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   ""Vukodlak", one of the oldest words for "vampyre", is Slavic and means both vampyre and vampyre-werewolf.   It’s a word that speaks of the preternatural more than any one element of a Moon-lit night.  It’s a word for magic.

  The connection between vampyres and wolves runs deep, back to the beginning.  Both creatures are of the night, powerful and mythical in their spiritual identity, beautiful and wild.  They're easy to admire and long for but just as easy to envy, hate and fear.   With a prickly dread of the dark, some of us are drawn to them and perhaps find ourselves imagining the smooth silk of fabric or fur and canines glinting sharp in the twilight.

   If you could change your shape, what shape would you take?  Faery folklore has always told of changlings, creatures that could alter their shape at will not as just an illusion but an actual transformation.  So perhaps vampyres are changling things by nature, capable of morphing into other forms like that of a bat or a mist. . . or a wolf?  Herein lies the second thread of our vampyre mythos:  having been taken by a vampyre faery as her children, the sons and daughters of Leanan Sidhe can change shape depending on their ability, knowledge and skill.  It’s a difficult thing to learn and master (as vampyres begin as us backwards humans, after all!) but depending on their will to listen, it can be done.

   For Florian, one of the main characters of our novel, it turns out to be innate:  he knows how instinctively and being a wolf is so much a part of his nature that Gryphon comments his eyes are "wolf eyes, always wolf eyes", in essence if not in appearance. When they meet, Florian teaches Gryphon how to change shape, but for Gryphon it’s something that needs to be learned and practiced, like the molding of any other medium, be it clay or stone. . . or flesh.  While he enjoys it, it isn’t a part of Gryphon’s identity, though I think of him as an essential wolf anyway:  bold, noble, inquisitive, dangerous and free.

   Matching their human hair-coloring, Florian is a pale wolf while Gryphon is black.  Please take a moment to enjoy the wolf images and if you find yourself drawn to these magnificent creatures, consider their plight:  like the People of Peace driven from our world, the wolf is being driven into extinction.  Speak up for protection and re-introduction programs and be counted as one who appreciates the wild things.  There’s room here for all, and it wouldn't be a place worth sharing if there were no amber eyes glittering in the dark. . .

  If you'd like to get involved with the wolves, please visit Defenders of Wildlife,
Wolves Ontario, Canadian Wolves,
  Mission:Wolf, and especially
  Wolf Park.
 

The wolves of Wolf Park photographed by Monty Sloan.  Monty's incredible database of wolf photographs can be viewed at http://www.wolfphotography.com

The elegant green graphics on these pages are shareware, courtesy of :

These pages created by Karen Waschinski
Questions?  Comments?  Please e-mail me at woosel[at]total.net

~~Dà Fhaol Mharbh: A Vampyre's Faerytale by Karen Waschinski (with Debra Yee)~~