Beginnings
Florian
Music
About
and
and
in
the
about us
Gryphon
Cemeteries
book
""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,
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)~~