Werewolves are not some 20th century movie invention but steeped in a strong body of legend, myth and folklore. See here for a quick overview.
Dating back as far as 2000BC in the epic of Gilgamesh we have men transforming into wolves. A love struck shepherd was turned into a wolf by Ishtar the Goddess of war, love, sex and fertility when she grew tired of him.
An Athenia vase shows a warrior in sheep clothing and Herodotus’ Skythian story reinforces this view. The Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses (very apt title), tells Lycaon’s story where he was turned in a wolf by Zeus.
A werewolf in a German woodcut, circa 1512 shows how embedded in folklore the myth was.
In 1913 the silent movie “Werewolf” is considered to be the first movie involving a werewolf. Since then there has been a plethora of them with my tope ten favourites kin order being:
- 2000 Ginger Snaps
- 1941 Wolfman
- 1981 Werewolf in London
- 1935 Werewolf of London
- 1981 The Howling
- 1981 Wolfen
- 2002 Dog Soldiers
- 2021 Werewolves Within
- 2016 Wolf Cop
- 1985 The Company of Wolves
With honourable mentions to Underworld, Van Helsing, and Teen Wolf.
Well this has been a long introduction to the really important stuff of TOYS!
The figure below are a combination of Mantic, Crooked Dice, Westwind productions and Black tree design.
My Pack Alpha.
The Pack Beta.
Pack Wolf 1
Pack Wolf 2
Pack Wolf 3
Pack Wolf 4
Pack Wolf 5
Wonderful Lycans Dave, and brief history as well, although you missed the Native Americans and their stories of Skinwalkers. nice list of movies as well, with some exceptional titles in there.
Thanks Dave. Yep your right about the skin walkers. The movies were MY top ten there are heaps more that others may like!
Nice figures, Dave, again with quite a bit of variation between them!
I like to buy from various manufacturers for that reason.
Nice pack ‘o’ pups, Dave! 🙂
I am gappy with how they came out. A few more to do down the track but I have enough for now.
Nice job on the werewolves and the history! Now I’m thinking I should buy some werewolf minis, as I’m not sure that I have any for our D&D games. There goes the wallet again!
Glad I could help with the wallet. Go on you know you want to!