The most revolting story of lycanthropy is in Frank Norris's posthumous novel, Vandover and the Brute.
While lycanthropy has never been a frequent theme in fiction, the werewolf is a common figure, appearing in various forms of literature, from medieval ballads and legends to modern short stories.
Stories of lycanthropy illustrate an interesting aspect of the association between insanity and the supernatural in fiction.
The young Kandh had prayed for the property of lycanthropy solely as a means of revenge on those whom he imagined had wronged him; and as a wer-tiger he was able to destroy them in the most cruel manner possible.
In the first place, it is necessary that the person desirous of acquiring the property of lycanthropy should be in earnest and a believer in those superphysical powers whose favour he is about to ask.
Before concluding this chapter on the werwolf in Belgium, let me add that werwolfery was not the only form of lycanthropy in that country.
Of course, there are cases of charlatanism in lycanthropy as in medicine, politics, palmistry, and in every other science.
Lycanthropy confines itself to the metamorphosis of physical man to animal form only during man's physical lifetime.
But lycanthropy did not remain in the exclusive possession of a few families; the bestowal of it continued long after its original creation, and I doubt if this bestowal has, even now, become entirely a thing of the past.
So that although there is nothing to associate lycanthropywith metempsychosis, there is, at all events, something in common between lycanthropy and animism.
Though the property of lycanthropy here as elsewhere has been acquired through the invocation of spirits--the ceremony being much the same as that described in an earlier chapter--nearly all the cases of werwolfery in Belgium are hereditary.
There are certain tribes in India known to be adepts in Occultism, and therefore one is not surprised to find lycanthropy linked with the mysterious jugglery, etherical projection, and other psychic feats accomplished by these tribesmen.
In 1603, however, it was decided at Bordeaux, in a trial involving a werwolf, that lycanthropy was only an insane delusion.
As a pathological state lycanthropy may be described as a kind of hysteria, and may perhaps be brought into connexion with the form of it known as latah.
Even if the denotation of lycanthropy be limited to the animal-metamorphosis of living human beings, the beliefs classed together under this head are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied.
In Abyssinia the power of transformation is attributed to the Boudas, and at the same time we have records of pathological lycanthropy (see below).
The belief in lycanthropy might easily attach itself to existing wolf-clans, the transformation being then explained as the result of a curse.
Delrio mentions that one gentleman accused of lycanthropy was put to the torture no less than twenty times; but still he would not confess.
There was an epidemic of lycanthropy throughout this year, and on the 4th of December a tailor of Chalons was burnt in Paris for having decoyed children into his shop, a cask full of human bones being discovered in the cellar.
In spite of the unpleasant consequences with which lycanthropy seems to be connected there is little doubt that transformation used to be regarded as a useful and sometimes even profitable relaxation.
A more explicit case of lycanthropy occurred at Serisols, in the Canton of St. Croix, about sixty years ago.
Lycanthropy is the technical name for the pathological condition of a man who believes he has become an animal.
The president of the Court declared that lycanthropy was a form of hallucination and was not in itself a punishable crime.
According to Sir Walter Scott,[27] trials for lycanthropy were abolished in France by an edict of Louis XIV.
In speaking of the belief in lycanthropy he says: "The common belief among us is that the transformation is effected by tying a strap round the body; this girth is only three fingers broad, and is cut out of human skin.
Among Slavic nations and the Magyars lycanthropy is so closely connected with vampirism that it is not always easy to draw the line between the two diseases.
In the seventeenth century lycanthropy was gravely defended by doctors of medicine as well as of divinity, on the authority of the story of Nebuchadnezzar, which proved undeniably the possibility of such metamorphoses.
Delrio mentions that one gentleman accused of lycanthropy was put to the torture no less than twenty times, but still he would not confess.
Others ascribe the origin of lycanthropy to primitive Totemism, in which the totem is an animal revered by the members of a tribe and supposed to be hostile to their enemies.
Lycanthropy became regarded as a species of witchcraft, the werewolf as obtaining his powers from the Devil.
The president went on to say that Lycanthropy and Kuanthropy were mere hallucinations, and that the change of shape existed only in the disorganized brain of the insane, consequently it was not a crime which could be punished.
Traces of genuine lycanthropyare abundant in all regions whither Buddism has reached.
That the same belief in lycanthropy exists in Armenia is evident from the following story told by Haxthausen, in his Trans-Caucasia (Leipzig, i.
Majolus relates that a man afflicted with lycanthropy was brought to Pomponatius.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "lycanthropy" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
