A Comparison Between Bisclarvet And Other Historic Werewolves

Since the beginning of man the idea of lycanthropy, the ability to change from man to beast, has been a source of great interest (Webster). Marie de France took many of the folk tales and legends of werewolves and wove them together in “Bisclarvet“. When comparing “Bisclarvet” to other historical werewolves one gets a sense of where Marie de France or the poet/s she heard the story got their inspiration. One also begins to see how a folk tale, such as “Bisclarvet” can evolve from cave paintings to the modern myth of werewolves that the world knows today.

In approximatley 25,000 BCE Franco-Cantabrian cave artists began “depicting ghostly creaters and a variety of two-legged beings with the heads of animals and birds” (Steiger xxiii). Ethnologist Ivar Lissner suggests in his book Man, God and Magic those Stone-Age artists were portraying:

“intermediary beings who were stronger than common men and able to penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of fate, that unfathomable interrelationship between animals, men and gods.” (Steiger xxiii)

Lissner’s assumption of early humans’ belief that “intermediary beings” had the capacity t

and who’s been missing for so long-” (de France pg. 98-99 lines 251-253)

The Lais are guesstimated to have been written between the years of 1160 and 1215 (de France pg. 1), in 1195 Guillaume de Palerne wrote “William and the Werewolf” a somewhat similar piece to de France’s Lais. William is the prince of Apulia “who is saved from a murderous attack by the aid of a werewolf, who, in reality, is heir to the Spanish throne” (William pg. 462) The werewolf, wanting to ensure the princes safety, swims across the Straits of Messina and again helps the Prince to flee with his love away from her families home. In return for his loyal service, the Prince restores the man form of the werewolf to his throne (William pg. 462).

goes deep in the forest to live” (de France pg. 92 lines 9-12)

Werewolves began as a very noble and intelligent symbol, one that inspired painters to decorate caves and writers to pass along the myths. Yet, as time went on this noble creature became a villainous beast, sprung from the devil to bring about death and distruction. It is interesting to see the werewolf’s characteristics become exactly the opposite of what they had started as. It is also interesting to see Marie de France flip the werewolf’s traits one hundred and eighty degrees back to where they had started, audiences at the time must have been shocked.

The lord valued Bisclarvet because of his loyalty. He loved the werewolf enough to give up his own bedroom, a most rare event, in order for Bisclarvet to turn back into human form. The similarities between these two poems hint at Marie de Frances’ scholarly

Some topics in this essay:
Joan Ferrante, Gilgamesh Gilgamesh, Epic Gilgamesh, Magic Stone-Age, Common Era, Straits Messina, Webster Marie, Babylon Gilgamesh, Bisclarvet Marie, BCE Sphinx, de france, marie de, marie de france, epic gilgamesh, de france pg, france pg, steiger xxiii, werewolf savage beast, savage beast, de frances’, pg 462, legends werewolves, william pg 462, werewolf savage,