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The origins of werewolf and shape-shifter myths are intertwined heavily with those of vampire legends. Vampires could, according to some legends, change their shapes, including transforming themselves into wolves. However, the best-known pieces of the mythology of lycanthropy, or werewolfism, are predicated on the fact that the werewolf or shape-shifter is a living human being somehow cursed or gifted with the ability to alter his or her form.

Like vampires, werewolf legends are found throughout history. Unlike vampires, however, stories about lycanthropy abound in the works of the most respected ancient historians. Herodotus, Pliny, Petronius, Virgil, and even, in his Metamorphoses, Ovid, discuss the tranformation of men into werewolves, though in the majority of these cases the change is either permanent or it is an annual rather than a monthly event.

Indeed, werewolf stories or stories of similar shape-shifting, are to be found throughout ancient history and mythology, and into the nineteenth century. Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore are rife with references to wolf-men, apparently in conjunction with the legend of the berserkers (literally, "bear-shirts", warriors cloaked in the skins of bears). Although in this case, rather than bear skins these wolf-men would wear wolf skins, and many had the power to make an actual change. Of course, this is but one example of a phenomenon found in folklore from around the world.

There are countless examples throughout history of man-beast creatures, and man-into-beast transformations, of which the traditional werewolf is only one. The azeman of South America is a human woman by day and a savage beast by night. There are legends of were-hyenas and were-lions in Africa, were-jaguars and were-boars in South America and kindly were-seals, or selkies, on the coastal islands of Scotland. Navajo legends discuss "skinwalkers", men who would wear the skins of wolves and thereby literally transform themselves into faster, more savage wolves. And these are merely a few examples.