The Werewolf Handbook: An Essential Guide to Werewolves and, More Importantly, How to Avoid Them

by Robert Curran

Presents a general description of werewolves, offers tips to readers on how to spot them, and defines eight different werewolf types.

Genres: Paranormal, Fantasy, Horror, Werewolves, Research, Fairy Tales

80 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Psychologist Robert Curran is an well-known expert in folklore and the paranormal, who has written dozens of fascinating books on faeries, vampires,werewolves and stranger things. His most recent book is The Ghost Handbook, a study of ghost fiction and possibly ghost fact.

Reviews

[Alyssa Mayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know a little bit of basic information on werewolf mythology from around the world. It is definitely not an in-depth look at any werewolf legend, but the cover is pretty awesome, and would be a great gift to a teen which loves werewolves. The type of scare/gore factor discussed in the pages are nothing compared to what I've seen on T.V.

All in all, I liked this little book. There were some really great photos, and illustrations. I thought the layout of the book and information were arranged in a logical, easy to follow manner which kept the reader wanting to turn the page.

For the project I was reading it for, I was hoping for something with a little more depth of information on the myths and legends of werewolves. However, while I go off in search of more reading material on the subject, I will hand this neat little book over to my thirteen year old daughter which is a huge fan of werewolf folklore.

[Ivana · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Prerazmišljavanje - Katarina Kostić · Rating 2 out of 5]

Citiraću my girl Juliju Kapulet: "Je l' bilo nekad lepše povezane, a sadržajem gore knjige!"

[Snezana BookWitch Gligorijevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesantno i zabavno stivo za sve one koji vole vukodlake i price o njima (o:

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, one thing first:
Robert Curran might not be Bob Curran.
I made a mistake in my first review of this book based on an error by amazon.com at the time I purchased it. Since amazon.com listed it as one of Bob Curran's at the time.
But according to an E-Mail by him this was never written by him and I apologize for stating that it did.

Still:
I cannot recommend this book. It is not as though everything is wrong or it is badly written (well some parts are), but its validity is doubtful and I will only keep it as a reminder.
You cannot deny that it is often written and designed in a good way but this does not excuse for its flaws. Actually there are even design flaws as the author mixed pictures up and to be honest I have the suspicion that the author either made things up or is simply badly informed.
It might be possible that the author is right but even after the first 10 pages I noticed some oddities that should at least let anybody half-way knowledgeable in the field have raised eyebrows. Furthermore all in all it seems more fitting for fantasy fans then people actually interested in folklore and legend and there is doubt in my mind whether the author can identify what originated in folklore and what in pure fiction. Furthermore parts of this book are in contradiction with his previous werewolf book and I have my doubts that he has a definition of werewolf to begin with.
All in all, the biggest flaw is that the author does not name his sources unlike in his previous werewolf-book, which makes it very hard to know where he actually has it from and how valid his sources and/or his statements are.

It is weird that the author simply describes werewolves as extremely savage, as though all of them were.
It might be possible that "man-wolf" originally meant a person who was strong and powerful but I can only say that because I also read it in an independent source.
The author states that Cú-Cuhullain might mean "Wolf of Ulster". This is however pretty new and even the Coir Anmann (which he later mentions) translates the word "Cú" with hound/dog and states the word "fáel" for wolf.
He does not state where he read that in folklore you can become a werewolf by being bitten, since this was an invention by the movie industry and especially O'Donnell clearly stated that werewolfism was not infectious, unlike vampirism.
Also I think it's questionable to say that someone transforming into a wolf by smearing herself with an ointment has no control as to when she becomes a wolf.
In addition, the ways of being born as a werewolf are not universal, e.g. Summers mentioned that children of Priests become werewolves as a belief in certain areas of France but that was it.
And it is not correct to say that wherever men are there are werewolves close by, since India has no indigenous stories of werewolves as far as I know, but it seems as though the author often simply means all sorts of shapeshifters when he talks of werewolves (or in other cases seems to exclude werewolves from shapeshifters), while in other cases shapeshifting is not even required, which made me question whether the author actually has a definition of the phenomenon.
And I wonder where he read it that the curse can be passed on by inhaling the smoke of a burning werewolf-body.
His exclusion of Eastern Europe from the countries with the most werewolf stories is incorrect in my eyes. Furthermore it is odd that he changes the subject so quickly to people turning into jackals, foxes and coyotes instead of at least mentioning tales of people turning into wolves from North America (he only mentions people transforming into coyotes). And while there might be stories of actual women transforming into foxes from Japan, the opposite is definitely far more common.
In addition, after talking of Northern and Western Europe, North Africa, North America, Middle East and Japan, his statement regarding that in other parts of the world "Magicians can often transform themselves into other animals, although these are invariably wild animals" is definitely incorrect and arguably inconsistent with his own book since he later tells of a "Werecat of Salem" and mentioned cases of people transforming into dogs in his previous werewolf book. Furthermore stories of people transforming into cats were common for medieval witches, and stories of sorcerers transforming into dogs are known from the Americas, to Africa and Indonesia.
Whether it is, like another commenter stated, incorrect that Finnish "magicians" shifted into bears I cannot say, but it is odd that the author chose Finland for that and not Sweden or Norway.
It is also odd that he only lists ways to spot a werewolf in human form and mostly ignores the signs telling you that the wolf in front of yourself might not be a wolf after all.
I have no idea where he has it from that werewolves will avoid silver and that all of them "will be nervous, even secretive, as the full moon approaches" since in many tales werewolves shifted in broad daylight and totally independent of the moon. I also doubt the source of the healing abilities. All in all he acts as though those signs are universal when in fact many tales exist where the people in question where only identified as werewolves when having been seen shifting shape or due to certain wounds. Had they had the signs he mentioned that would not have been necessary.

