Werewolves are not the only shapeshifters out there, next to the werewolf, the werecat is most often seen in folklore, and many other werebeings are more common than you would think. Since I have already devoted so many pages to wolves or werewolves, it is only fair that I devote at least one page to non-Werewolf shifters. And non-Werewolf shifters can be fairly interesting, as well as shedding some light on the phenomena of shifterism in general in a way that isn't totally seen through wolf-coloured glasses.
Note: also see Animal Totems and note that the rest of the werewolf handbook has much to say about non-werewolf werecreatures, scattered here and there.
Note: I am looking for the links to the best animal-related sites on the net, for the animals corresponding to the Shifters listed here (i.e. Seal Pages because WereSeals are listed.......) please email me at slathe@ksu.ksu.edu with Animal-related links that would be good for this page, or any links that would be good.
Mammalian Carnivores Most Shifters are mammals and carnivores, either being one of the dog family (Wolves, foxes, ect) or one of the cat family (Tigers, Leopards, Panthers, housecats, ect.) or one of the bear family (Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, Polar Bears). These three major familys of carnivores comprise most of the Werecreatures, both in modern times and in legend.
The Werecat
Werecat is a general term that means any were-{member of the cat family}, such as Weretigers, WereLeopards, Werelions, and many others, as well as Were-house-cats. Do not make the mistake of assuming any Were-{member of the dog family} can be called a Weredog or a dog, this generally causes GREAT anger
Werecats are often characterized to be aloof loners, but this is not technically true even for cats that were traditionally considered strict loners outside of mating season. Werecats do, however, have a strong tendency to do their own thing, even if they are doing it with others. For a huge list of all kinds of feline links, see The NetVet Cat Page.
The WereLeopard
The leopard used to be very common in nearly all of Europe, Asia, and
Africa. It is not any more. The good news is that the leopard gets along
with high densitys of humans better than any other large cat, and it's
presence often isn't known of by the locals because of it's very
secretive habits. Park officials in Africa have said that even if all the
other big cats of Africa become extinct, the leopard will exist much
longer. However, it still deserves and needs protection, and since it
gets along so well with human populations it would be good to introduce
it to areas where it no longer lives.
WereLeopard legends are fairly common in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It
should be remembered that "Panther" simply means a black leopard, and
that leopard were often called by the name "Ounce" and many other names.
So any legend mentioning a WerePanther would refer to a black
WereLeopard (unless it was in the Americas, where "Panther" would refer
to a black Jaguar). Click here to see a leopard.
Spiritually, Leopards are very catlike, they embody the essence of cat
more than most other members of the cat family, and have no catty
characteristics developed to an extreme or off in a side-branch. They are
just all-around cats.
Click
here
{text only} or
here for Clouded
Leopard info.
Click
here
to see a Snow Leopard.
Click here for regular Leopard info
The WereTiger
The Weretiger is very common in legends from India. However, the tiger
still has a large range, through
much of Asia, and in Siberia, and had a
larger range in the past, and through much of this range Weretiger
legends exist. Sadly, the tiger faces a high probability of extinction
within 20 years, especially as the crumbling Russian Government has so
much to worry about that it cannot devote resources to stopping tiger
poachers and because India's population is increasing so much.
The tiger is a powerfully-built very large Cat. It is a good swimmer and is at home in the jungles of India and the snows of Siberia.
See This Link for Tiger info. Also see Stoli and Lil.
The WereCougar
Click here to see Cougar info, the Cougar is also called Puma and Mountain Lion.
The WereLynx
The Caracal, a Lynx of Africa, and a possible ancestor or relative of the domestic Cat
The WereCheetah
Cheetahs are sleek, low-slung animals who can run faster than any other
animal. The Cheetah is the most dog-family-like cat, having
non-retractable claws and a more dog-like nature than other members of
the cat family. Ancient Empires often had hordes of
tame cheetahs trained
for hunting and belonging to the royal family. The cheetah, unlike most
wild animals, tames very easily, almost like a dog. They make loyal,
dog-like and very agreeable pets. Except for the fact that as far as
anyone knows it is impossible to house-break them, they even soil their
own resting place. Except for that fact, the cheetah might be a common
pet the world over. In
Africa (where the cheetah lives) most Werecat
legends deal with Werelions or Wereleopards. I do not specifically
remember reading any WereCheetah legends.
