#wolves in fairytales

[adarkrainbow]

As I was looking for Hansel and Gretel illustrations (for my previous post), I came upon these illustrations of a book where the witch in the candy-house is replaced... BY A FRIGGIN MURDEROUS BEAR

These are pictures of an old German children book called "Das Zuckerige Haus oder Hansel und Gretel" (The Sugary House, or Hansel and Gretel), by Lilly Scherbauer. I couldn't find the original text, and there are only a rare few other pictures of the book on antique book-selling websites:

(The second picture comes from a variation of the book, a different edition called "Das zuckerige Häuschen")

But given the fact the witch was replaced by a bear, I can easily tell you which kind of story it might be. You see, this book seems to tell a German variation of a fairytale found in the countries between Germany and France - a story that is itself a variation of "Hansel and Gretel", which involves typically an animal (usually a wolf) within a sugar house, and his attempt at devouring two children.

One famous example of this tale is the Belgian fairytale known as "The Sugar-Candy House" (well... "sucre candi" actually means "cane sugar" in English, but apparently the Sugar-Candy House has been a more common translation?). It was notably collected/written by Jean de Bosschère, and had some pretty trippy illustrations:

The story goes as such. Jan and Jannette, brother and sister, lived near a big wood, and every day went there to play and do childish things such as fishing in the streams or making necklaces of red berries. But one day they went further in the depths of the wood than usual, and found a "pretty red bridge" over a brook. Crossing it, they saw a little pink cottage, that as it turns out was entirely made of "suga-candy". The children, loving all kinds of sweets, started eating the roof - but unknown to them, an old wolf named Garon lived in the house. He was fierce and strong and dangerous, but hopefully he had one paralyzed leg meaning he couldn't move very fast. Upon hearing noises outside, he limped out of the cottage, asking "Who dares touch my sugar house?"

He saw no one, since the children had run away hidng behind the trees, and when he roared again "Who dares touch my sugar-candy house?", the children answered with the rhyme of Hansel and Gretel - you know, the rhyme according to which it is just the wind, who is a "mild and lovable child". The wolf, satisfied with this answer, returned in his house. The next day, the whole adventure repeated itself - but this time, while Garon returned in his house after the rhyme, there was "suspicion in his eyes".

The third day was a stormy day, and this time Garon got out of the house immediately as he heard the nibbling sounds, catching the children in the act. He jumped to devour them, but the children fled. A chase followed through the woods: the children were not afraid, because they knew they could outrun the wolf, and the limping beast could never catch up to them... But the wolf still kept on following them, and never left them out of his sight, and the children could not lose him in any way. Unfortunately for the children, they ended up reaching a very deep river with no bridge.

To avoid being caught by the wolf, they begged ducks that swam nearby to carry them over the waters, and the nice ducks obliged. The wolf, having seen how the siblings had crossed the river, also asked the ducks to carry him over - but instead of politely asking, he threatened the ducks of eating them if they did not obey him. The ducks, who refused to suffer such rudeness, and didn't like the wolf much anyway, took the wolf on their back... but threw him in the water right in the middle of the river.

Three times he went down and three times he came up, but the fourth time he sank never to rise any more. That was the end of old Garon, and a good job, too, say I. I don’t know what became of his Sugar-Candy House, but I dare say, if you could find the wood, and the sun had not melted the candy, or the rain washed it away, you might break a bit of it off for yourselves.

[Trivia: The choice of "Garon" as the wolf's name is no random fanciness. "Garon" is very similar to the French word "garou", which is an old, folkloric term typically used to designate supernatural, malevolent and/or humanoid type of wolves. For example, in French a "werewolf" is a "loup-garou", "loup", meaning "wolf".]

[dinoberrypress]

Little Wolves is crowdfunding NOW!

It's finally here, y'all! The crowdfunding campaign for our tabletop RPG of folk tales, fae queens, and werewolves is live on Backerkit~

Support our work here!

From the award-winning publisher behind Motel Spooky-Nine, You’re In Space And Everything’s Fucked, Dinocar and more, Little Wolves is a tabletop role-playing game about adventuring through a realm of folk & fae as shapeshifting werewolves.

