Werewolf Fact of the Day

The exact meaning of Luperci remains in dispute. Lupus itself is not an authentic or original Latin word, but was borrowed from the Sabine dialect. Luperca or Lupa Romana, the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus may have given rise to secret fraternities known as the Luperci, who sacrificed she-goats at the entrances to their "wolves dens" and celebrated the Lupercali festival.

The annual Lupercali festival of the Romans was a perpetuation of the ancient blooding rites of the hunter in which the novice is smeared with the blood of his first kill. The god Lupercus, represented by a wolf, inspires men to act as wolves, to be thus as werewolves during the festival on February 15. A sacrificial slaying of a goat--representing the flocks that supported early humans in their attempts at establishing permanent or semi-permanent dwelling places--is followed by the sacrifice of a dog, the watchful protector of a flock that would be the first to be killed by attacking wolves.

When the blood of the she-goat and the dog are mixed, a bloodstained knife was dipped into the fluid, then drawn slowly across the foreheads of two noble-born children. Once the children had been "blooded," the blood is wiped off their foreheads with wool that has been dipped in milk. As they are being cleansed, they were expected to laugh, demonstrating their lack of fear of blood and their acknowledgment that they have received the magic of protection against wolves and werewolves.

Certain scholars believe this ritual of protection was derived from a much early version of the Lupercali in which the smearing of the blood on the forehead indicated that the recipient had been "wolf-blooded" and would now forever be a solitary outlaw, a lycanthrope.

From The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings, Second Edition by Brad Steiger, (c) 2012 Visible Ink Press(R) Steiger's homage to the beast within provides meaty facts for the lycanthropic in all of us.