Werewolf Origins

Many authors have speculated that werewolf and vampire legends may have been used to explain serial killings in less enlightened ages. This theory is given credence by the tendency of some modern serial killers to indulge in practices commonly associated with werewolves, such as cannibalism, mutilation, and cyclic attacks. The idea (although not the terminology) is well explored in Sabine Baring-Gould’s seminal work The Book of Werewolves.

A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[citation needed] Ergot, which causes a form of foodborne illness, is a fungus that grows in place of rye grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or poor sections of towns, resulting in hallucinations and convulsions. (The hallucinogen LSD was originally derived from ergot). Ergot poisoning has been propounded as both a cause of an individual believing that one is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had witnessed a werewolf. This theory, however, is controversial and not widely accepted.

Some modern researchers have tried to use conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth over the entire body), or porphyria (an enzyme disorder with symptoms including hallucinations and paranoia) to explain werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features which include hairy hands and face, poorly healing skin, pink urine, reddish colour to the teeth, and photosensitivity, the latter of which leads sufferers to only go out at night.