The WereLion
Lions used to live nearly everwhere in Europe,
Africa, and much of
Asia. Yes, Lions used to be common in England. The lion has been
exterminated
from most of it's former range and now mostly lives in Africa.
Throughout much of this range, Werelion
Folklore is found.
The Werelion is not the #1 WereBeast in Africa, either the WereLeopard
or the
WereHyena is the #1 African WereBeast in term of numbers, but lion might
be #3. Lions live in packs (but called "prides"), and the females hunt
together. The males are what would be called "pigs" if they were human.
They kill cubs, (but not their own) they take over prides, they live
almost entirely off the female's hunting, eating first and threatening
them with their superior strength, sleeping most of the day. They do
guard the cubs of the pride sometimes, and they do most of the
Hyena-killing.
The personality of Lions is best described by the astrological sign Leo. Lions are bold, full of pride, lazy, and like to be leaders. But they are also generous and will do nearly anything for those they truly like. They are royalty, easily the most king-like and snobbish of Cats. Prides seem to show a lot of affection towards each other, rubbing, purring, and resting together. See this link and this link for lion info of a more detailed nature.
The WereJaguar
Click here for Jaguar info.
The Werecat as in house-cat
We hear quite a lot of this creature in folklore, especially after towns
became somewhat large and civilized. Most Werecats masqueraded as tame
or semi-tame house-cats, using their cat guise to remain much less
molested than Werewolves. Werecats were most common in Europe during the
same era as the era when Wererabbits were very common, and likely for
many of the same reasons. For
The Werebear
See
The WereBear
mini-FAQ, and for a general bear resource, see
The Bear
Den.
The Werefox
The fox is a very good "starter" totem animal, a way to start learning
about totem animals without as many adjustments and growing pains. There
are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that the fox is so small
(people find small animals less threatening). Another is that the fox is
so beautiful and almost makes you forget it is a predator. One of the
biggest reasons, however, has to do with the fact that the fox, while
technically belonging to the dog family, has a good mix of
characteristics of both the cat and dog family in it, both physically and
spiritually. Since the cat family and the dog family are where most #1
totem animals occur, and since nearly everyone has at least a little
bit of both the dog and cat family in them, the fox makes an ideal
starting totem, as it is the most feline of the dog family. Foxes
(except a few obscure species) have a
radically different number of chromosomes than the rest of the dog family
(Wolves, Coyotes, Jackals and Dogs) and thus are much less closely
related to the rest of the dog family than most of the species in it.
Biologists almost classified the fox as
part of the cat family, because
how it relates to the rest of the dog family is obscure and because many
species of fox have retractable claws and/or eyes that have "vertical
slit" irises. Mentally and spiritually, in behavior and in myths, the fox
is a mix of cat and dog family non-physical characteristics.
The Werefox is much more common in Japanese and Chinese legends than it
is in the legends of any other place. There is a real shortage of Werefox
material in the myths of europe. Most european werefox legends portray
the werefox as an almost fairy-like being, usually female, who lived
primarily as a fox in the wild. There are many european myths of
fox-maidens who ran away from their husbands as soon as they recovered
their skins (To learn more about skins and physical shifting, see
More About PSing). In China and Japan, however,
there is a huge number of werefox legends, where werefoxes are often
living as human beings, and were often seen transforming or roaming
around in a
half-transformed state (it is very rare in legends of WereCreatures for
them to be roaming about in a half-changed form, and it is very hard to
find legends other than werewolf legends where this happens). In China,
it was said that werefoxes were usually originally foxes, that is foxes
who changed into humans. It was said that any fox who lived to be a
thousand years old became a werefox, but that the very wise old werefoxes
would teach the younger foxes to transform too. It was also said that any
human who lived to be a thousand years old would become a physical
shifter, a WereCreature of some kind, (but not nessessarily a werefox)
but that there were shortcuts to getting the ability, such as learning
magic and studying very hard. It was said that that's why many scholars
were Werefoxes and other Werecreatures, because knowledge and wisdom,
especially long years of study of magic and related things like healing,
contributed to Shifting energy. The Chinese knew about Shifting energy
and most of their concepts of WereCreatures relate to Shifting energy.
