Shapeshifting
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology and folklore, as well as in science fiction and fantasy. In its broadest sense, it is a change in the physical form or shape of a person or animal. Other terms include metamorphosis, morphing, transformation, or transmogrification.
There is no settled agreement on the terminology. Still, the most common usages are:
- shapeshifting indicates changes that are temporary
- metamorphosis indicates changes that are lasting
- transformation indicates changes that are externally imposed
Shapeshifting is distinguished from natural processes such as aging or metamorphosis (despite shared use of the term), the body contortions of animals such as the Mimic Octopus, and illusory changes. Instead, shapeshifting involves physical changes such as alterations of age, gender, race, or general appearance or changes between human form and that of an animal, plant, or inanimate object.
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Shapeshifting in folklore
Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), the Huli jing of East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune), and the gods, goddesses, and demons of numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.
Although shapeshifting to the form of a wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy, and such creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes, those terms have also been used to describe any human-animal transformations and the creatures who undergo them. Therianthropy is the more general term for human-animal shifts, but it is rarely used in that capacity.
Other terms for shapeshifters include metamorph, skin-walker, mimic, and therianthrope. The prefix "were-," coming from the Old English word for "man" (masculine rather than generic), is also used to designate shapeshifters; despite its root, it is used to indicate female shapeshifters as well.
Almost every culture around the world has some type of transformation myth, and almost every commonly found animal (and some not-so-common ones) probably has a shapeshifting myth attached to them. Usually, the animal involved in the transformation is indigenous to or prevalent in the area from which the story derives. While the popular idea of a shapeshifter is of a human being who turns into something else, there are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves as well.
Greco-Roman
Shapeshifting, transformations and metamorphoses serve a wide variety of purposes in classical mythology.
Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Circe's transforming of Odysseus' men to pigs in Homer's The Odyssey, and Apuleius's Lucius becoming a donkey in The Golden Ass.
Proteus among the gods was particularly noted for his shape-shifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his manifold shape changes.
While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively — as for Arachne, turned to a spider for her pride in her weaving, and Medusa, turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse with Poseidon in Athena's temple — even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure. Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortal women, both as a means of gaining access:
or to attempt to conceal his affair from Hera
- Io, as a cloud, and Io herself as a white heifer.
More innocently, Vertumnus transformed himself into an old woman in order to gain entry to Pomona's orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him.
In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from rape, and was transformed (Daphne into laurel, Cornix into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other god's shape-shifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed.
In one tale, Demeter transformed herself into a mare to escape Poseidon, but Poseidon counter-transformed himself into a stallion to pursue her, and succeeded in the rape.
Humans were also transformed, for many reasons.
Tiresias once saw two snakes mating and struck the female with his staff; this transformed him into a woman, and he lived as such for many years. At the end, he saw the snakes again, and this time was careful to hit the male, which restored him to male form.
Caenis, having been raped by Poseidon, demanded of him that she be changed to a man. He agreed, and she became Caeneus, a form he never lost, except, in some versions, upon death.
As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemon were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees.
Pygmalion having fallen in love with a statue he had made, Venus had pity on him and transformed the stone to a living woman.
In some variants of the tale of Narcissus, he is turned into a flower.
After Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue to silence her, she wove her story into a tapestry for her sister, Tereus's wife Procne, and the sisters murdered his son and fed him to his father. When he discovered this, he tried to kill them, but the gods changed them all into birds.
Sometimes metamorphoses transformed objects into humans. In the myths of both Jason and Cadmus, one task set to the hero was to sow dragon's teeth; on being sown, they would metamorphose into belligerent warriors, and both heroes had to trick them into fighting each other to survive. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulated the world after a flood by throwing stones behind them; they were transformed into people. Cadmus is also known to have transformed into a dragon or serpent towards the end of his life.
British and Irish
Celtic mythology
Though much of Welsh mythology has been lost, shapeshifting magic features several times in what remains.
Pwyll was transformed by Arawn into Arawn's own shape, and Arawn transformed himself into Pwyll's, so that they could trade places for a year and a day.
Llwyd ap Cil Coed transformed his wife and attendants into mice to attack a crop in revenge; when his wife is captured, he turned himself into three clergymen in succession to try to pay a ransom.
Math and Gwydion transform flowers into a woman named Blodeuwedd, and when she betrays her husband Lleu, who is transformed into an eagle, they transform her again, into an owl - Blodeuwedd.
Gilfaethwy committed rape with help from his brother Gwydion. Both were transformed into animals, for one year each. Gwydion was transformed into a stag, sow and wolf, and Gilfaethwy into a hind, boar and she-wolf. Each year, they had a child. Math turned the three young animals into boys.
Gwion, having accidentally taken some of wisdom potion that Ceridwen was brewing for her son, fled her through a succession of changes that she answered with changes of her own, ending with his being eaten, a grain of corn, by her as a hen. She became pregnant, and he was reborn in a new form, as Taliesin.
