All the background here is the same as it was in my last flashback post so, rather than go through all of that again, just click the link to check it out.
Which brings us to last year's theme: How To Be...
You can go back and read the intro post, or you can go off of this summation: With the Internet, we can be whatever we want to be. Or, at least, we can find out how to be whatever we want to be. Or, more specifically, as a writer, I can find out how any of my characters can be whatever I want them to be, and I never have to leave my house to find those things out. Pretty amazing, don't you think.
And, yeah, I'm pretty sure last year's theme was my wife's idea, too, although I didn't seem to mention that in the intro post. Oh, well, I'm sure it's there somewhere.
So here's the A to Z of "How To Be..."! Remember, you can still leave comments. The posts won't bite. Probably. Okay, well, one of them might smash you, but, other than that, you're probably safe.
How To Be...
an Archaeologist
a Brain Surgeon
a master Chef
a Demolition Expert
an Electrical Engineer
a Fighter Pilot
a Genetic Engineer
a Human Cannonball
an Incredible Hulk
a Juggler (this post contains a juggling lesson from our very own A-to-Z founder, Arlee Bird)
a Knight
a Lumberjack
a superModel
a Ninja (the favorite post of Alex Cavanaugh)
an Ornithologist
a Paleontologist
Q (you just have to read this one to understand)
a Race Car Driver
a Super Spy (this is the one that explains how the "How To Be" idea came about)
a Translator
an Umpire
a Ventriloquist
a Werewolf (my number one most viewed post of all time... by a lot)
an X-ray Technician
a Yodeler
a Zen Master
After the series was over, I summed it up with a post about what the series had really been about:
How To Be... a Writer
Based on the popularity of the werewolf piece, I followed it up about six months later with
How To Be... a Vampire
Surprisingly, that post has not really proven to be all that popular. The werewolf post continues to get dozens of views each week. Sometimes, the Internet is weird.
Showing posts with label werewolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label werewolf. Show all posts
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Vampires: Day 3 -- How To Be... a Vampire
Back in April, as part of the A to Z challenge, I did a post on how to be a werewolf; that post has gone on to be my most viewed post ever. The post was almost about how to be a vampire, but I figured that was just too done and, then, there's the whole thing where I'm not such a huge vampire fan and all, so I decided on werewolves. However, now, six months later, as a follow up to A to Z, here's how to be... a vampire!
Vampires and werewolves have a lot of associated legends and mythologies. In fact, in some places the name for the two things used to be the same. This is not as odd as it sounds as one of the best ways to become a vampire is to start out being a werewolf. Wait, what? No, seriously. According to many legends, if you die as a werewolf (which can be more difficult than it sounds, since it's relatively easy (in some legends) to change someone back to human (sometimes accomplished just by saying the person's name (see the post))) and are not disposed of properly, you will come back as an undead that needs blood to survive, so a vampire. However, you would retain your ability to change into a wolf, which is related to so many of the legends dealing with the associations between wolves and vampires.
Interestingly enough, all of the vampire legends begin with blood-drinking demons. These go back thousands of years, and, sorry, but I don't think there's anything you can do to become a demon. The earliest vampire legends, which don't even go back 1000 years, all have to do with demonic possession, usually after you were dead. For instance, if you had a wound that was not cleansed with boiling water and you died, you could come back as a vampire. In fact, for a while, people thought just about anything could cause your corpse to become possessed by a blood-drinking demonic spirit and come back and ravage the local village. Corpses were often buried face down because of this. That way, when they tried to dig to the surface, they'd go the wrong way. Crafty, huh?
And, as an aside, many (unrelated) cultures believed these undead had a thing for counting. The Chinese would bury the dead with a bag of rice so that when the vampire awoke, it would compulsively count the grains before attempting to rise. Other cultures used sand. That whole Count von Count thing?
Totally true.
Anyway...
Most of our modern views of vampires didn't come about until the 19th century. And most of those grew out of one book: Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The conversion to a vampire, as soon by Stoker, happened by being fed upon over time. Dracula feeds on Lucy over a sustained period until she dies and, then, comes back as a vampire. The same was happening to Mina and, even, Harker. The idea of needing to share the vampire's blood was not actually part of the transformation process; however, it did allow the vampire telepathic control over the victim. We've incorporated both of those ideas into our modern view of vampires.
The sustained feeding idea has also given rise to the idea of it being a pathology. A disease that you catch. So we have three basic views on vampirism: spiritual, mystical, and physical, which give rise to different variations on how to become a vampire based upon which view you hold.
In short, you have three options:
1. You have no control. Your dead body becomes possessed by a blood-sucking demon. Possibly, you can help that to happen by having uncleaned wounds that you die of, but it's no guarantee.
