Folk Wisdom & Ways

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Werewolves of Ossory

The legendary werewolves of Ossory, a kingdom of early medieval Ireland, are the subject of a number of accounts in medieval Irish, English, and Norse works. The werewolves were said to have been the descendants of a legendary figure named Laignech Fáelad whose line gave rise to the kings of Ossory. The legends may have derived from the activities of warriors in ancient Ireland who were the subject of frequent literary comparisons to wolves, and who may have adopted lupine hairstyles or worn wolf-skins while they "went wolfing" and carried out raids.

Wolves, though now extinct in Ireland, were once numerous; the Irish were said to be plagued by the animals and bred a special type of dog, the Irish Wolfhound, to hunt them. As late as 1650, Coleraine was said to have been attacked by a pack of hungry wolves. The wolf had a long-standing place in Irish culture, and Irish literature throughout the medieval period associated warriors with wolves. They invoked a combination of ferocity, frenzied behaviour, unpredictable and savage animal behaviour, sexual potency, and martial prowess.

In the Irish literary mind, wolves were particularly intricately linked with the practices of the fianna, warrior bands of landless young men who lived for much of their time in the wilderness and were thought of as living in close proximity to supernatural forces. Warriors were often depicted with canine attributes and shared a common motif of a wild, disheveled, or naked appearance. They were frequently portrayed as wolves, hunting both animals and humans, and may have worn wolf-skins or a lupine hairstyle as part of a ritual transformation. The wolf-warriors or luchthonn (literally "wolf-skins") were said to "go wolfing" when they carried out raids. Such associations may have given rise to Irish legends of werewolves.

The medieval Irish work Cóir Anmann (Fitness of Names), which was probably based on earlier traditions, gives an account of a legendary warrior-werewolf named Laignech Fáelad. He was said to be the ancestor of a tribe of werewolves who were related to the kings of Ossory in eastern Ireland, which covered most of present-day County Kilkenny and County Laois prior to the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century.

According to Cóir Anmann:

“He was a man that used to go wolfing, i.e. into wolf-shapes, i.e. into shapes of wolves he used to go, and his offspring used to go after him and they used to kill the herds after the fashion of wolves, so that it is for that that he used to be called Laignech Fáelad, for he was the first of them who went into a wolf-shape.”

He was said in medieval genealogies to be the brother of Feradach mac Duach, the king of Ossory, and the ancestor of its subsequent kings who ruled until being deposed by the Normans. The late 14th century Book of Ballymote may refer to this tradition in a passage which speaks of "the descendants of the wolf" in Ossory having the power to change themselves and go forth to devour people.

Other accounts of Irish werewolves appear in the 11th century poem De Mirabilibus Hibernie (On the Marvels of Ireland) by Bishop Patrick of Dublin, the Middle Irish De Ingantaib Érenn (On the Wonders of Ireland) and the 13th century poem De hominibus qui se vertunt in lupos (Men Who Change Themselves into Wolves).

Nennius of Bangor's Historia Britonum (History of the Britons) presents an Irish version of the latter poem. The accounts describe men who are able to transform themselves into wolves, leaving their human bodies behind. Injuries sustained in lupine form are reflected on their human bodies, while meat from their prey will appear in their mouths. Their human bodies were vulnerable while they were in wolf form and their friends and family were warned not to move them. Such stories reflected folkloric beliefs that souls could leave the body and travel but could not return if the body was disturbed.

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