In Little Wolves, you’ll craft real-world paper masks that represent their characters, modifying them over the course of their adventures to reflect the marks their experiences leave on them while transforming between your Wolf and Mortal forms!

The crowdfunding campaign aims to bring the game’s vivid world to life in an 8.5” x 8.5” full-color perfect bound book loaded with gorgeous art from a team of 4 artists accompanying setting & mechanics from award-winning designers Julie-Anne Muñoz and Nevyn Holmes. 

The crowdfunding campaign launches May 14th, running through June 11th, 12pm US Central with an initial funding goal of $19,500 USD with plenty of stretch goals to unlock for more art, more content, and even an expansion!

Making masks & shifting forms

In your Wolf form, you have access to the benefits of your beastly Attributes, can sing magical Spellsongs, and can resist harm with your Resolve. In your Mortal form, you'll switch your Attributes, Spellsongs, and Resolve out for strong, flexible Mortal Powers that can turn the tide of any situation they're used in. Through character advancement, you can strengthen yourself as you see fit. Perhaps you favor one form over the other, or you may switch between them frequently. The choice is yours.

The Enchanted Forest

As you explore this dense forest you'll meet the powerful and mysterious Queens and aid them, and their courts, through all manner of quests and favors. As a werewolf, you're uniquely gifted in traversing the forest, capable of making it to every edge of the woods, meaning that only you can learn its deepest secrets.

✨ A free demo/quickstart for Little Wolves is available to download and play, get it here! ✨

[insomniac-arrest]

A Sapphic fairytale novella of a wolf in the woods and red-tailed deer.

In a tidy well-built home on the outskirts of a village on the outskirts of the world lives a doe. Fatherless and alone, MaryAnne has no herd. She is marked by fate. Other Beast Folk hang Juniper above her door. Year by year she survives the winter . . . until a howling comes.

Wolves of the bone cities are not meant to hunt their northern neighbors. Yet, the Hinterlands are wild places where rules bend and magic eats. Wolves may howl there and prove their worth. Despite her companions warnings, Shier the wolf begins to stalk a tricky doe. And MaryAnne may have tricks yet. Traveling from one villager to the next, she attempts to find secrets not meant for prey: What do wolves fear?

A classic tale of the hunt, a forest and the untamed places of the world, and a romance masked in teeth.

Ebooks🌻Paperback 🌻Goodreads

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A fairytale of a wolf and a dear falling in love. A previous work that has been expanded, edited, and added to. I'm thrilled to share this whimsical Sapphic novella, please be sure to boost and leave reviews. I am a small-time author and don't spend any money on advertising so word of mouth is how I get my stories to the world.

I really appreciate it!

Website 🌸 Previous Work

[nightfaeses]

[ wip ] rendering time 🌓

[pr0serpinaa]

Favorite dreamy Fairytale/Folktale inspired films

Panna a netvor (Beauty and the Beast) (1979)

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Rusalochka (The Little Mermaid) (1976)

A Song of the Forest: Mavka (1983)

The Red Shoes (1948)

Ever After (1998)

Morozko (Jack Frost) (1964)

Labyrinth (1986)

Ashik Kerib (The Lovelorn Minstrel) (1988)

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #73 - Hypertrichosis, excessive hair growth ("werewolf syndrome"), Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard

Today I'll be covering something else clinical: hypertrichosis.

You may have heard of "werewolf syndrome," a condition of excessive hair growth. It isn't to be confused with clinical lycanthropy, which is something else entirely. "Werewolf syndrome" is also called hypertrichosis - and it's occasionally associated with and/or can even be derived from another condition, porphyria, that was also associated with "werewolves" throughout scholarship. Likewise, the most well-known kind of hypertrichosis that involves excessive hair growth all over the body is also often associated with gum and teeth problems; such issues could lead to unusual teeth and mouth shape.