Werefoxes were said to be basically harmless, and you could tell who they
were by either getting them drunk or watching them while asleep, because
while drunk or asleep they physically shifted into fox form.
I remember two ancient Asian pictures I saw depicting Werefoxes. One was
of an old woman, wearing a shawl, transforming into a fox. Her head was
foxlike and the rest of her looked in transition, it looked like various
parts of her body were collapsing in size as they became more foxlike,
which looked sort of comic because her human form was fat and parts of
her were "swimming" in her clothes and other parts of her were still
filling her clothes tightly. The other picture I saw was beautiful,
haunting, and eerie. It was of hundreds of Werefoxes gathering in a swamp
at night (a thing that supposedly happened often in legend). There were
all these swamp plants, and all these foxes and half-transformed
Werefoxes on sandbars, with more and more of them off into the distance,
their eyes eerie and glowing in the dark. The half-changed foxes looked
like they were about as big as children, much larger than foxes but much
smaller than adult humans.
The Werewolf
The WereJackal
A WereJackal Page with RPG stuff and Mythology.
See this page for Jackal and canid info.
The WereCoyote
Fortunately, there is almost no proability of us ever having a world without Coyotes. The Coyote is one of those animals that just doesn't seem to notice persecution, it does not become endangered, it flourishes. Ever since Wolves were exterminated, Coyotes have increased and flourished. Coyotes and Wolves never competed for the same resources, they mainly eat almost entirely different things and occupy different niches. However, Wolves will kill any Coyote they can catch, perhaps this emnity is what keeps Wolves and Coyotes from creating hybrid swarms and thus destroying both species.
See this Coyote Page or Wyoming Wildlife or The Coyote and Jackor The Coyote Den or Coyotes.
Also see Why Wolves are not Coyotes.
The WereDog
Pinky's Home Page
The Weredog is very rarely seen in legend. It is usually only found as a
powerful sorceror who deliberately chose that form in order to masquerade
as a tame dog and thus get into places in town that a Werewolf might
never get into.
Occasionally the Weredog in legend is a person that was transformed into
a dog against their will by a sorceror, often as a punishment or so that
the sorceror could own them and force them to do work. The weredog is
the most seldom-seen member of the dog family among Werecreatures.
The WereHyena
The Hyena used to be a major class of predator for thousands of years,
though the ice ages. Nowadays only two or three species exist, all in
Africa. Hyenas were common shapes for
African Witches to
assume.
See
Lyka's Hyena Pages.
Try Spook's Hyena Photos for adorable Hyena pictures.
Sea Creatures
Shapeshifting sea creatures in general are usually thought to be not just shapeshifters but mysterious half-fairy creatures. This pattern shows up many times.
The WereDolphin
See Wildlife: Dolphins, The AquaThought Foundation and The Dolphin Circle for Dolphin info.
The WereSeal
Also called Silkies, Selkies, and many other names, Wereseals are fairly common in Folklore of places near the Sea. They are nearly always encountered in large groups of mixed males and females.
Click here for Seal ans Sea Lion info.
The WereShark
The Wereshark is supposed to be fairly common in African Legends. I suppose if you are going to assume a sea shape as your were-form, a shark is a pretty able sea creature. I, of course, would prefer dolphin instead of shark.
The Each-uisage
For a while I was facinated with each-uisage folklore and read quite a bit of it. What is the each-uisage? It is a kind of Shifter that was very common in English Folklore for several hundred years or more. It might fit better into the category of "even stranger and rarer werebeings" but it is so much a sea and river creature that I put it here.
SeaTails Online: sightings, stories, and art devoted to the mermaid and her kin. NOTE: It is actually impossible to access this excellent page directly, the link given is for a short gateway page, with the real link at the bottom of the page.
