Werewolf Histories is the first academic book in English to address European werewolf history and folklore from antiquity to the twentieth century. It covers the most important werewolf territories, ranging from Scandinavia to Germany, France and Italy, and from Croatia to Estonia.

Beware the Full Moon! Take a hair-raising tour of werewolf legends. Meet shape-shifters, dogmen, and all variety of human and lupine mixes in this blood curling story collection from two distinguished paranormal researchers! From today's lycanthropic creatures found in pop culture such as Dracula, Twilight and An American Werewolf in London to the earliest mentions in folklore of the shape-shifting legend, Werewolf Stories: Shape-Shifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts is an eye-opening tour through the ages of all things werewolf. Along the way, readers land at the doorstep of creatures like serial killer Fritz Haarmann, tiger people and their thirst for human blood, Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, shapeshifters of all kinds and sizes, and even a spell to repel werewolves. This fascinating tome provides 140,000 years of blood-pounding evidence of strange and obsessional behavior. It tells of stories of becoming a werewolf and the intricacies of slaying the beast. A true homage to the creature, it includes full moon of topics such as … Fenrir, the wolf child of the giantess Angrboda and the god Loki, from the Old Norse myth of Ragnarok Notorious serial killers, including Peter Stumpp and Michael Lupo, who thought themselves to be—and modeled their crimes on—werewolves Coyote people, tricksters, and were-animals of Navajo legend The Basque butchers of Louisiana and the loup-garou Diana, the goddess of the wilderness and the hunt, and her pack of hunting dogs, who once ruled all the dark forests of Europe Leopard creature-men and the deadly cult whose members expressed their were-leopard lust for human blood and flesh that has been in existence in West Africa for several hundred years The “werewolf of the Dordogne,” Francis Leroy, and his uncontrollable bloodlust during the full moon The secret terrorist group Organization Werewolf, established in 1923, and its possible allegiance to Adolf Hitler Ghouls from Arabic folklore, the demonic Djinns that hover near burial grounds and sustain themselves on human flesh stolen from graves Tasmania’s thylacine and sightings of the “probably extinct” creature and its remarkable—and frightening—jaw capacity Alaska’s Kushtaka and other stories of the Bigfoot man-beast Puerto Rico’s chupacabra and its powerful goat-like legs, three-clawed feet, and penchant for sucking blood The Doñas de Fuera of Sicily, small fairies who looked human, aside from their paw-like feet, and were cruel and dangerous when crossed Enkidu, perhaps our earliest written record of a man-beast that appears on a Babylonian fragment circa 2000 BCE and tells the story of King Gilgamesh and his werewolf-like friend in The Epic of Gilgamesh And many more stories and histories of werewolves, night-stalkers, lycanthropes, and man-beasts Noted cryptozoologists and paranormal researchers Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger share personal stories and encounters with werewolves in Werewolf Stories. They take a deep dive into the legends, the history, the pop-culture take on the man-beast. It's a wild and weird road-trip into the mystery-filled domain of the disturbingly real world of shape-shifters and werewolves!

Strange Histories is an exploration of some of the most extraordinary beliefs that existed in the late Middle Ages through to the end of the seventeenth century. Presenting serious accounts of the appearance of angels and demons, sea monsters and dragons within European and North American history, this book moves away from "present-centred thinking" and instead places such events firmly within their social and cultural context. By doing so, it offers a new way of understanding the world in which dragons and witches were fact rather than fiction, and presents these riveting phenomena as part of an entirely rational thought process for the time in which they existed. This new edition has been fully updated in light of recent research. It contains a new guide to further reading as well as a selection of pictures that bring its themes to life. From ghosts to witches, to pigs on trial for murder, the book uses a range of different case studies to provide fascinating insights into the world-view of a vanished age. It is essential reading for all students of early modern history. .

Tales of the werewolf are well established as a sub-strand of the popular horror genre; less widely known is how far back in time their provenance lies. This is the first book in any language devoted to the werewolf tales that survive from antiquity, exploring their place alongside witches, ghosts, demons, and soul-flyers in a shared story-world.

Run with Your Pack and Unleash Your Power with Joy and Wildness Beyond Werewolf Magick, this lycanthropic Book of Shadows unites you with your spiritual kin and invites them to join in rituals, romps, and spells that call on the feral magick within and about you. Denny Sargent teaches you ecstatic shapeshifting experiences, newly revived from ancient traditions and designed to free you from the restrictive chains of civilization. With your pack, you will return to your true home in the heart of Mother Nature. Werewolf Pack Magick offers a wide variety of activities, including pack initiations, shapeshifting training, werewolf divination, pack sabbat celebrations, and ancient werewolf festivals. With step-by-step guidance, Denny reveals that pack magick is intense, powerful, wildly fun, and effective. Now is the time to honor and reconnect with nature and your werewolf brothers and sisters in the Wildness.