Interestingly, however, despite a lot of modern scholars retroactively assuming that werewolf victims of the past could have suffered hypertrichosis, many of the werewolf legends in question specifically describe lycanthropy sufferers to look quite different. The legends in question are later era ones from the Early Modern period, during which time lycanthropy had become a madness and a disease under clinical and scientific supervision, very much unlike previous time periods, as I cover extensively in my book The Werewolf: Past and Future as well as other werewolf facts.

These legends describe sufferers of the werewolf curse variably to only be "hairy" when in their wolf form specifically (other than, occasionally, having long hair without mention of unusual body hair), highlighting how they were not unusually hairy in human form, or to "always [have] some hairs in the hollow of his hand" (as noted by Sabine Baring-Gould in The Book of Were-Wolves; taken from page 121 of my own edition of his work). Hypertrichosis often specifically does not have hair growth on the palms, conversely. Likewise, many legends of later time periods even specifically say that werewolves are not hairy "on the outside," but that their hair "grows inward" when they aren't in their inhuman form.

Still, scholars entertain the notion of connections that I still question to a healthy degree, so I have studied it as a result. I think it's best to simply summarize it as, the syndrome reminds people of what werewolves are meant to look like, rather than asserting that "this is why some people believed in werewolves" and the like.

Hypertrichosis is rare, and any kind of proper documentation only began perhaps around the 1600s. During this time and for a very long time after, sufferers of hypertrichosis were often called a variety of terms like "ape-men" or "wolf-men." They were considered spectacles and often were brought to noble courts like exotic animals, to entertain high society. Many were circus freaks. Not all examples are before our time, either.

But, Mav, you ask, how is this related to Beauty and the Beast and Bluebeard? Aren't those fairytales?

One famous example of someone with hypertrichosis is the one whose related image began this post: Petrus Gonsalvus, who lived from around 1537 to sometime past 1617. He was called assorted names, such as "the wild gentleman of Tenerife," "the man of the woods," and of course, "the Canarian werewolf." He lived in assorted courts throughout both Italy and France, including the court of Henry II, King of France, around 1547 - he was sent there when he was but 10 years old as a gift from a regent (Margaret of Parma) of the Netherlands. He moved about various courts over time and even married.

Much of Gonsalvus's family inherited his condition (four of his seven children), including some of his daughters. Like their father, they were often traded amongst courts as pets of a sort. Here is Madelene Gonsalvus, a portrait from 1580:

It is believed that the marriage of Petrus Gonsalvus to his wife, a woman believed to be named Catherine and a lady-in-waiting to Catherine de Medici, may have provided some inspiration for the tale of Beauty and the Beast, which was first written in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.

Beauty and the Beast may not be the only fairytale inspired by hypertrichosis, either. The tale of Bluebeard, as also discussed by Baring-Gould in his Book of Werewolves, describes Bluebeard as "His hair and moustache were light brown, and his beard was clipped to a point. This beard, which resembled no other beard" (232), similar to some elements of hypertrichosis variations, as well as mention of his gum condition: "At intervals he ground his teeth like a wild beast preparing to dash upon his prey, and then his lips became so contracted, as they were drawn in and glued, as it were, to his teeth, that their very colour was indiscernible" (233).

Sidebar: if you're interested in the story of Bluebeard and what it was based on, definitely check out Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves, as he has an unmatched documentation of it. I don't think it really has a place in a book about werewolves, but obviously I preserved his work in its original condition, so you can find it in my edition of his book, as well. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's morbidly very interesting.

So, connection to werewolves or not, it's still certain that hypertrichosis was seen as an inhuman condition. There are many examples of people who had or have the condition and records of how they were treated throughout history.

As mentioned, I have to wonder how much of this was actually associated with werewolf legends - given legends always explicitly involved transformation, which was the entire basis of it - but scholars eat this kind of thing up. In academia, everyone is always trying to come up with "new arguments" to "add to the conversation" or whatever, so we end up discussing and studying hypertrichosis alongside werewolf legends that specifically state such things weren't a part of the legends. Weird, isn't it?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the post. Until next time!

And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf] book release later this year!

If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, and book previews.

Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (personal site + book shop + free fiction)  — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — X — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page

[silvaris]

 Winter wolves, photo by anastasia_dobrovolskaya

[katiajewelbox]

Dark Fairytale castle from Jacqui Lawson e cards. This reminds me of the castle of Dios in the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena.