Water Spirit Legends Folklore of mermaids and other water spirits
Many creature described as mermaids in legend no not fit the idea of what a mermaid is that is found in popular american culture. Many mermaids of legend were shapeshifters. In many mermaid tales, it is repoted that the "mermaid" was seen transforming into full seal form (or rarely, into other sea mammals, or even fish), and thus would be better classified as a WereSeal. In other legends the "mermaids" were only seen in full human form, or a form that was nearly human, (perhaps gills or webbed feet or something were seen, but nothing else) but were believed to be mermaids because they could swim as fast as a fish and/or could submerge and stay under for a much longer time than normal humans. In other legends the mermaid could assume terrible-looking forms reminiscent of the Wendigo such as nasty-looking bat-winged half-human flying shapes. Since the extra powers ascribed to the mermaid do resemble the powers ascribed to the Wendigo, it is possible that many creatures called "mermaids" were actually Wendigo with an aquatic form, or some aquatic cousins of Windigo or something. These would be the "hell-raising" ugly mermaids of legend. It should also be noted that nearly as many merman were sighted as mermaids, the reasons we hear more about mermaids is because the sailors were obsessed with mermaids because they wanted a chance to have sex with them. Also, in many legends, humans were given a chance to go live with the mer-people and learn how to become one of them, which fits with the idea of mermaids-as-shapeshifters.
The Werehorse
The Werehorse is often found in myth, it is probably the most common herbivore werecreature occuring in folklore (wererabbits are the most common herbivore werecreature in folklore if horses aren't). Most of the werehorses found in myth are female, male werehorses occur but are much less common, at least in the european folklore that is the body of folklore which is most easily accessable by me. Werehorses are described as very wild creatures, not the meek and easily confused or frightened domestic horses, but rather instead like wild horses in temperament, strong-willed things that can kill a lion (as long as the horse is healthy). Werehorses are generally as large, or larger, than the average horse, and have a body build somewhat like a quarterhorse, which would also be the kind of body build found in wild horses. Werehorses are supposed to be a terror for anyone to meet, they chase people they find while screaming like an angry stallion and flailing with their hooves, in fact in many legends they are impossible to catch unless you own a bridle that has been magically prepared by a good witch, and then all you have to do is touch the werehorse with the bridle to make it docile (but getting close enough to touch it without getting hurt would still be quite a job). Werehorses were said to easily jump fences and be uncannily intelligent. They usually roamed in wild places at night, being seldom seen in the day. It should be remembered that horses are descended from a small omnivore, and examination of the way their food-processing organs are put together shows that they only recently (in recent evolutionary time) evolved into herbivores. It should also be remembered that among domestic horses, every male horse has fangs (and so do a few of the females), these are nearly always pulled a few days after birth so that they will never be used on a human. Werehorses were often accused of being witches who captured people and forced them to endure a terrifying wild ride on their back for miles. But I never found a legend where the werehorse actually killed anyone. In many tales, the werehorse was captured and horseshoes were nailed to it's feet, and the next morning a human (usually a woman) was found with horseshoes nailed to her mangled hands. In quite a number of tales, the werehorse and their family endeavored to make a lot of money off of the werehorse by selling it in horse form, then having it turn into a human as soon as no-one was watching it and escape, and return home. After awhile, people would begin suspecting that the werehorse's family had a trained horse that would escape and return home, but as each new owner would tie the horse tighter and tighter with more straps when not in use, and as authoritys sent to search the werehorse's family estate never found a horse there, there would begin to be a suspicion that there was a werehorse involved. Then someone would buy the horse and lock up the horse so well that even if it shifted to human it wouldn't be able to escape, and later there would be a naked human locked up there, unable to escape, at which time there would be a great uproar among the persons who had lost their money. See Hundreds of Horse Links.
