Are Werewolves Dangerous?

When people in society hear the word werewolf, they automatically think of it in a negative connotation as being threatening or dangerous. One thing that stood out to me in the reading of “Bisclavret” was how the werewolf was automatically perceived as dangerous. The moment in “Bisclavret” where the king and his knights went hunting in the woods and found the werewolf displayed this common idea because the king sent the hounds after it to kill it without even checking to see if it was friendly or dangerous. In classic movies, the werewolf is always portrayed as the threatening being. For example, in the movie Red Riding Hood, the townspeople were so afraid of the wolf that they would make sacrifices to it in order to keep it from attacking them.

 It surprised me that this idea of werewolves being dangerous originated during the medieval time. It shows that people are only following what they have been told. In all the fantasy novels, werewolves are seen as dangerous because that is the only way people learned to look at them. They were not taught to perceive the werewolf in a positive light where it can do no wrong and how it won’t hurt anyone. People automatically think that a werewolf will hurt you or kill you once you encounter it. My favorite part of “Bisclavret” is where the king sees that the werewolf is friendly and takes care of it. I honestly feel like we need to experience this more where people see werewolves as something other than negative or threatening.

The Lais of Marie de France, Bisclavret, pp. 151-153)