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The First Werewolf
LycaonAnd early king of Arcadia, the son of Pelasgus either by the ocean id meliboea or by the nymph Cyllene. He had a daughter, Callisto, who was raped by Zeus and bore a son called Arcas, then was transformed (by Zeus or by Hera or Artemis) into a bear. He also has fifty sons by several wives. (his sons were wicked) ...Lycaon was as bad as his sons. He set human meat before Zeus (perhaps the flesh of a slave, or perhaps even the flesh of the god's own son, Arcas), or else he sacrificed a human child on the alter of Lycaean Zeus, a worship that he himself had established. Once again Zeus sent his thunder bolts against Lycaon's family, but Lycaon himself he transformed into a wolf (lykos). It was said that from this time onwards, whenever a man tasted human flesh at sacrifices to Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia, he was turned into a wolf, but at the end of nine years, if he had meanwhile obstained from eating human flesh, he became a man again; if not he remained a wolf untill he died. Thus Lycaon's story is one version of the werewolf tradition.
-Cassell Dictionary of Classical Mythology-Jenny March
Lycaon's curse
A legendary greek king named Lycaon is said to have tamed the wild province of Arcadia and begun the worship of Zeus there. Later, Lycaon asd his fifty-odd sons neglected their sacred observances, so Zeus disguised as a humble laborer, visited Arcadia to check up on them. The impious sons suspected the ruse and persuaded their father to serve their guest a welcoming meal containing human entrails. In his fury Zeus overturned the table and struck Lycaon and the sons with his thunderbolts, turning them all into wolves. The youngest, Nuktinos, whom the others had murdered for the feast, he restored to human life. (In another version of the story, Lycaon's actions are slightly more justified, because Zeus had seduced his daughter Callisto.) Not yet appeased, Zeus rained down a flood that drowned all but a few Arcadians. It is said that those survivors later practiced ritual human sacrifices to the gods. Shepherds were served a meal like the one given to Zeus,and "the one who found human entrails in his bowl ate it, howled like a wolf and, leaving his clothing hung on an oak, swam across a stram where he remained in a desolate region as a werewolf for nine years."(Barry Lopez) He turned human again if he ate no human flesh in that time. (Pliny, Historia Naturalis)
-Wolf, Spirit of the Wild -edited by Diana Landau, Forward by Douglas H. Chadwick
Lycaon, in Greek mythology, son of Pelasgus and Meliboea, father of Oenotrus and the mythical first king of Arcadia. He was the father of Callisto and, according to some, he raised her son Arcas. He, or his fifty impious sons, entertained Zeus and set before him a dish of human flesh; the god pushed away the dish in disgust and either killed the king and his sons by lightning or turned them into wolves (Apollodorus iii. 8 ; Ovid, Metamorphoses i. 198). Some say that Lycaon slew and dished up his own son Nyctimus (Clem. Alex. Protrept. ii. 36 ; Nonnus, Dionys. xviii. 20 ; Arnobius iv. 24). Pausanias (viii. 2) says that Lycaon sacrificed a child to Zeus on the altar on mount Lycaeus, and immediately after the sacrifice was turned into a wolf. This gave rise to the story that a man was turned into a wolf at each annual sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus, but recovered his human form if he abstained from human flesh for ten years. The oldest city, the oldest cult (that of Zeus Lycaeus), and the first civilization of Arcadia are attributed to Lycaon. His story has been variously interpreted. According to Weizsäcker, he was an old Pelasgian or pre-Hellenic god, to whom human sacrifice was offered, bearing a non-Hellenic name similar to Avkos, whence the story originated of his metamorphosis into a wolf. His cult was driven out by that of the Hellenic Zeus, and Lycaon himself was afterwards represented as an evil spirit, who had insulted the new deity by setting human flesh before him. Robertson Smith considers the sacrifices offered to the wolf-Zeus in Arcadia to have been originally cannibal feasts of a wolf-tribe, who recognized the wolf as their totem. Usener and others identify Lycaon with Zeus Lycaeus, the god of light, who slays his son Nyctimus (the dark) or is succeeded by him, in allusion to the perpetual succession of night and day. According to Ed. Meyer, the belief that Zeus Lycaeus accepted human sacrifice in the form of a wolf was the origin of the myth that Lycaon, the founder of his cult, became a wolf, i.e. participated in the nature of the god by the act of sacrifice, as did all who afterwards duly performed it.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon
Lycaon and Jupiter - A story by Ovid
This was written by Ovid (43 B.C. to 18 A.D.) in his Metamorphosis and is considered to be one of the earliest werewolf stories. It was republished in The Were-wolf and Other Tales from the Dark Side of the Moon, edited by John Miller and Tim Smith.Lycaon, king of Arcadia, in order to discover if it is Jupiter himself who has come to lodge in his palace, orders the body of an hostage, who had been sent to him, to be dressed and served up at a feast. The God, as a punishment, changes him into a wolf.
I had now passed Maenalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycaeus, togheter with Cyllene. After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night. I gave a signal that a God had come, and athe people commenced to pay their adorations. In the first place, Lycaon derided their pious supplications. Afterwards, he said, I will make a trial, by a plain proof, whether this is a God, or whether he is a mortal; nor shall the truth remain a matter of doubt. He then makes preparations to destroy me, when sunk in sleep, by and unexpected death; this mode of testing pleases him. And not content with that, with the sword he cuts the throat of an hostage that had been sent from the nation of the Molossians, and then softens part of the quivering limbs in boiling water, and part he roasts with fire placed beneath. Soon as he had placed these on the table, I, with avenging flames, overthrew the house upond the household Gods, worthy of their master. Alarmed, he himself takes to flight, and having reached the solitude of the country, he howls aloud, and in vain attempts to speak; his mouth gathers rage from himself, and through its usual desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep, and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed into hair, his arms into legs; he becomes a wolf, and still he retains vestiges of his ancient form. His hoariness is still the same, the same violence appears in his features; his eyes are bright as before; he is still the same image of ferocity.
"Thus fell one house; but one house alone did not deserve to perish; wherever the earth extends, the savage Erinnys reigns. You would suppose that men had conspired to be wicked; let all men speedily fell that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such is my determination."
- Translated by Henry T. Riley