2. You have some control. Become a werewolf. Try to make sure that you die while still a werewolf and hope that no one disposes of your body in a way as to keep you from returning as the undead.
3. You might have some control. First, you have to meet a vampire. This could be difficult as they don't go around handing out business cards. If you find a vampire, convince him/her to turn you into one, too. Mostly, this is going to involve the vampire biting you. You will just have to trust the vampire to do whatever needs to be done to make you into one.
Also, you could learn the special math formula from Briane Pagel's excellent novelette, "Augurs of Distant Shadow," currently found exclusively in "Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (Parts 6 - 12)."
Oh, no, wait; I deleted the formulas so that no one else could become a vampire, but you should still read the story! And Shadow Spinner, too!
Vampires and werewolves have a lot of associated legends and mythologies. In fact, in some places the name for the two things used to be the same. This is not as odd as it sounds as one of the best ways to become a vampire is to start out being a werewolf. Wait, what? No, seriously. According to many legends, if you die as a werewolf (which can be more difficult than it sounds, since it's relatively easy (in some legends) to change someone back to human (sometimes accomplished just by saying the person's name (see the post))) and are not disposed of properly, you will come back as an undead that needs blood to survive, so a vampire. However, you would retain your ability to change into a wolf, which is related to so many of the legends dealing with the associations between wolves and vampires.
Interestingly enough, all of the vampire legends begin with blood-drinking demons. These go back thousands of years, and, sorry, but I don't think there's anything you can do to become a demon. The earliest vampire legends, which don't even go back 1000 years, all have to do with demonic possession, usually after you were dead. For instance, if you had a wound that was not cleansed with boiling water and you died, you could come back as a vampire. In fact, for a while, people thought just about anything could cause your corpse to become possessed by a blood-drinking demonic spirit and come back and ravage the local village. Corpses were often buried face down because of this. That way, when they tried to dig to the surface, they'd go the wrong way. Crafty, huh?
And, as an aside, many (unrelated) cultures believed these undead had a thing for counting. The Chinese would bury the dead with a bag of rice so that when the vampire awoke, it would compulsively count the grains before attempting to rise. Other cultures used sand. That whole Count von Count thing?
Anyway...
Most of our modern views of vampires didn't come about until the 19th century. And most of those grew out of one book: Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The sustained feeding idea has also given rise to the idea of it being a pathology. A disease that you catch. So we have three basic views on vampirism: spiritual, mystical, and physical, which give rise to different variations on how to become a vampire based upon which view you hold.
In short, you have three options:
1. You have no control. Your dead body becomes possessed by a blood-sucking demon. Possibly, you can help that to happen by having uncleaned wounds that you die of, but it's no guarantee.
2. You have some control. Become a werewolf. Try to make sure that you die while still a werewolf and hope that no one disposes of your body in a way as to keep you from returning as the undead.
3. You might have some control. First, you have to meet a vampire. This could be difficult as they don't go around handing out business cards. If you find a vampire, convince him/her to turn you into one, too. Mostly, this is going to involve the vampire biting you. You will just have to trust the vampire to do whatever needs to be done to make you into one.
Also, you could learn the special math formula from Briane Pagel's excellent novelette, "Augurs of Distant Shadow," currently found exclusively in "Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (Parts 6 - 12)."
Thursday, April 25, 2013
How To Be... a Werewolf
You're probably thinking right about now that the way to become a werewolf is pretty simple. All you need to do is go out and find one and let it bite or scratch you.
That would be incorrect.
Sure, plenty of books and movies depict it that way now, but that has newly been tacked onto the werewolf legend, probably due to its association with vampiric legends due to Dracula. Which is kind of interesting, because Stoker drew on werewolf legends and attached them to the vampire legends. Although it had been believed in Medieval Europe that you had to burn a werewolf corpse to keep it from rising from the dead as a vampire. So if you're looking to one day be a vampire, it appears that being a werewolf is a good start.
But, okay, if you can't become a werewolf from getting bitten, how do you become one? It appears that there are many paths to werewolfdom, and many of them are surprisingly easy to accomplish.
One of the best ways, because you can control it, is to simply wear a belt (or girdle) made of wolf hide. Putting on the belt would cause the transformation to take place, instantly and painlessly. Removing it would revert the wearer to human form. However, some sources said it wasn't quite that simple. Some said the strip of wolf skin, the wolf strap, had to come from the devil. Although you could still control the transformation, because the devil gave it to you, you could never rid yourself of the wolf strap.
Some legends say that you could become any animal at all by drinking rainwater from its footprint. Wereelephant, anyone? Or, you know, maybe find one of those stone dinosaur footprints and drink from that. Weretyrannosaur. One catch, I couldn't find anything that said how long these transformations would last, just that drinking the water would trigger them. I imagine they must wear off; otherwise, no one would have ever known they'd happened to begin with.