And I wouldn't call the "types of werewolf" he mentions as the most famous, I bet barely anybody heard of them, respectively his menagerie is a bit weird to say the least.
This particular chapter already starts with an introduction that makes it questionable whether the author has a definition of werewolf.
And if with the wolf-fearing ancestors he means those ape-like ancestors he talks about than he should do a course in basic paleontology, since by the time our ancestors probably first met gray wolves they already looked like us and not apes.
And based on the estimated age of the drawing known as "The sorcerer de Trois-Fréres" it is a bit premature to say that its tail is that of a wild wolf, since it could also have been a fox tail or that of a domestic dog who definitely was around in the time between 14000 and 8000 BC. In addition the creature with the dead rabbit depicted on page 20 is clearly a dog-men as evident by its dropped ears (perhaps he regards dogs correctly as wolves but then his earlier comment would no longer fit).
In addition, while it is true that some depictions show Cerberus as two-headed others portray him with three heads.
That he speaks about that "in the early medieval stories, sometimes a great knight might be accidentally transformed into a wolf" seems to suggest that he means the story of Melion, which was not a legend or folklore but definitely a work of pure fiction.
He forgets to mention that many among the clerics stated that the transformation of man to wolf was not real but merely an illusion caused by the devil.
His entry on Le Maitre de Foret (or simply Master of the Forest [you don't need French to guess that]) clearly describes a being that controls wolves and not something that is a werewolf itself, at least there is no mentioning of shapeshifting into a wolf. In addition in some sentences he indicates that this being might be inhuman in nature and therefore does not fit any definition of werewolf.
Especially odd is his chapter on "The Laignach Faelad". I have my doubts that stories about these "war wolves" respectively these warriors "who were said to be half men, half wolf" even exists and he doesn't say where he has it from. Sure he does mention this "extremely ancient Irish text known as the Coir Anmann" but not where he read about it and who/what was the source for that text. If it really is so ancient it would not be something just anybody could get access to and from what I know.
Well since he doesn't really say where he has it from it is hard if not impossible to say whether he made it up or had false information.
But I can say this:
I searched for this title and found the title "Cóir Anmann: A late Middle Irish treatise on personal names" edited by Sharon Arbuchnoc. The first part was published in 2005 and the second one in 2007. Furthermore the first book states that there were three of them all contained in Arbuchnoc's work.
The scribe of the original first Cóir Anmann (CA) was Ádhamh Ó Cianáin who died in 1373. He was copying from an exemplar belonging to or written by his teacher and most of the manuscript appears to have been written before 1345 (possible 1344), making it 'the earliest surviving compilation of traditional material after the Book of Leinster'. Five complete copies and one fragment of the second CA have survived and none are older than the late fourteenth century. And three copies of the third CA have survived, all not older than the sixteenth century. So all in all not exactly "extremely ancient". But based on Curran's previous book he seems to mean the third one.
But the actual relevant part is this:
In the second part of the book by Arbuchnoc (which contains the third CA) there is the following translated text;
Laignech Fáelad [This is basically the same description that Montague Summers had in his book "Werewolf". He further added the sentence "This was in Ossory". As his sources he lists "Irische Texte" by Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch (a version of the CA which Arbuchnoc also mentions in her book as being an earlier translation with some notes) and "The Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius." William Camden is mentioned in the book but I could find nothing of Tipperary (because Curran refers to the as "Wolf Men of Tipperary").
But I did find a reference to Tipperary in the book "Metamorphoses of the Werewolf" albeit only referring to the "Tipperary border". Nonetheless in the book it is stated that the "De Ingantaib Érenn (On the wonders of Ireland) … identifies the werewolves 'as the descendents of Laignech Fáelad in Ossory". It also identifies Fáelad as a person, not a group of people.
Now Wikipedia mentions Ossory as the anglicized version of the Kingdom of Osraighe and that it "was an ancient kingdom of Ireland. It formed the easternmost part of the kingdom and province of Munster until the middle of the 9th century, after which it attached itself to Leinster." And it further states that County of Tipperary is today located in Munster, so it's possible that "Ossory" and "Tipperary" mean the same location in this case.
Now the Eigi Einhamr are clearly not werewolves but rather a term for shapeshifters in general, which Curran's text itself states but nonetheless classifies as werewolves.
While Loup Garou is a term for a werewolf in France this entry makes me question when in the eyes of the author a story stops being about a werewolf. He says himself that the Rougarou sometimes acts more like a vampire (a mixture of both is already noted from some parts of Europe) but fails to mention that in some versions only a witch can make a Rougarou or that in others it’s a headless horsemen, despite the fact that such information is easily accessible. In addition he fails to mention that it is debatable whether the Rugaru legend of the Ojibwa really originated among them.
Now his chapter on the Benandanti seems to lack any source. At first the author writing about them is called Ginzburg and not Ginzberg as Curran did. In addition if Curran is referring to his book "The Night Battles" (if not it's hard to say which one he means since Ginzburg wrote many books) I can only say that the book neither states that the mentioned man called Thiess was a Benandanti nor that the Benandanti transformed their souls into wolf-shapes. Bourgault mentioned this in her book "The Curse of the Werewolf" but the referenced article by Ginzburg she stated did not state this either. I know of three books in which Ginzburg mentions these people and in none of them does he claim that they were werewolves.
Now after only 7 chapters (aka 14 pages) the author already refers to other shapeshifters on page 34 which he does not label as werewolf, for some unknown reason since he had no problem with that in the case of the E igi Einhamr or the Master of the Forest. Furthermore the "Man-bear monster" on this page is not a bear but a dog-head from the well known Nuremberg Chronicle (can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sch...).

