Also called Roman werewolf, Skin-changer, Lupus homo.
The tale
In Petronius's Satyricon, the freedman Niceros tells a frightening story at dinner. One moonlit night he walks with a soldier to visit his sweetheart, and among the tombs by the road the soldier strips off his clothes, circles them, and turns into a wolf that runs howling into the woods, while his clothes turn to stone. When Niceros arrives at his sweetheart's house, she says a wolf has been killing her sheep but a slave wounded it in the neck with a spear. Going home, Niceros finds the soldier lying in bed with a doctor dressing a wound in his neck, and he knows then that the man was a skin-changer.
When they are met
- nights of the full moon
- when walking roads at night
Staying on their good side
- none; tradition treats him as a danger to avoid
- honesty with friends
- knowing the company you keep
Honouring them, or keeping safe
- Read the story in Petronius's Satyricon, chapters 61 and 62.
- Think about the parts of yourself you hide from others.
- Walk with a friend by moonlight, rather than alone.
- Tell the story around a fire at Hallowe'en.
What their tales teach
- facing the hidden self
- the lesson that secrets come out
- caution in the dark
- good storytelling
Symbols
- clothes turned to stone
- a roadside tomb
- the full moon
- a wolf with a wounded neck
From Petronius in the 1st century AD; Pliny the Elder thought werewolf stories were nonsense, which shows how widely they were told.
More Roman folklore
- Genius Loci The guardian spirit of a place
- Lemures The hungry ghosts of May
- Striges The screech-owls of the night
- The Sibyl of Cumae The prophetess of the hundred-mouthed cave
- Fauns The goat-legged spirits of the woods
- Larvae Malevolent ghosts of the restless dead
- Mania Mother of the dead and nursery bogey
- Lamia (in Roman sources) Child-devouring witch of Roman tales