Other sources say that you can become a werewolf by sleeping outside in the light of a full summer's moon as long as the light is shining directly on your face. I suppose this must be part of where the full moon part of the transformation legend comes from. The sources implied that transformed human would return to normal at dawn. But these weren't permanent changes; you'd have to do the same thing any time you wanted to become a werewolf.
Still other legends claim that one would need to be cursed by the devil to become a werewolf. Or enter into an allegiance with him. Evidently, there was once a group of sorcerers that craved human flesh, so they entered an agreement with Satan to have wolf forms so that they could fill their craving. They were given straps so that they could control their transformations.
And other sources say that the werewolf has been cursed by God or Angels or, even, saints for committing terrible offenses. I'm not sure what constituted a terrible offense. But, then, still other sources say that werewolves are actually the servants of God in his battle against Satan. They are known as the Hounds of God and go down into Hell to battle demons and witches.
Oh, and some people are just born that way.
There you go. If you want to be a werewolf, you have a lot of options to choose from. Personally, I'd go with the wolf hide belt. Then, again, being a weredinosaur sounds pretty cool, too.
Notes:
1. During the Middle Ages, it was thought that werewolves did not have tails (you know, because people don't have tails), which was how you could tell a real wolf from a werewolf. To keep from being found out, werewolves would run with one of their hind legs extended behind them so that, from a distance, it would look as if they had tails.
2. In his book Fool Moon, Jim Butcher features werewolves. I appreciate that he didn't just go with the modern concept of were-ism being like a contagion. He incorporates many of the various werewolf legends into The Dresden Files, which I find a nice change of pace from most modern renditions.
EDIT:
This post is related to the post, How To Be... a Vampire
Sure, plenty of books and movies depict it that way now, but that has newly been tacked onto the werewolf legend, probably due to its association with vampiric legends due to Dracula. Which is kind of interesting, because Stoker drew on werewolf legends and attached them to the vampire legends. Although it had been believed in Medieval Europe that you had to burn a werewolf corpse to keep it from rising from the dead as a vampire. So if you're looking to one day be a vampire, it appears that being a werewolf is a good start.
But, okay, if you can't become a werewolf from getting bitten, how do you become one? It appears that there are many paths to werewolfdom, and many of them are surprisingly easy to accomplish.
One of the best ways, because you can control it, is to simply wear a belt (or girdle) made of wolf hide. Putting on the belt would cause the transformation to take place, instantly and painlessly. Removing it would revert the wearer to human form. However, some sources said it wasn't quite that simple. Some said the strip of wolf skin, the wolf strap, had to come from the devil. Although you could still control the transformation, because the devil gave it to you, you could never rid yourself of the wolf strap.
Some legends say that you could become any animal at all by drinking rainwater from its footprint. Wereelephant, anyone? Or, you know, maybe find one of those stone dinosaur footprints and drink from that. Weretyrannosaur. One catch, I couldn't find anything that said how long these transformations would last, just that drinking the water would trigger them. I imagine they must wear off; otherwise, no one would have ever known they'd happened to begin with.
Other sources say that you can become a werewolf by sleeping outside in the light of a full summer's moon as long as the light is shining directly on your face. I suppose this must be part of where the full moon part of the transformation legend comes from. The sources implied that transformed human would return to normal at dawn. But these weren't permanent changes; you'd have to do the same thing any time you wanted to become a werewolf.
Still other legends claim that one would need to be cursed by the devil to become a werewolf. Or enter into an allegiance with him. Evidently, there was once a group of sorcerers that craved human flesh, so they entered an agreement with Satan to have wolf forms so that they could fill their craving. They were given straps so that they could control their transformations.
And other sources say that the werewolf has been cursed by God or Angels or, even, saints for committing terrible offenses. I'm not sure what constituted a terrible offense. But, then, still other sources say that werewolves are actually the servants of God in his battle against Satan. They are known as the Hounds of God and go down into Hell to battle demons and witches.
Oh, and some people are just born that way.
There you go. If you want to be a werewolf, you have a lot of options to choose from. Personally, I'd go with the wolf hide belt. Then, again, being a weredinosaur sounds pretty cool, too.
Notes:
1. During the Middle Ages, it was thought that werewolves did not have tails (you know, because people don't have tails), which was how you could tell a real wolf from a werewolf. To keep from being found out, werewolves would run with one of their hind legs extended behind them so that, from a distance, it would look as if they had tails.
2. In his book Fool Moon, Jim Butcher features werewolves. I appreciate that he didn't just go with the modern concept of were-ism being like a contagion. He incorporates many of the various werewolf legends into The Dresden Files, which I find a nice change of pace from most modern renditions.
EDIT:
This post is related to the post, How To Be... a Vampire
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