The Wererabbit or Werehare
Hmmmm, I wonder what the appeal of being a wererabbit is ...... ;). Well, once again there are a lot more female wererabbits in legend than there are male wererabbits. The wererabbit was said to be an often-chosen form (it was nearly always said to be chosen, not to just happen like many werewolves do) by sorcerors and witches and such who could do the nessessary magic to choose for their were-side just about any form they wanted to (but therafter be stuck with only one type of animal, even for good sorcerors, according to legend, choosing two or more forms is diffucult, dangerous, or impossible). The reasons given for choosing to be a wererabbit were that for the rabbit form, even if it was seen, no-one would think anything of it. It was small, it blended in, 20 or 30 normal rabbits might be spotted on a day's walk through the countryside. And the wererabbit could outthink hounds or most predators most of the time, and if all else failed it would shapeshift back at the last second, injured, but still alive. And we do find the wererabbit form suddenly becoming much more popular as persecution of witches and werecreatures increased towards the end of the middle ages. This suggests that wolves, panthers, even housecats, were largely unsafe forms. And it is true that during this time cats were highly suspected of being either witches in wereform or witch's familiars, and often killed in mass numbers with little provokation. Panthers, wolves, bears and other large predators were being deliberately exterminated, regardless of whether they were suspected of being werecreatures or not, and, unlike in the past, any typical werecreature form (such as wolf, fox, cat, lion) seen regularly in a certain area near someone's house and who acted unusually intelligent, would bring suspicion.
The Wereboar, or Werepig in general (since boar is only the male and females do exist)
The Werepig was a common shape in european folklore. Nowadays it is a very common shape in South American Folklore.
The Wereraven and Werecrow
See The Raven Page for some really good info. There are quite a number of Wereravens around.
The raven and crow are closely-related and the most intelligent birds in existance. With a lot of patience and work, it is possible to teach both species to talk, and even to have a little bit of understanding of what they are saying, like some of the more intelligent parrots. Slitting the tongues of ravens and crows (a practice recommended in lore to help them learn to talk) is not nessessary and persons who have studied it are not sure whether it helps ravens and crows talk better, makes them talk worse, or has no effect. Ravens and crows both become very tame easily if taken when young, but I have not heard of anyone teaching them to not poop on the floor. In myth and in fact, both ravens and crows are mental cousins of wolves. Their flock structure is like wolves, they also tend to mate for life, and many other things. Wolves and ravens are often found together in the wild and often play together. Even though wolves have been seen playing with ravens in many many mock-pouncing games, no records exist of wolves hurting a raven. Ravens feed off of wolf carcasses and wolves don't seem to mind. Ravens often lead wolves to newly-dead animals to scavenge, or lead them to herds or even sometimes to weak or sick animals. The raven seems to be the most common bird totem animal, and WereRavens and WereCrows seem to be the most common WereBirds in legend.
The WereEagle, WereHawk, and WereFalcon
These similar species of hunting
birds of prey were common werebird
shapes in myth. Like the other common Werebird shapes, Owls and Ravens,
they are among the most intelligent of birds and are predators and omnivores.
See A List of Hawk and Falcon Books, Hawks of the Prairie, The Complete Pergegrine Falcon Page, and Gryf.
The WereOwl
Owls are associated with Cats in legend, and are bitter enemies of Ravens
and Crows in real life and in myth. WereOwls were often associated with
witches, as shapes that witches assumed to travel long distances
undetected in the night. Owls can see, and fly, well by night and day,
but Eagles, Hawks, and Falcons cannot do much at night.
See The Barn Owl, The Screech Owl, The Great Horned Owl, Great Owl Art, Great Horned Owl Photos, Owl Research Institute, and The Highly Recommended Owlman Page.
Reptiles: WereSnakes, WereCrocodiles, WereDragons, WereGeckos, others?
Yes, strange as it sounds, there is a WereGecko I know of, and here is his werecard.
WereReptiles in general seem to be very odd in the way they think and react (both in modern shifters and in legend). There is much less of humaness about them. Werewolves are mammals, and so are most other WereCreatures, and non-mammals seem very odd in their mind to mammals (werebirds are much more like mammals in thinking, being closely related and warm-blooded). Consequently, Werereptiles are often feared more easily than warm-blooded Werecreatures.
To see a huge, cool crocodile page with a nifty background, click here.
WereBats
I only know of two Werebats, they are very rare according to legend
too. And Werebats are not vampires, a human who can change into a bat is
very different than the blook-sucking walking egos that call themselves
vampires. The few vampires who can shapeshift, both in legend and in
fact, seldom turn into bats. See
What about Vampires?
to see an explanation of why werecreatures are very different from
vampires. When the werebat who wanted to email me bat info emails it,
I'll put some more stuff here.
