Arkoudaphobia and Lycophobia of the Indo-Europeans

**Arkoudaphobia** is the fear of bears, and **Lycophobia** (or **Lupophobia**) is the fear of wolves or werewolves. To the Indo-Europeans, the words for bear and the wolf (**ṛtḱos** and **wḷqos** respectively) were never to be

said. This is called taboo deformation. Doing so according to belief, the animal would come to you. That is something you do not want to happen. The word ‘bear’ in English simply means ‘the brown one’. Other languages, such as those in the Slavic branch, refer to bears as ‘honey-eaters’ (Russian/Slovak *medved*). In Russian culture it is
common to refer to bears as ‘grandfather’. Hunters in Siberia would use ‘grandfather’ because they believed that by making the bear a member of their family, that it would be less likely that it would come to cause them harm.

## The Fear of Bears

But the fear of bearsand wolves perhaps manifests itself the most in Scandinavian/Germanic culture. There are many ways that the Scandinavian people tried to deal with that fear, including naming themselves after bears and wolves, and taking on the characteristics of the animals in warfare. The Vikings would name themselves after bears to take on their power and to tell other warriors that they were just as strong, if not stronger than the bear. To this day the names Björn (Swedish) and Bjørn (Danish/Norwegian) are still very popular male names. The surnames *Lowell, Lovel,* and *Lovett* are diminutives of wolf, and are common Old French and Anglo-Norman names. Names of the greatest heroes from the Norse Sagas are also named after bears or wolves.

Beowulf, literally “bee-wolf” would be
the most famous example, with the name Beowulf being a kenning for
‘bear’. A kenning is typically a compound of two or more words that refer to something without using the word for that specific thing. Other examples of kennings would be “whale-road” for the sea, and “otter’s
ransom” for gold. Kennings were very prolific in Old Norse poetry and someone who could make up kennings was considered to be very skilled. *Wulf* was a very popular compound for Anglo-Saxons. For example, names like Cynewulf (name of a famous Anglo-Saxon poet), Ealdwulf (a name of a king
of East Anglia), and Æthelwulf (a king of Wessex) are common.

Another famous hero named for the bear is Bodvar Bjarki (literally “little bear”) from Hrolf’s saga Kraka. Bjarki’s father even had the ability to transform into a bear. So not only was Bjarki named after the bear to strike fear into his enemies
hearts, but someone in his family was able to fully take on the form of the bear. One of the reasons why there are characters in the Old Norse sagas and Mythologies can turn into bears is so that they can become stronger than it, and overcome it.

## On the Origins of Lycanthropy

Proto-Indo-European society may have been a three-class system. The priests, the warriors, and the peasants. Their underlying common origin can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European mythology, where *lycanthropy* is reconstructed as an aspect of the initiation of the warrior class. If there was a separate class of warriors, it probably consisted of single young men. They would have followed a separate warrior code unacceptable in the society outside their peer-group. Traces of initiation rites in several Indo-European societies suggest that this group identified itself with wolves or dogs. This may have been the way of the Proto-Indo-European warrior. He would probably have been named or named himself **Wḷqos**, **Wḷqōn**, or **Wḷqogenḗs** "wolf-born" to combat his inner fear of wolves. He also may also have taken the characteristics of the wolf.

A few references to men changing into wolves are found in Ancient Greek literature and mythology. Herodotus, in his *Histories*, wrote that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were all transformed into wolves once every year for several days, and then changed back to their human shape. In the second century BCE, the Greek geographer Pausanias related the story of Lycaon, who was transformed into a wolf because he had ritually murdered a child. In accounts by the '**Bibliotheca'** (3.8.1) and Ovid (*Metamorphoses* I.219-239), Lycaon serves human flesh to Zeus, wanting to know if he is really a god.

Lycaon's transformation, therefore, is punishment for a crime, considered variously as murder, cannibalism, and impiety. Ovid also relates stories of men who roamed the woods of Arcadia in the form of wolves.

In addition to Ovid, other Roman writers also mentioned lycanthropy. Virgil wrote of human beings transforming into wolves. Pliny the Elder relates two tales of lycanthropy. Quoting Euanthes, he mentions a man who hung his clothes on an ash tree and swam across an Arcadian lake, transforming him into a wolf. On the condition that he attack no human being for nine years, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form. Pliny also quotes Agriopas regarding a tale of a man who was turned into a wolf after tasting the entrails of a human child, but was restored to human form 10 years later. In the Latin work of prose, the *Satyricon*, written circa CE 60 by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside... He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!... after he turned into a wolf
he started howling and then ran off into the woods."

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf#Indo-European\_comparative\_mythology

* http://blog.as.uky.edu/thebhlog/?p=96 "Taboo Deformation: How the Fear of Bears and Wolves Manifested Itself in Indo-European Culture"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans#Culture