about 324 records from 203 villages) shows that mythologem werewolve (Bel. vaukalak) is considered by the locals, on the one hand, in the meaning of mythical creatures (human-werewolf, evil spirit); on the other-as the metaphorical name (people with definition of quality and features, wolves / dogs). Fig. 1 Werewolves are mythical creatures

In Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective, the extraordinary late-seventeenth-century trial of an accused werewolf anchors a discussion between two provocative and wide-ranging historians of religion and culture: Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln. Both Ginzburg and Lincoln have spent decades writing and thinking about comparison, although Lincoln’s interest (at least since the 1990s) has mainly been in critiquing the bases of comparison and demonstrating ways in which to limit its scope. I had already begun my review of Old Thiess as a book note and then expanded it into a full review when I learned of the publication of David Gordon White’s Dæmons Are Forever: Contacts and Exchanges in the Eurasian Pandemonium. When it arrived in my mailbox a few days later, I knew I would have to review both of these books together. As with Lincoln, White’s connection to and methodological departure from the Chicago School of History of Religions is central to the way he explains his methodology. The point of his project is to rehabilitate the field of Indo-European studies by reimagining it as something more like “Eurasian studies” or “Silk Road studies." White shifts the focus from the religions of imperial formations and elite classes to the “dæmonology” practiced by everyday people in their relationships with the spirits that surrounded them and whose effects (sickness, weather, etc.) were felt in their daily lives.

This syllabus is designed for an Intermediate College Composition course. I centered the course around a themes of monsters and monstrosity. The readings examine historical and contemporary depictions of monsters and monstrosity including vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, serial killers, and movie psychos/slasher villains.

The only question we may ask when watching so many films by one film maker covering a thirty year period is about the existential meaning of the whole set.

First let me tell you I do not give a damn about the film maker’s personality or personal data. That he had a bad or good youth with a father who was loving or terrifying;, and a mother who was evanescent or over powering is of no concern to me though we could say hat the  virtual “author” of these films obviously has an existential problematic relation with life and death.

He will, I guess, excuse his morbidity, his cultish liking of death, his depressive black humor by saying he is a Halloween author. That would be short indeed. That would neglect the audience. The public, and mostly children when the films are not restricted or are Walt Disney films, are bombarded with gruesome juicy corpses in any state of decay, with frightening scaring traumatizing supernatural beings from the other side of life: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and so many other curse-throwers and curse-catchers as if cursing your neighbors was nothing but a game of baseball.

But in the end does Tim Burton have a vision of society that could be explained to anyone? I am afraid not. In the name of extreme black somber humor he criticizes, vandalizes and victimizes anything and anyone supposedly sacred in this society, except mind you anything really religious. In other words these horror or suspense stories are the stories of a very faithful choirboy, or choirgirl if they could have girls in that function, who has never been able to take his robes down, probably because that is his only vestment, clothing and he is nude and prudish underneath. In other words these stories, be they morbid, humorous or simply gruesome, are nothing but the expression of his total nudity under his superficial existential circumstantial diapers. He hides behind such ugly stories and tries – at times fails – to make people laugh at his funeral corpselike mind. [...]

Il mondo delle streghe alla fine del Cinquecento prevedeva la possibilità di trasformarsi in animale; il commercio con spiriti e fantasmi; la possibilità di provocare malattie Eppure, un secolo dopo, poche di queste cose erano credute dalla classi colte. Oggetto di questa ricerca i modi in cui queste credenze furono abbandonati, e tuttavia in modo tale che relitti di esse persistono ancora tra noi

This essay analyzes Marx’s world of monsters, machines, and magic; a motley and fascinating cast of characters which populates his 19th Century Gothic landscape. Each of these conceptual personae are entwined in a common drama but are called upon to represent distinct themes and singular movements that Marx brings into a whole in Capital, Volume One. This tripartite structure signal crucial moments and transitions that delineate the entire scope of Marx’s masterwork. Magic denotes the production and circulation of commodities, the creation of money and value-form, and the sleight-of-hand that produces the first instances of surplus-value. Machines characterize the revolution in the technical process of labor, the historical transition from manufacture to the factory, and reveal the exploitation of workers and their labor-power by capital. Monsters exemplify capital itself, the structure of accumulation that feeds and perpetuates it as a suicidal process, and the capitalists in the background whose guilt is never beyond doubt. One unique feature of this reading is that all of Marx’s monsters are brought together, at last, to commune and spell out a unified narrative than cannot be read in isolated chapters.

This syllabus is designed for an Intermediate College Composition course. I centered the course around a themes of monsters and monstrosity. The readings examine historical and contemporary depictions of monsters and monstrosity including vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, serial killers, and movie psychos/slasher villains.

This chapter is one of several studies devoted to examining the most common monsters listed in Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie. It discusses the development of the man-wolf from antiquity to contemporary times, revisiting its contested and problematic association with wargus/vargr/wearg, its appearance in names, its various spellings, and its uses in literature and folklore. It suggests that the speaker of "Wulf and Eadwacer" is "going wolf," as it were (given the prominent use of animal imagery), in a slow retreat from her people and human taboos.