WereInsects are very, very rare in legend and I know of no modern were-insects. In legend, the few times they show up, were-insects are only powerful sorcerers that turn themselves into that form to get inside houses thru tiny cracks and then cause trouble.
Wendigo
Yes, Wendigo are shifters too, like other shifters in all ways except that they have extra strange powers that other werecreatures in legend don't have, and that their non-human form is not a natural animal but some monster that is a mix of animal species or something even stranger, and they can often assume more than one kind of monstrous form, and that they have very odd hungers and desires. Other than all that, most of the same shifter phenomena applies to them. Go see The Wendigo Page for a whole page of Windigo information and resources. Wendigo are rare amoung Werebeings.
Other even stranger and rarer Werebeings
Yes, one does find even stranger or rarer Werebeings in folklore from time to time, as well as in AHWW. I know of two modern-day Werecows (or rather one Werecow and one Werebull, for one is female and one male) but they don't seem to have anything to do with AHWW. There used to be a number of Weredragons around, including one multiple-shapes shifter with one form that was a purple dragon (as long as it isn't a purple dinosaur!!!), but I haven't yet seen Weredragons in folklore, unless Werecrocodiles count (the crocodile symbolizes the dragon and has a spiritual affinity with it in many cultures), or unless some of the descriptions of humans turning into hard-to-describe reptilian creatures could be Weredragons, yet many of those weird reptilian creatures are actually Windigo. To see many dragon-orientated pages, go to Yahoo Dragon Categorys. Perhaps the most strange kind of Shifters are those which seem akin to Wendigo and are often classified with vampires because they don't seem to fit in any cut-and-dried categorys, but just dont fit the basic definition on vampires. Many of these creatures of folklore are listed as "odd kinds of vampires" on the Alt.vampyres FAQ some of them are thought to be Windigo by Windigo, but most are thought by Windigo to just be possible distant cousins of Windigo. Creatures like these might reflect a level of magick at which the practitioner could "put together their own form" any way they wanted it. The fact that most of these creatures had extra powers not normally seen in WereCreatures makes that theory seem more likely. However many of the legends state that people could just happen to become these creatures, so perhaps the magick was not their own, but some wilderness spirit or something impressing itself on them, along with the nessessary magick.
Links
On some pages of this handbook, I have pondered the question of
classification of Werecreatures who do not fit in the regular categorys
well at all. Many of these have something of Windigo characteristics
about them. These non-category creatures include Shapeshifters that seem
related to fae, Shapeshifters which seem sorta vampire-like and lots of
others.
Many of the obscure creatures of folklore mentioned in the
FAQ for the
newsgroup alt.vampires are in this non-category category. Such as
Shapeshifters who have forms very like the forms reported for Windigo, have
powers such as powers over storm and the ability to become invisible, but
don't attack people, instead eating animals, or attacking people but not
the way vampires do, or radically differing in their feeding habits in
some other way from vampires.
When I mention these creatures and compare them to Windigo, I do so merely because they seem to me to fit in the Windigo category better than they fit in any other category of Shifters and better than they fit in a category with vampires. It does NOT mean that they are Windigo, and, in fact, Windigo themselves have not agreed on what Windigo-like creatures of folklore can be called Windigo. One Windigo told me that Windigo are exclusively northern critters, and that their powers are always associated with winter, wind, and wildness, and that any critter that didn't have those characteristics can't be called Windigo. In this way, the Puerto Rico Goatsucker would not be a Windigo because it is too far south and because it has no association with winter. Nevertheless, the Goatsucker is definately, in my opinion, not a vampire. It seems to be a non-category Shapeshifter of a distant relation to Windigo. I wonder what the Goatsuckers think of themselves as? By the way, they have started to invade Miami too.
How does one "choose" a phenotype or figure out what kind of phenotype one already is? There are many ways this is done, I don't know whether any of them are better or worse than the others, but I'll outline them here.
"And your depiction of totemic/integrated shifters does not take everything into account. I have _three_ distinctive sides, NOT two. Wolf, werewolf, and human. The werewolf side is usually dominantly present, but doesn't show signs that most people OR most weres can interpret, unless I _want_ to make it known." --anonymous quote
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