Therianthropy men becoming animals

Many of us have had the idea of wanting to have the “powers” of some animals or to become them, and that is the main object to talk about vampires, werewolves,it is even more some faculties that we give to those that we call witches. Well, the scientific name for this faculty is therianthropy, which is the ability to change from human form to animal form or vice versa.

We find in the myths and legends, some of the most common examples that give us the spoken and written wealth of many cultures. In addition, records of therianthropy have been found in cave hieroglyphics and in ancient Egyptian scroll drawings. As a curious fact the Inquisition in the sixteenth century,claimed to have written evidence of werewolves.

The most popular therianthropes are the already named werewolves (lycanthropes), which our popular culture has reminded us of, both in movies and in books. It is believed that witches have been given powers to change into animal form at night.

One of their favorite animals, popularly speaking, are cats and birds. In the same way we find vampires, which are a kind of living dead, that besides feeding on human blood also have the ability to fly and become a bat.

The Chinese culture also has the fox that can become human after living more than 500 years in a cemetery and is known as kitsune,the fox is considered by the Chinese culture as a cunning being,besides being the protector of forests and villages. At certain times of the year the Chinese give him offerings.

Greek mythology, rich in theranthropes, gives us some examples of these, such as the mermaids(half woman, half fish), minotaurs (half bull, half man), centaurs (half horse, half human), satyrs and fauns (half goats, half men) and of course the harpies (woman’s face, bird’s body, bear’s ears and sharp claws).

Image: wikipedia.org