The Book of Were-Wolves: Were-Wolf History and Folklore

by Sabine Baring-Gould

Genres: Crime, History, Non-fiction
Pages: 142
Rating:

Synopsis:

First published in 1865, Sabine Baring-Gould’s "The Book of Were-Wolves" is the first serious academic study and one of the finest ever done on the subject of lycanthropy and werewolf lore.
With the shocking histories of 10 famous cases, this classic blends science, superstition, and fiction to tell the full story of the were-wolves among us.

Not relegating the were-wolf just to a secular and sceptical study, nor simply to spiritual banter, Baring-Gould manages to compress an enormous span of historical material into his work; a work which is no doubt of value to the academic and those involved with the occult at the same time.

Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Were-Wolves was a bit of a random choice from the Serial Reader catalogue, solely because it was kinda apropos for spoopy season. Baring-Gould was an antiquarian and collector of folk lore, and this book is a collection of folklore about lycanthropy, along with some of his musings about where such stories may come from.

He dug into a bunch of texts for this, and I found his discussion of shape-changing (not always into wolves) in Norse mythology pretty interesting — I know the texts, but hadn’t really looked at them from that point of view before.

However, he also theorises about what gives rise to talk of lycanthropy, blaming mental illness, and starts discussing real-life cases of horrific murder, etc, etc. That bit gets a bit long and to my mind irrelevant, and doesn’t really have any conclusions.

Still, kinda interesting!

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)