Introduction

The selected passage is from Bisclavret, lines 63 – 86:

“Lady, I become a bisclavret.
I go into that great forest,
to where the woods are thickest,
and there I live on prey and rapine.”
When he had told her everything,
she enquired and asked him
if he undresses or goes clothed.
“Lady,” he said, “I go quite naked.”
“Tell me, for God’s sake, where are your clothes.”
“Lady, that I will not tell you;
for if I lost them
and someone caught sight of me, 
I would be a bisclavret forever.
Never would there be any help for me,
until I got my clothes back.
For this reason I don’t want it to be known.”
“Lord,” the lady answers him,
“I love you more than the whole world.
No way should you hide it from me,
nor fear me in anything;
that would hardly be friendly.
How have I wronged you? For what sin of mine
do you fear me in anything?
Tell me, and you will do well!”

In the passage, Bisclavret discusses the connection between his clothes and his transformation: when he strips off his clothes, he strips off his humanity and transforms into a werewolf. The symbolism of clothing representing humanity is not just limited to Bisclavret but, rather, is a recurring theme in fictional wolves and shapeshifters of other cultures and time periods. For example, a popular ancient cautionary tale warns that if  a wolf were to see a person before the person sees the wolf, said person would become mute (Ogden 2021, 113). Pliny the Elder details that "there is a noxious influence in the eye of a wolf; it is supposed that it will instantly take away the voice of a man, if it is the first to see him" (Pliny n.d., 8.34). To reverse the curse and regain their voice, the person must strip off their clothes, stomp on the clothes, then find two stones and clash them against one another (The Medieval Bestiary n.d.). The artifact below depicts a scene of this man-wolf curse.

Through comparison of similar creatures in tales of different cultures, this website explores the internal battle of beast versus human and how, while clothes represent the physical form of humanity, the werewolf in Bisclavret is able to remain more human than beast mentally.