Irish mythology also features shapeshifting. Perhaps the best known myth is that of Aoife who turned her stepchildren, the Children of Lir, into swans to be rid of them. Likewise in the Wooing of Etain Fuamnach jealously turns Étaín into a butterfly.
The Púca is a Celtic faery, and also a deft shape-shifter. He can transform into many different, terrifing forms.
Sadbh, the wife of the famous hero Fionn mac Cumhaill was changed into a deer by the druid Fer Doirich.
The most dramatic example of shapeshifting in Irish myth is that of Tuan mac Cairill, the only survivor of Partholón's settlement of Ireland. In his centuries long life he became successively a stag, a wild boar, a hawk and finally a salmon prior to being eaten and (as in the Wooing of Étaín) reborn as a human.
British folklore
Fairies, witches, and wizards were all noted for their shapeshifting ability. Not all fairies could shapeshift, and some were limited to changing their size, as with the spriggans, and others to a few forms, such as the each uisge, which appears only as a horse and a young man. Other fairies might have only the appearance of shape-shifting, through their power, called "glamour," to create illusions. But others, such as the Hedley Kow, could change to many forms, and both human and supernatural wizards were capable of both such changes, and inflicting them on others.
Witches could turn into hares and in that form steal milk and butter.
Many British fairy tales, such as Jack the Giant Killer and The Black Bull of Norroway, feature shapeshifting.
Norse
Both Odin and Loki are shape-shifters in Norse myth. Unusually, both take on female forms, and Loki in the form of a mare bore Sleipnir. The Lokasenna depicts the two of them taunting each other with it, as having been women through and through, having borne children. (Any myths that depict Odin in female form have been lost, but the Lokasenna does contain references to many myths that are known to be believed.
In the Hyndluljóð, the goddess Freya transformed her protégé Óttar into a boar to conceal him. She also possessed a cloak of robin feathers that allowed her to transform into any kind of bird.
The Volsunga saga contains many shapeshifting characters. Siggeir's mother changed to a wolf to help torture his defeated brothers-in-law with slow and igmonious deaths. When one, Sigmund, survived, he and his nephew and son Sinfjötli killed men wearing wolfskins; when they donned the skins themselves, they were cursed to become werewolves.
Fafnir was originally a dwarf, a giant or even a human, depending on the exact myth, but in all variants he transformed into a dragon - a symbol of greed - while guarding his ill-gotten hoard.
In more recent folklore, the Nisse is sometimes said to be a shapeshifter. This trait also is attributed to Huldra.
Slavic
In Slavic mythology, werewolves and other human-to-animal shapeshifters are fairly rare, usually created as a course of Leszi.
Armenian
In Armenian mythology, shapshifters include the Nhang, a serpent-like river monster than can transform itself into a woman or seal, and will drown humans and then drink their blood, or the beneficial Shahapet, a guardian spirit that can appear either a man or a snake.
Hinduism
Hindu folklore tells of nāga, snakes that can sometimes assume human form. One nāga took on a man's shape in order to be ordained a monk; the Buddha refused it, but gave it directions on how to ensure it could be reborn as a man after death, in which form it could be ordained.
Far East
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklore all tell of animals able to assume human shape. Though they have other traits in common—such animals are often old, they grow additional tails along with their abilities, and they frequently still have some animal traits to betray them—there are distinctions between the folklore in the various countries.
Chinese
Chinese folklore contains many tales of animal shapeshifters, capable of taking on human form. The most common such shapeshifter is the huli jing, a fox spirit which usually appears as a beautiful young woman; most are dangerous, but some feature as the heroines of love stories.
Madame White Snake is one such legend; a snake falls in love with a man, and the story recounts the trials that she and her husband faced.
Japanese
Many Japanese yōkai are animals with the ability to shapeshift. The fox, or kitsune is among the most common, but other such creatures include:
Korean
Korean folklore also contains a fox with the ability to shape-shift. Unlike its Chinese and Japanese counterparts, the kumiho is always malevolent. Usually its form is of a beautiful young woman; one tale recounts a man, a would-be seducer, revealed as a kumiho. She has nine tails and as she desires to be a full human, she uses her beauty to seduce men and eat their hearts (or in some cases livers where the belief is that 100 livers would turn her into a real human).
Tatar
Tatar folklore includes Yuxa, a hundred-year-old snake that can transform itself into a beautiful young woman, and seeks to marry men in order to have children.
Philippines
Philippine folklore includes aswang, a cannibal capable of transforming itself to either a huge black dog or a black boar to stalk human beings at night. The folklore also mentions other beings, i.e., Kapre, Tikbalang, and Engkanto, that change their appearnace to woo beautiful maidens. Also, talismans, called "anting-anting" or "birtud" in the local dialect, can have the power to give its owner the ability to shapeshift.
See also
- Animal transformation fantasy
- Anthropomorphism
- Body horror
- Body swap
- Lycanthropy
- Metamorphosis
- Mutation
- Soul eater (folklore)
- Resizing (in fiction)
- Tetsuo: The Iron Man
- Transformation
- Werewolves in fiction
