Lee Cushing's Blog - Posts Tagged "full-moon"
Werewolves & Silver
In 1941, Lon Chaney, Jr’s Wolfman was bashed over the head with his own silver headed cane and the use of silver as a means to combat werewolves became part of the standard werewolf lore. (A few years earlier, Henry Hull’s Werewolf Of London was killed by police using regular bullets.)
On the surface it seems like a great idea having a monster that is invulnerable to everything other than silver, making it possible only for those who were extremely lucky to have a silver weapon (like a silver wolf headed cane in the Wolfman) or those who were prepared to hunt down werewolves.
Now if the assumption is made that silver causes a fatal allergic or toxic reaction (As in The Beast Must Die) to werewolves, the advantage of being only vulnerable to silver becauses more of a weakness. It also follow that professionals who hunt werewolves would incorporate silver into their clothing or armour to guarantee no werewolf would survive eating a hunter it had killed.
On the surface it seems like a great idea having a monster that is invulnerable to everything other than silver, making it possible only for those who were extremely lucky to have a silver weapon (like a silver wolf headed cane in the Wolfman) or those who were prepared to hunt down werewolves.
Now if the assumption is made that silver causes a fatal allergic or toxic reaction (As in The Beast Must Die) to werewolves, the advantage of being only vulnerable to silver becauses more of a weakness. It also follow that professionals who hunt werewolves would incorporate silver into their clothing or armour to guarantee no werewolf would survive eating a hunter it had killed.