Examines the cultural significance of the werewolf filmProvides the first academic monograph dedicated to developing a cultural understanding of the werewolf filmReconsiders the psychoanalytic paradigms that have dominated scholarly discussion of werewolves in pop cultureIncludes over 40 individual case studies to illustrate how werewolf films can be understood as products of their cultural momentIdentifies the cinematic werewolf's most common metaphorical dimensionsHorror monsters such as the vampire, the zombie and Frankenstein's creature have long been the subjects of in-depth cultural studies, but the cinematic werewolf has often been considered little more than the 'beast within': a psychoanalytic analogue for the bestial side of man. This book, the first scholarly study of the werewolf in cinema, redresses the balance by exploring over 100 years of werewolf films, from The Werewolf (1913) to Wildling (2018) via The Wolf Man (1941), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Howling (1981) and WolfCop (2014). Revealing the significance of she-wolves and wolf-men as evolving metaphors for the cultural fears and anxieties of their times, Phases of the Moon serves as a companion and a counterpoint to existing scholarship on the werewolf in popular culture, and illustrates how we can begin to understand one of our oldest mythical monsters as a rich and diverse cultural metaphor.

Co-written by Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan and British novelist Angela Carter, and based on several short stories from Carter's collection The Bloody Chamber, The Company of Wolves (1984) is a provocative reinvention of the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Unraveling a feverish metaphor for the blossoming of a young girl's sexuality and her subsequent loss of innocence, the film entwines symbolism and metaphor with striking visuals and grisly effects. Released in the early 1980s, a time which produced several classic werewolf films (including An American Werewolf in London and The Howling), The Company of Wolves sets itself apart from the pack with its overtly literary roots, feminist stance, and art-house leanings. The film's narrative takes the form of a puzzle box, unfolding as dreams within dreams, and stories within stories, which lead further into the dark woods of the protagonist's psyche, as she finds herself on the cusp of womanhood. This Devil's Advocate explores all these aspects, as well as placing the film in the context of the careers of its creators and its position as an example of the "Female Gothic."

2021 Top Ten Finalist for the Locus Awards in Nonfiction Joshua Smith’s chapter “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Showdown” won the 2021 Don D. Walker Prize from the Western Literature Association Weird Westerns is an exploration of the hybrid western genre—an increasingly popular and visible form that mixes western themes, iconography, settings, and conventions with elements drawn from other genres, such as science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Despite frequent declarations of the western’s death, the genre is now defined in part by its zombie-like ability to survive in American popular culture in weird, reanimated, and reassembled forms. The essays in Weird Westerns analyze a wide range of texts, including those by Native American authors Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet) and William Sanders (Cherokee); the cult television series Firefly and The Walking Dead; the mainstream feature films Suicide Squad and Django Unchained; the avant-garde and bizarre fiction of Joe R. Lansdale; the tabletop roleplaying game Deadlands: The Weird West; and the comic book series Wynonna Earp. The essays explore how these weird westerns challenge conventional representations by destabilizing or subverting the centrality of the heterosexual, white, male hero but also often surprisingly reinforce existing paradigms in their inability to imagine an existence outside of colonial frameworks.

This richly illustrated history provides a readable and fresh approach to the extensive and complex story of witchcraft and magic. Telling the story from the dawn of writing in the ancient world to the globally successful Harry Potter films, the authors explore a wide range of magical beliefs and practices, the rise of the witch trials, and the depiction of the Devil-worshipping witch. The book also focuses on the more recent history of witchcraft and magic, from the Enlightenment to the present, exploring the rise of modern magic, the anthropology of magic around the globe, and finally the cinematic portrayal of witches and magicians, from The Wizard of Oz to Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When a Margaret is attacked by what she believes to be a werewolf, her life is turned upside down. Confused and afraid, the only people she feels safe going to for help are the strange goth kids that everyone says are witches. Dominic and Aaron are Pagans, not fools, and smell a trap. But Jacob insists they take her seriously. When they agree to help her, they - and all their friends - are swiftly drawn into a larger world of monsters and magic more dangerous than they had ever suspected was real.