Also his werewolf tales are not really famous and not really all werewolf-tales when you look at it.
Lycaon did not live before the flood of the Bible but before the flood in Greek myth (which features Deukalyon and not Noah, and had followed a big fire). He also does not state (typical) that there are different myths about Lycaon and his trial by Zeus, in some Lycaon was a just man and his sons cruel and transformed and in others they were killed by lightning and not transformed into wolves. I also wonder what his source for the nine years period of transformation for Lycaon is. This is also not really a story about Lycaon but rather about these Arcadian werewolf myths.
Out of some reason he assessed Romulus and Remus as werewolves and I think the myth of the Arcadian boxer actually refers to him having been a wolf for a time and not being raised by one.
St. Christopher is not a werewolf but a dog-head, as Curran himself states, but that he lacked the power of shapeshifting didn't seem to bother him.
Peter Stubbe was from Bedburg, not Bedbur, and he was accused of much more than the book stated.
The pictures he used in Gilles Garnier's story have nothing to do with the case. Neither do the ones of the Gandillion family or in the chapter of Pierre de Lancre and Henri Boguet.
And the picture on page 60 is a colored version of a picture from the Nuremberg Chronicle and doesn't show the burning of werewolves but a burning of Jews. The pictures from the chapter of Jean Grenier have nothing to do with him and the one on page 66 & 67 belongs to the wolf of Ansbach (on page 70) as is evident by the background picture in the picture itself (it shows a miniature version of the picture on page 70).
He also does not mention that some people believed that the wolf of Ansbach was not the ghost of the deceased major but a common wolf or a wolf possessed by the devil.
Susanna Martin, as previously stated, is a direct contradiction regarding his statement that magicians never turn into non-wild animals. In addition the picture on page 74 is definitely a canine as evident by the long snout and the body shape, but he claimed it to be a werecat, despite the fact that it is a very prominent werewolf-picture.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good fake-nonfiction book. This was fun, but I had to knock a star off because what kind of werewolf book doesn't mention the beast of Gevaudan?

I did enjoy all the historical information (people are horrible) and different origin stories.

[Slightcold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little book covers all you want to know about werewolf. It is interesting and informative. The part I love about this book is all the information are based on folklore and history, no soap opera or movie. The design of this book made it much more readable, took you a tour at the dark side of the world. There are also introduction of several representatives from typical werewolf-active regions, hence is very good for the understanding.

[Anna M (readwithanna) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The aesthetics of this book is overall nice - looks like an old book inside and out, but has some strange choices like multiple fonts on each page (some that are hard to read). I think it would have benefited from more hand drawn pictures rather than photographs to add to the atmosphere of the book. There is not a lot of information in the book, but I did like that it included different were-creatures and stories from around the world.

Overall, would be a good small gift for an upper elementary or lower middle school kid. This book is not as impressive as the other "guides" and "handbooks" popular for this age. They are usually larger and with more pull-outs and interactive media. Good choice for the price point ($14.99) compared to other similar guides.

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like in The Biblio Vampiro, Curran puts together myths and legends from many countries and give us this handbook on Werewolves. There were many of the stories that I had never heard of and I really enjoyed learning about them. The Advice at the end on how to avoid Werewolves was as humorous and the one about Vampires.

I really enjoyed the whole book.

[Isa Lot · Rating 3 out of 5]

De los tres que tengo de esta colección este es el que menos me ha gustado. Trae información mitológica e historias de distintas partes de Europa, pero tiene algunos fallos gordos como decir que "la edda prosaica es una saga", toma ya.

[Michael Kerjman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful picturesque book presents meticulously collated historic data on blood-thirsty creatures believed being people transformed.

Written from perspective of human surviving, it doesn't provoke teens on antisocial actions luckily.

[Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little book. Younger kids would enjoy.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very cute book for those who love werwolves it legends.

[Belinda J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun read.

[B R · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the author writes in an informative and entertaining way and the book has a lot of pictures from various media, the author's credibility in sharing folklore suffers. While I do not know about many of the cultures in the book, the one culture that I do know about he gets wrong.

On pages 11 and 34, he states that Finnish shamans were known to transform themselves into bears--which is absolutely not true. On page 11, I found this odd and on page 34 I could see his mistake. He connects the term "berserk" to Finland for some reason. This is a term used in the Norse Sagas, for example Egil's Saga--which are Scandinavian, not Finnish. The Finns are a separate culture--they are not Germanic, Scandinavian, or even European during the Viking Age. The root for the word bear in "berserk"--ber, or bera in old English, is of Germanic origin, not Finnic and definately not Finno-Ugric.

In Finnish mythology, shamans could turn themselves into either vipers or eagles. The viper symbolized evil shamans--their ability to cast curses. A shaman was said to have a pouch with three heads of viper in it. The viper symbolized the arbitrary and dark side of natural forces as one could die or be sickened by it without much warning.

The eagle, an animal that eats vipers in nature, was seen as a symbol for good shamans who relieved curses. The eagle was also seen as a good being who was a friend of the first human, Väinämöinen in the Kalevala. The eagle breathed fire and gave this to the humans as a gift--to clear and fertilize fields.

The bear was worshiped and was considered an ancestor of humans. Humankind was created from the first bear who was lowered from the Big Dipper which they believed to have the shape of a bear (as its Latin name also connotes) on a golden chain. Humans could gain some of its supreme strength by eating the bear's flesh.

The strength would be seen in the effectiveness of spells, not in transformation. It was considered the King of the Forest. But the shaman did not make himself into a bear.

It was believed that if one understood the origin of something, one could also control that something. Thus, gaining the strength of an original human, a bear, the shaman could come as close as possible to human origins in the sky and thus gain control through his other spells after conducting a bear ceremony.

The bear's skull was placed on the branches of a pine tree and its bones were buried at its roots. This was symbolic of returning the bear to its mother, Hongatar, the female spirit of the pine. The hunter would chant an apology for taking the bear. This was part of a feast where the bear would be eaten and its life force was added to the hunter/shaman's abilities in casting spells.

