I, Lycanthrope
The Lupus Modum
As we will discuss in coming chapters, there is a great deal of misinformation surrounding Lycanthropes and Lycanthropy. Take, for example, what most people “know” about the Lycanthrope – that it is a human looking man or woman who turns into a terrible beast at the mere sight of the full moon.
There might be no monstrous archetype more ingrained in the public imagination, except perhaps a vampire rising from his coffin or evaporating in a blaze of sunlight. Yet, as is so often the case, this conception is not entirely correct, although the public can hardly be blamed for its error.
It is true, in olden days, when man lived in the wilderness, or in towns and villages where light pollution was kept to a minimum, that the ebb and flow of the Lycanthrope’s dark transformations used to align fairly well with the lunar cycle. However, this phenomenon was no more caused by the fullness of the moon than your sleepiness is caused by the setting of the sun.
As I mentioned in the last chapter, Lycanthropy is the result of a genetic alteration in the DNA of the Lycanthrope. As such, there is no magical influence over the Lycanthrope’s transformation.
The Lupus Modum, if left to its natural devices, in its natural setting, tends to align quite directly with the Phases of the Moon. For countless generations of Lycanthropy2 , the moon was indeed the deciding factor defining when the terrible transformation occurred. In practice, with each full moon occurring approximately every 29.53 days around the globe, a Lycanthrope in the old world could expect to transform about once a month with relative regularity.
However, even far back, before the advent of electric lights, the Lupus Modum would go on the fritz from time to time. For instance, many Lycanthropes instinctually took to caves and other dark and squalorous places while in their beastly form, and it was not unheard of for bouts of extended darkness and isolation to lead to abnormal Lupus Modums – sometimes holding a Lycanthrope in its beastly form for weeks on end, or causing an early or “false” transformation at the rising of the sun, seemingly at random.
In the olden days, by far the most dramatic disruptions of the Lupus Modum were caused by Solar and Lunar eclipses. Both of these events, without fail, caused massive global disruptions of the werewolf population – and, as a result, both types of eclipses took on reputations as harbingers of dark tidings.
In order to understand why these two events would be so dramatic, one must first know that the people of the old world were quite cognizant of the werewolf threat, and often planned around the full moon with the “myth” of the werewolf in mind. While this was a sound tactic most of the time, Lunar and Solar eclipses tended to put the rub to even the best laid plans for survival.
The Lunar eclipse was the lesser of the two evils. It tended to cause a delay in the Lupus Modum, by about 24-72 hours. The result was that townsfolk would be at their guard on the wrong nights, only to find the local forests swarming with dark figures when all should have been relatively calm. Many a child has disappeared in the wake of a Lunar eclipse.
However, the real bloodbaths were Solar eclipses, which still today have an odd and terrible effect on the Lycanthropic population. In some respects, the Solar Eclipse is about as close as the werewolf comes to the classic depiction of the bare and sudden appearance of the full moon causing the transformation into wolf form. I have never seen a Lycanthrope bear witness to a full Solar Eclipse and not transform at the very moment into a frothing beast. I must, remorsefully, include myself in that reckoning.
Something about the light of a full Solar Eclipse, both the brightness and the coloration, appears to be a direct biological trigger for the Lupus Modum. It acts as a kind of hard reset for the cycle, unleashing the full transformation all at once, seemingly from nowhere. The result is a particularly violent and terrible stint as a wolf.
It does not take a particularly imaginative person to envision the many terrible implications such an unexpected, midday transformation would have on an unsuspecting populous – indeed, on the civilized but unprepared Lycanthrope himself. Many a warm and thriving village have been wiped out over the millennia by unwitting wolven murderers spawned at the silent behest of the ancient astronomical dance between our Sun and our Moon – and even today, it is highly recommended that no Lycanthrope ever expose him or herself to even a partial solar eclipse, lest terrible chaos break forth in their immediate surroundings.3
In my years on the hunt, I’ve encountered lycanthropes with wildly off kilter Lupus Modums, ranging from werewolves transforming at the appearance of a passing comet, to, in the modern era, numerous werewolves who appear as beasts at the nightly lighting of streetlamps. Like the Circadian Rhythm, the Lupus Modum is a fickle and imperfect biological process, capable of being set off its track by a wide range of stimuli.
Today, of course, one need only imagine the myriad ways that a biological cycle like the Lupus Modum can be disrupted. Even the smallest modern city gives off enough light pollution to substantially disrupt the Lupus Modum of even the most reliable lycanthrope. As a result, many of our kind, myself included, take careful measures to protect our Lupus Modums, using a methodology suggested to me by an old friend4 and perfected by me over the last two decades.
The key to the success of my methodology is two fold. First, one must have a disciplined regimen of sleep. I, for one, unless I am in the throes of transformation, am in bed by 10:00PM each night, and up with the sun, every day, for the last century. Aside from the benefits which inure to the regimented sleeper, the strict sleep schedule also allows a painless exposure to simulated “moonlight” through the use of a specially designed nighttime face mask.
Before the advent of LEDs, the mask was merely a thin piece of burlap or dark silk which, it was hoped, would let in just enough of the light of a bedside candle to simulate the rise and fall of the moon. This analog methodology was so lacking in accuracy as to be nearly useless.
LEDs, on the othet hand, allow for a seamless and personally tailored simulation of moonlight. With rigorous application of my night mask method, I have transformed on precisely the 29th day of every month for the last 19 years and, I am happy to say, other, like minded Lycanthropes have begun to follow my lead, with great success.
- To the best of my
knowledge I am the first to coin the phrase, although if the reader is aware of a precursor usage, please let me know and credit will be given where it is due. - As discussed, werewolves are never “born” per se, but insofar as cultural norms are passed from wolf to wolf, there is a sensation of generational continuity, albeit non-biologically speaking.
- I am reminded of a tragic anecdote told to me by a correspondent of mine from the Czech Republic.
Apparently a young man, a peaceable lycanthrope and lover of astronomy, tragically unable to enjoy an actual solar eclipse, lest he inadvertentlytear his surroundings to pieces, decided to attend a local planetarium show in the hopes of at least experiencing a simulacrum of the miraculous event. Sadly, the planetarium proved to be too successful a simulation, causing the young man to transform in the middle of a packed audience of senior citizens from the local old folk’s home. Happily the planetarium’s young and talented host survived – but as for the rest of the audience, my only solace to the reader is that they had already lived long and fruitful lives. - My ‘old friend’ is, sadly, no longer with us. However, I made him a promise, many years ago, never to reveal his true nature to the world at large, so long as I lived. Suffice it to say he was a city ‘man’, once cities came around, and a figure of
great report, whose name he both prized and assiduously protected, an onus I now accept wholeheartedly in his painful absence.
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