Last post by Suramya and Manish's latest post inspired me for this word. Lycanthropes mean werewolves.But real meaning of lycanthrope is someone who suffers from a mental disease and only thinks he has changed into a wolf.
Trivia - The trivia behind lycanthrope is related to greek myth of Lycaon. Lycaon was king of Arcadia and in the time of ancient greeks , was notorious for his cruelty. God Zeus once disguised himself as a traveller and sought hospitality in the court of vicious king Lycaon. The king recognized the god and tried to kill him.He served him a flesh of a child. God Zeus identified the terrible trick and destroyed the palace outrageously and condemned Lycaon to spend his rest of the life as a wolf.
Lykos means wolf and anthropos means man.
Sources :- www.pantheon.org,
www.westegg.com/etymology
image - www.bigfella.com/violent.dir/werwv.jpg
5 comments:
wow, I didn't know this world, and such a grisly and interesting tale behind it,the greeks have such a colourful mythology, I guess this is one tale I can tell my cousin brothers when the clamour for adventure stories.
flesh of a child....Ouch!!! i wasn't aware of the word either.....
I have just acquired a book on Greek mythology which has the stories in quick condensed forms....let me check if it has this one...
Anthropos...hmmm, the root for anthropology!!!
@suramya,moi - When the owner of the blog is greek god of quizzing, you should see more greek myth trivias. This was nothing in front of that.
was
what a pithy statement , 666 :)
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