Trevor Collins

But we're talking about written storytelling, and the Epic of Gilgamesh is where we're going to start because it is considered to be the world's earliest surviving piece of literature, with original elements of the poem dating as far back as 21 BCE, before Common Era.

Okay, damn, all right.

All right, we're going way back.

Very far back, like 4,000 years.

You're going to go that far back.

Yeah.

Now, the story here, and I'll give you some overviews of some of these stories just for the sake of it, but it follows Gilgamesh on his various quests, and Gilgamesh was likely a real person inspired by an ancient Sumerian king from around 2700 BCE.

So even further back, but still old history as far as this ancient writing is concerned.

And in this story, he's kind of portrayed as a demigod in this kind of epic.

And at some point in this story, Gilgamesh is romantically pursued by a goddess named Ishtar.

However, Gilgamesh rejects her advances, citing that she has destroyed all of her previous lovers.

And to show her he knows what's up, he's kind of like, all right, well, I remember Huck.

I remember Jackson.

I remember Bill.

Okay, so I'm not going to join this list.

And in doing this, he kind of points out one person in particular and says, I know for a fact that you put a curse on this man.

after which he then is transformed into a wolf, as a punishment for not going with her advances and whatnot.

While there's no details in this epic that describe this transformation, some historians point to this as the first presence of a human wolf-like creature, a man turning into a wolf.

Now, to continue our exploration throughout history, we actually jump forward quite a few millennia.

Now we're in the 5th century BC, there's a Greek historian named Herodotus who wrote about what would now be considered werewolves.