Trevor Collins

Are werewolves real, first and foremost?

The short answer is essentially no, right?

I'm sure, like, there's so many things we could debate in the supernatural.

I think this one we can all mostly agree that, like, there's no evidence of werewolves over time.

But historians have really interesting ideas about what people in the Middle Ages might have been experiencing that led to...

differences in behavior, made them stand out to society, maybe shy away from society, etc.

And this is where I find it to be so fascinating.

So they've listed a few things.

Food poisoning, something called hypertrichosis, which is a rare genetic disorder that causes excessive hair growth.

Rabies, which does make a lot of sense.

Frothing, foaming at the mouth, aggression, terrible, fatal disease.

Hallucinations, particularly caused by hallucinogenic herbs or mushrooms.

You know, if you're foraging in the woods or what have you, and you're in a small town, you might stumble into something that's going to make you a little silly if you eat it.

Maybe poison yourself by accident.

True.

You know, and so who knows?

Because we were still kind of poking around at things.

And so hallucinations could definitely put people in a different disposition.

And then, of course, there's something actually called lycanthropy, not just the ability to transform, but it's a psychological condition that leads people to think that they are, in fact, changing into an animal.

Right.