What are Werewolves?
A werewolf is a creature who is half man and half wolf . The word itself is simply the old anglo-saxon word for man (wer) with a wolf stuck at the end. Werewolf just means 'man-wolf'.
Of course we all know that the man only changes when the moon is full. The legends about werewolves have been around since ancient Greek times. Over the years, the legend has been used by the church to control people. After 1270 it was actually an act of heresey to deny the existence of werewolves. Wolves were seen by the church to be instruments of the devil.
Common belief in werewolves eventually died out in the seventeenth century.
In the 20th century there was a revival in the popular ideas of 'lycanthropy' due to books and of course movies such as: