Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Eldritch: Halloween 003


So,  I kind of want to talk about a couple of the things in this page. The first of which, is, predictably, folklore. Many modern sources will mention that werewolves have a deep thirst; however, not all of them explain where that came from. Fifth century author Aetius discusses “Lycanthripia” in his work On Melancholy. While he lists several symptoms and behaviors of lycanthropists, such as excessive thirst, he does not actually list a physical transformation into a wolf as one of them. Seamus would have mentioned this… but Dylan isn’t as well read.

To be honest though… werewolves seem to like water just as much as dog would on a hot day… A LOT of the old means of becoming a werewolf require water in one way or another, be it as an ingredient for a ritual lycanthropic fumigation, or something you drink to become a werewolf, such as water from a wolf’s paw print, water from a lycanthropous stream, or water from the same stream three or more wolves also drink from. And of course, there are the Arcadian werewolves, and those of the Anthus family, who swim across a body of water and emerge as wolves on the other side. That’s just a sampling though… if you want to know more, you’ll have to do a bit of reading on your own (sources, as usual, will be cited at the bottom of the comments). Or, you can wait until I feel like getting chatty here in the artist’s comments again.

The other thing I want to address here is gore. I know. This is a bit bloody and gross. Personally, while I do like my steaks on the rare (not raw) side, munching on raw venison isn’t high on my priority list. Faith, however, thinks otherwise. I hope no one is too bothered by the blood and guts here, but I’ve warned since the beginning that this is intended for mature audiences, and will contain violence. I’ll mark it on DA for the gore as a precaution, but, well… What can I say? This is a werewolf story, and odds are, there will be gore worse than this later on.

Please also read:
The Werewolf in Lore and Legend --Montague Summers
Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits --Kathryn Edwards
A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture --Charlotte Otten
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Werewolves --Nathan Brown
The Beast of Bray Road --Linda Godfrey
The Book of Werewolves --Sabine Baring-Gould
Werewolves: The Occult Truth – Konstantinos

3 comments:

  1. wow that's a cool bibliography.
    I got curious about the Anthus family, I hope google will help me finding more information

    ReplyDelete
  2. you really need to get on a proper webcomic hoster or at least make sure the comics are large enough to read

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay! finally figured out how to enlarge the page! =^^= ~

    Anyways, I still love Todd's actions in here ^^ How typical :D

    I find that when choosing a favourite character, I seen to go for one who is NOT the main character. Ginny Weasley out of Harry Potter, Rattlesnake Jake out of Rango, Tigress out of Kung Fu Panda ...

    I do it to my own novels as well. I have 3 or 4 favourites and none of them will ever be caught in a leading role.

    ReplyDelete