[simplyghosting]

I want fairytales and stories. Grimm’s fairytales. Hans Christian Andersen fairytales. I know those, but I want MORE. I want EVERY fairytale and story from EVERY culture. Common, uncommon, the whole shebang. I want to experience the wonder of woven words.

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Character Moodboards // Big Bad Wolf

You see, I am the wolf, and I can eat you whole.

(requested by anonymous)

[adarkrainbow]

One thing I've noticed is that The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Peter and the Wolf are often conflated with the former often being called the latter. Even the Fairytale TV Database is guilty of this, listing Grimm's Cry Luison episode under Peter and the Wolf despite it being based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

What's the reason and/or origin for these two different tales are conflated together?

I gues the same reason people fuse all the famous stories involving a wolf under one big fresco of the "Big Bad Wolf" (Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf and the Seven Kids). More precisely, I believe it might be due to these two tales being the only two famous "wolf stories" that involve the character of the Wolf being pitted after a boy or a young man. As such, it might have helped people's confusion. If the Wolf is against a girl, it's Riding Hood, if the wolf is against pigs, it's the Three Little ones, if the Wolf is against goats, it's the seven kids... Each of these tale has its very defined, unique set of "wolf-victim". But these twos are about a "boy" in each case. So, the same way all the wolves are in people's minds one wolf, then the "boy" becomes one same character...

[dinoberrypress]

The Little Wolves Demo is available now!

Work continues on Little Wolves, and our May 14th launch feels like it's right around the corner! We're very excited for today's news, so I'll get right to it:

The demo for Little Wolves is available now!

The demo's a bit of a teaser for what you can expect to see in the final game, with a little bit of everything so you can dip your toes into The Enchanted Forest without waiting any longer!

In the demo, you'll find all the dice rules, some info on the setting and the fae courts you'll aid in your adventures, 4 pre-made characters with some of the unique abilities you can gain, and an adventure that makes a great campaign start.

There's also a great bunch of art from Jam in its pages, featuring a picture of one of my favorite little guys in our game: the Puffballs (AKA Chicken of the Woods)!

The final version of the game is gonna be loaded with gorgeous, full-color illustrations & layout art, more denizens to meet, more setting details in general, more character options, more quests, and (guess what) more of everything!

We're so excited to release this demo, so please head over to Itch and give it a 5-star rating, a comment, and tell your friends!



Find us at Breakout Con in Toronto!

That's right, Dinoberry Press is going to be at Breakout Con this week! I'll be running a few games of You're In Space and Justicar, and we'll be handing out some special Little Wolves stickers~

We're also gonna have a very limited number of physical copies of the demo, printed & assembled right here in our home studio! If you see us around, (or join one of my games), say hi and pick one up!

And that's all for today! If you're not already, be sure to follow our Backerkit page!

[kittenwivfangs]

I come to the party with my red shoes,

Red hood, red ripe apple offering.

The music whines like death.

And thrums like birth.

I fall into it and awaken my mouth open as a wound;

Filled with the dressings

Of red sugar, red drink red kisses.

Teeth made fangs by the lights,

Flashing red.

I leave the party with lips

Dripping cherry paint,

Red shoes dancing from

Red fingertips,

Hood left at the door, or perhaps over an arm, hung like most delicate draperies.

The wolf is

The prettiest girl in the world

And she takes my hand and pulls me through the brake light city,

Her basket full of

Flowers like absinthe, biscuits like percocet, soup like smokes,

We slip inside of each other like daggers,

Our kisses are red red red.

When the light goes off the sheets are mussed and messy with us,

We glow in the dark like red planets.

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Idk if it's because you used the word "wolf" in the drawing you did of him or just because he's so mean and awful, but I am now having urges to call Vic "the Big Bad Wolf."

fitting for him, especially since I got inspired for him while listening to the song Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, which uses a lot of fairytale phrasing :D

[nightfaeses]

"Did you not mourn me, mother?" 🩸

[thesmartartslibrary]