While they may not be as trendy as their broody, ultra-dark mates, the vampires, werewolves have been certainly enjoying a bout of popularity in recent years, courtesy of a popular series of trashy, young adult novels — and subsequent movie franchise — of the early noughties.
Werewolves are also known, in a rather more elegant manner, as lycanthropes, a fancy term coming from the Greek words lycos, wolf, and anthropos, man. Nothing could be more correct, as werewolves are, indeed, men-wolves. Thanks to the birth and development of psychiatry, we know also there is an actual truth behind the existence of these fantastic creatures: lycanthropy is recognized as a psychopathology that leads sufferers to believe they can physically morph into wolves.