In Finnish folklore, the wolf is connected to the spell of iron as the wolf was believed to give humans iron through its muddy paw prints. This relates to the presence of iron in bogs and the fact that in the places where iron could be found one could also find animal prints. In a way, it is a guide in song for locating iron to be extracted through heat. There were no werewolves there.

In a related Finnic tribe to the east they were said to be able to turn themselves into salmon. A fish makes sense as bodies of water were considered portals into the underworld in which the shaman could commune with the dead and learn spells (creation stories) from them.

[OpenBookSociety.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review written by staff member Katie

I’ve never been much of a big werewolf kind of gal (Can’t help it I like vampires better.) but reading this ‘handbook’ made learning about werewolves very interesting and insightful.

Finding out that most werewolf facts we learn from watching movies are false was a bit of a shock to men. I mean I know TV and movies are mostly fake, but normally that are at least some part true. Something else I never knew is that you can still be called a ‘were’ even if you aren’t a wolf. Like if you change in to a jaguar or even a bear.

You know personally I don’t think you can have a handbook with out telling the tale of the original story of that certain species. So Curran really hit it on the mark when he told the story of the Lycaon. I have never heard about the origin of werewolves before, learning about it from this book was great. Especially because of the vivid pictures on each page. Another story that I had never heard before and that was absolutely heart wrenching was the tale of The GahDillian Family. That poor little girl just got torn to pieces by the towns people because she was bloody and had some scratches on her. Hello did they ever think that maybe she also got attached by the wolf?

Over all another great handbook has been produced by Robert Curran and the publishers over at Barron’s. It’s a great knowledgeable quick read. I actually wish it was longer. Just like Biblio Vampire, it was very well put together and the pages where done so professional. Curran did a fantastic job collecting all of this information and displaying it to us readers in a understandable way. I know I have tried to look for information on werewolves before and couldn’t come up with anything really substantial, so it’s great to have it all in front of me now.

The one thing I would like to know is how Robert Curran knows how to spot a werewolf? Who knew they had a longer ring finger!

Read more here:
http://openbooksociety.com/article/bo...

[Minh · Rating 5 out of 5]

kinh dị

[Strangerealms · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the part about how to identify werewolves spot on, but the author missed red hair. Back then, those with red hair were suspected to be either witches, werewolves or vampires. I found the book well done and mostly full of informations, that you usually need to dig in folk books. I'm surprised though that he did not mention the most famous case of a french werewolf, the Beast of Gévaudan, which lasted for years, was never found, many hunters went in that area with no avail, while dead bodies were piling up (88 to 124 victims, depending of accounts).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of...

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief history of canine shape-shifters found across much of the globe starts this look into the world of the werewolf. Numerous historical figures can be said to be acquainted with werewolves, and a variety of werewolves are defined.

Narrative is crisp, authentic, and laced with humor. There are a few test your friends/etc for werewolfism tests which are fun.

Numerous historical and cinema stills are inserted throughout allowing for further depth to the text and potential reference to the time periods discussed.

Overall, a fun read!

[Sergio Lozano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es un libro para pasar el rato, si no estás completamente informado. Esto es más como una enciclopedia sobre los hombres lobo, que una historia. Hay relatos, eso sí. Pero nada fuera de lo usual; solamente mitos y leyendas sobre las criaturas cuando fueron vistas, etc.
Yo diría que ese libro es para tenerlo en la casa en vez de una biblioteca, solamente para llamar la atención de la personas. Bueno… eso fue lo que a mí me pasó cuando estaba esculcando los libros de la biblioteca.

[Katza Verduzco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando respondí el test para saber si era o no una mujer lobo resultó que si...😮

Ahuuuuuuuu

Un libro bastante interesante que nos cuenta el origen del hombre lobo en diversas culturas. La portada y el formato de las páginas me gustaron bastante. De todos modos me iba a gustar, es mi criatura mitológica favorita. Pero la verdad es que si tiene datos muy importantes sobre los hombres lobo.

[Cynthia Nobuta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro de verdad me gusto mucho es ligero y lo termine en un solo día. Me gusto la información que venia de los hombres lobo y la parte que mas disfrute fue lo ultimo que son historias de hombres lobos que existieron de verdad.

[Rae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing special or original. But a nice, brief little read on shifters, I guess.

[Phil Slattery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun for anyone interested in werewolves. Short, easy read.

[Serenity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved all the drawings! Crazy what people believed back then.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some of the illustrations and the book design. Not that into werewolfs.