The Viking obsession with werewolves

Monstrum recently did a two-part, almost 1h in total, video that covers about the first half of the article[1]. The other half is new info (i.e., not in the Monstrum coverage) but Monstrum has its own points presented too.

As for me, in the recent years, I've really taken a Campbellian framework in trying to explain genre tropes and obsessions. A society's stories reveals their psyche, to quote loosely. Viking literature is replete with werewolves because they see traits in wolves worth emulating and cautioning against.

I didn't find Hero With a Thousand Faces as "rigorous" as I hoped but the main thesis seems to hold up for me. I'm still only a pseudo literary analyst but investigating works through this Campbellian lens adds an extra layer to the media I consume. E.g., why is postwar Japan so obsessed with blowing up Tokyo then (maybe) rise again as an economic superpower? Consider Akira, Godzilla, plus almost every Japanese sci-fi/mech anime.

That example is rather a giveaway: Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately comes to mind. But in the lockdown I've had time to ponder on other (rather on-theme at the moment) things like vampire tropes and representations of Death.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xPFdX5qEyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aff9ZQLClcU

Well imagine if they had ever come across lions.... In many societies they name their offspring after lions:

https://petpress.net/lion-names-in-different-languages/