“Vidimus frequenter in Anglia, per lunationes, homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulfos Galli…
- Date of account
- Published 1865
- Source
- The Book of Were-Wolves
- Reference
- The Book of Were-Wolves · selected passage 50
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
“Vidimus frequenter in Anglia, per lunationes, homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulfos Galli vocant, Angli vero wer-wlf, dicunt: wer enim Anglice virum sonat, wlf, lupum.” Gervaise may be right in his derivation of the name, and were-wolf may mean man-wolf, though I have elsewhere given a different derivat…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention only“Vidimus frequenter in Anglia, per lunationes, homines in lupos mutari, quod hominum genus _gerulfos_ Galli vocant, Angli vero _wer-wlf,_ dicunt: _wer_ enim Anglice virum sonat, _wlf_, lupum.” Gervaise may be right in his derivation of the name, and were-wolf may mean man-wolf, though I have elsewhere given a different derivation, and one which I suspect is truer. But Gervaise has grounds for his assertion that _wér_ signifies man; it is so in Anglo-Saxon, _vair_ in Gothic, _vir_ in Latin, _verr_, in Icelandic, _vîra_, Zend, _wirs_, old Prussian, _wirs_, Lettish, _vîra_, Sanskrit, _bîr_, Bengalee.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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