Full Moon Dates

Next Full Moon: Saturday, August 16th 2008

Which means Werewolf Transformations start
Wednesday, August 15th
and finish
Sunday, August 17th

Other Dates:

Year----Month----Day----Time----Day of week
2007----Jan----3----13:59----Wed
2007----Feb----2----05:47----Fri
2007----Mar----3----23:18----Sat
2007----Apr----2----17:16----Mon
2007----May----2----10:11----Wed
2007----Jun----1----01:05----Fri
2007----Jun----30----13:50----Sat
2007----Jul----30----00:48----Mon
2007----Aug----28----10:35----Tue
2007----Sep----26----19:46----Wed
2007----Oct----26----04:53----Fri
2007----Nov----24----14:31----Sat
2007----Dec----24----01:17----Mon
2008----Jan----22----13:36----Tue
2008----Feb----21----03:32----Thu
2008----Mar----21----18:41----Fri
2008----Apr----20----10:27----Sun
2008----May----20----02:13----Tue
2008----Jun----18----17:32----Wed
2008----Jul----18----08:00----Fri
2008----Aug----16----21:18----Sat
2008----Sep----15----09:15----Mon
2008----Oct----14----20:04----Tue
2008----Nov----13----06:19----Thu
2008----Dec----12----16:39----Fri
2009----Jan----11----03:28----Sun
2009----Feb----9----14:51----Mon
2009----Mar----11----02:40----Wed
2009----Apr----9----14:58----Thu
2009----May----9----04:03----Sat
2009----Jun----7----18:13----Sun
2009----Jul----7----09:23----Tue
2009----Aug----6----00:57----Thu
2009----Sep----4----16:05----Fri
2009----Oct----4----06:11----Sun
2009----Nov----2----19:15----Mon
2009----Dec----2----07:33----Wed
2009----Dec----31----19:15----Thu

Many European countries and cultures have stories of werewolves, including Greece (lycanthropos), Russia (volkodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (Vârcolac), England (werwolf), Germany (Werwolf), France (loup-garou), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis) and Estonia (libahunt). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into bears. In Norse mythology, the legends of berserkers may be a source of the werewolf myths. Berserks were vicious fighters, dressed in wolf or bear hides; they were immune to pain and killed viciously in battle, like a wild animal. In Latvian mythology, the Vilkacis was a person changed into a wolf-like monster, though the Vilkacis was occasionally beneficial. A closely related set of myths are the skin-walkers.

Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in myths from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves. See lycanthropy for a more general treatment of this phenomenon.

In Greek mythology the story of Lycaon supplies one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one form of it Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycaon was said to suffer a similar fate. The Roman Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says (Historia Naturalis viii. 22) that a man of the Antaeus family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then, if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former shape. Probably the two stories are identical, though we hear nothing of participation in the Lycaean sacrifice by the descendant of Antaeus. Herodotus (iv. 105) tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia (thus essentially "Hyperboreans", were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves (see Eclogues viii. 9 . In the novel Satyricon, written about year 60 by Gaius Petronius, one of the characters recites a story about a man who turns into a wolf.

There are women, so the Armenian belief runs, who in consequence of deadly sins are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. A spirit comes to such a woman and brings her a wolf's skin. He orders her to put it on, and no sooner has she done this than the most frightful wolfish cravings make their appearance and soon get the upper hand. Her better nature conquered, she makes a meal of her own children, one by one, then of her relatives' children according to the degree of relationship, and finally the children of strangers begin to fall a prey to her. She wanders forth only at night, and doors and locks spring open at her approach. When morning draws near she returns to human form and removes her wolf skin. In these cases the transformation was involuntary or virtually so. But side by side with this belief in involuntary metamorphosis, we find the belief that human beings can change themselves into animals at will and then resume their own form.

France in particular seems to have been infested with werewolves during the 16th century, and the consequent trials were very numerous. In some of the cases -- e.g. those of the Gandillon family in the Jura, the tailor of Chalons and Roulet in Angers, all occurring in the year 1598, -- there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of association with wolves; in other cases, as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf, but none against the accused; in all the cases, with hardly an exception, there was that extraordinary readiness in the accused to confess and even to give circumstantial details of the metamorphosis, which is one of the most inexplicable concomitants of medieval witchcraft. Yet while

The name has been thought to derive from either Latin vir (German: we(h)r, we(h)ren (Abwehr, Feuerwehr, Bundeswehr: defense group of men), Old Prussian: wirs: meaning men and Old English wer (or were) meaning man, man-wolf or weri (to wear), wearer of the wolf skin. Other sources believe it is derived from warg-wolf, where "warg" (or later "werg" and "wero") is cognate with norse "varg" meaning murderer or predator and as "vargulf" means the kind of wolf that slaughters many of a flock or herd but eats only a bit. This was a serious problem for herders as they had to somehow destroy the individual wolf that had run mad before it destroyed their entire flock or herd. "Warg" by itself was used in Old English for that specific kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit) and it was used as well for what would now be called a serial killer.

The Greek term Lycanthropy is also commonly used for the "wolf - man" transformation.

The general term for the metamorphosis of people into animals is therianthropy (therianthrope means animal-man). The term turnskin or turncoat (Neo-Latin: versipellis, Russian : oboroten, O. Norse : hamrammr) is sometimes also used.

Compare Shape-shifting.