Questo testo analizza in vari saggi i singoli aspetti del mondo delle streghe e al contempo le fonti che alimentavano la credenza nell'esistenza delle streghe. Il suo scopo è di presentare nei dettagli al lettore il paesaggio mentale delle persone che in quell'epoca credevano che alcuni esseri umani si riunissero nottetempo, adorassero il diavolo e fossero agenti del male nella storia. In questa ricostruzione emergono cose sorprendenti, come il fatto che pezzi importanti del mondo stregato sopravvivono ancora oggi e agiscono tra noi.
Seconda edizione del testo del 2008

The article presents theories of possible origins of lycanthropy, defined as the ability of a human to shapeshift into an animal. Because of the symbolic meaning of a wolf in the European culture, people who can turn into animals are called werewolves, while in many places of the world people metamorphoses in other creatures, like tigers or crocodiles. In European culture lycanthropy was usually perceived as an effect of magic or punishment for sins, but in shamanistic beliefs a metamorphose into an animal was conscious and beneficial to the society. The lycanthropy may be a result of a belief in reincarnation or a relic of fertility rites and brotherhoods of warriors. It is also possible that the legends of werewolves came into existence because of the observation of human mental or physical illnesses.

I have for years now been working on an intellectual biography of the eccentric Austrian polymath Robert Eisler (1882-1949), who wrote on art history, monetary policy, philology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, sociology, and the history of religions. It is totally unrelated to the rest of my published work (such as it is) and I have been unsure exactly what to do with it. So I decided to do something different and use the techniques of storytelling to do an academic podcast whose form would be better suited to telling the fascinating story of this strange but brilliant and unjustly forgotten scholar. The result is A Very Square Peg: A Podcast About Robert Eisler, a ten-episode limited series that begins June 2nd 2020 on the New Books Network.

https://www.facebook.com/A-Very-Square-Peg-A-Podcast-About-Robert-Eisler-101887274875401

Available open access at: https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.7038

The connection between warfare and an increased wolf presence or even wolf attacks is a recurrent theme in European narrative sources. Many historical studies have also commented on the widespread belief in this connection and suggested that armed conflicts instigated a breakdown of the standard wolf-human relationship. In peacetime, wolves generally avoided humans and remained outside human communities. This article argues that the close link between wolves and warfare in the history of the Low Countries is far more the result of a complex interplay between human perceptions of nature and the ecological impact of combat. Wolves could only profit from human conflict in very specific circumstances, yet these exceptions became part of a widespread narrative since the High Middle Ages, because they confirmed peoples’ association of wolves with wilderness. This narrative also explains why wolf hunting exhibited strong similarities to fighting human enemies.

Het verband tussen oorlog en een toenemende aanwezigheid van wolven, of zelfs aanvallen van wolven, is een terugkerend thema in Europese literaire bronnen. Het is niet verwonderlijk dat ook veel geschiedwetenschappelijke studies wijzen op deze connectie en opperen dat gewapende conflicten de gebruikelijke relatie tussen wolf en mens verstoorden. In vredestijd vermeden wolven mensen over het algemeen en bleven ze ver van menselijke bewoning. Dit artikel beargumenteert echter dat de nauwe associatie tussen wolven en oorlogsvoering in de geschiedenis van de Lage Landen veeleer het resultaat is van een complexe wisselwerking tussen menselijke percepties van natuur en de ecologische impact van oorlog. Wolven konden slechts in bijzondere omstandigheden van oorlogsvoering profiteren, maar deze uitzonderingen werden niettemin onderdeel van een wijdverspreid literair topos vanaf de Hoge Middeleeuwen omdat ze de menselijke associatie van wolven met wildernis bevestigden. Dit topos verklaart ook waarom wolvenjacht grote gelijkenissen vertoonde met de strijd tegen menselijke vijanden.

Focusing on identities and conflicts in literature, this article proposes an analysis of the bifid, metamorphic and conflictual figure of the werewolf. Particularly, Marie de France’s Lay of Bisclavret is analyzed in the light of Giorgio Agamben’s philosophical-anthropological theory about the Homo sacer. Comparing the wolf-man to the “sacred man,” this theory not only does it allow us to understand the liminal juridical essence of the werewolf in medieval society, but it also explains the central role of sovereignty in the “recognition” of the wolf-man, in its reintroduction into the civil context of the court, and therefore in the resolution of “conflicts” and in the re-establishment of a new social order. To corroborate this interpretation, other Old French texts on werewolves are taken into consideration: the episode of Biclarel in the Roman de Renart le contrefait, the Lay of Melion, the William of Palerne.

Bis heute gilt der Wald als Raum abseits der Gesellschaft; er vereint sowohl die romantische Vorstellung ursprünglicher Natur als auch die Dimension der Bedrohlichkeit. Diese ambivalente Sichtweise wurde unter anderem durch Märchen geprägt, in denen der Wald als „ein Ort außergewöhnlichen Geschehens und unheimlicher Begegnungen“  dargestellt wird. Zu den Gestalten, die man im (Märchen-)Wald regelmäßig antrifft, gehört auch der Wolf. Er spielt die Rolle des Verführers, der die Märchenprotagonisten in einer liminalen Phase  herausfordert und zu moralisch verwerflichen Handlungen verleiten will. Dass der Wald auch in der zeitgenössischen phantastischen Literatur nichts von seiner Liminalität verloren hat, und der (Wer-)Wolf nach wie vor ein charmanter Verführer ist, zeigt sich in Wolf G. Heimraths Mash-up Novel Werther, der Werwolf (2010). In diesem Beitrag gilt es herauszuarbeiten, wie durch die Wahl des Settings – dem Wald als liminalem Raum – einerseits der Zwiespalt des Werwolfs widergespiegelt und andererseits das grenzüberschreitende Verhalten der Figuren begünstigt wird.