Re: Again with the werewolves and werebears and such in PIE!

VILKOLAKIS in Lithuanian and VILKACIS in Latvian. It is possible
that wolf was agent of god Velnias in Baltic paganism. According to
the legend Grand Duke of Grand Duchy of Lithuania Gediminas has
build Capital of Lithuania Vilnius (possibly older name Velnius),
because he was seing iron wolf in that place in his dream.

Regards, Aigius

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:

>
> I have found that my interest in trying to find common Indo-

European

> traditions and legends related to animals continues to be very
> strong. I have already mentioned in a post a few pages back about
> were-bears and were-wolves as being possible reflexives of wolf

and

> bear cults in the army, or a negative attitude the priestly class

and

> the agricultural class may have held about the army.
>
> However, that is only two creatures, and while those creatures are
> cross-culturally very, very important, there are surely other

beleifs

> surrounding other creatures that have been overlooked.
>
> For example: there is a suspicion that between the beliefs of the
> Greeks and the Old Indians on medicine, the rat (or possibly the

mole-

> rat) was considered to hold important medical properties. Whence
> comes this belief? Is it related to the use of the root *muHs as
> mouse, muscle and steal?
> Or the strange case of the hare: *kehsen means "the grey one". How
> descriptive. There was surely some taboo around rabbits and hares.
> Now, what on earth could have caused a taboo on such a seemingly
> harmless creature?! Could it have to do with "the Rabbit in the
> Moon" - if you look the the Moon when it's at a certain tilt, it
> looks like a leaping lagomorph [i.e. rabbit or hare] - ?
>
> What other kinds of beliefs of likely PIE origin does anyone know
> that are tied to animals?
>
>
> In addition: does anyone know of werewolf stories from Lithuania

or

> Latvia? Anyone know of Indo-Iranian werewolf stories? Albanian

ones?

> Or Armenian ones? Or at the very least, does anybody know the

words

> for "werewolf" in those languages? It would be most wonderful if
> similarities could be found across the swath of the Indo-European
> languages and cultures!
>