Trevor Collins

I'm going to take you from stories of real historical figures.

We're going to then move into stories that are built on the fear and the unknown that come from these stories.

And then we're going to talk about the fear itself driving real world events.

And through this, we'll see a cycle where reality inspires legends, which beget fear, which then leads back to real events, which is a cycle that's as old as reality.

written storytelling and one that cements the legend of this creature in pop culture today.

And it's probably never been more popular despite it being, like I said, in stories as far back as we have them.

There's also a possible serial killer along the way.

So for those of you who love that true crime element, we'll have a little moment there for some like 16th century potential serial killing happening.

So the story has a little bit of all of it.

But without further ado, let's dive in.

Now, of course, you laid out our modern understanding of werewolves very well, Fredo, but definitions vary depending on the cultures or the time level that you're looking at.

At a basic level, though, a werewolf, also called a lycanthrope, a wolfman or a dogman, is a humanoid creature that in some way turns into a wolf.

It's a man turning into a werewolf.

Typically, the transformation is tied to the full moon.

However, specificities about the creature are dependent on who you ask.

Sometimes it's magic based.

Sometimes it's a cursed item or a curse in general.

We'll talk about some of those things.

And although the exact origins of the werewolf are unclear, there are ample examples throughout time from researchers who point to different origin stories.

And so what we're going to do is start with the origins and folklore that reference a human turning into a wolf.