Shapeshifting
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture. Examples of shape-shifters include changelings, jinns, kitsune, vampires, and werewolves, along with deities such as Loki and Vertumnus.
Folklore and mythology
Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires, ichchhadhari naag of India, shapeshifting fox spirits of East Asia such as the huli jing of China, the obake of Japan, the Navajo skin-walkers, and gods, goddesses and demons and demonesses such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. Shapeshifting to the form of a wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy, and creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.The prefix "were-" comes from the Old English word for "man".
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
Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Circe's transforming of Odysseus's men to pigs in Homer's The Odyssey, and Apuleius's Lucius becoming a donkey in The Golden Ass. Proteus was known among the gods for his shapeshifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus captured him to obtain information, and they succeeded only by holding on through his many transformations. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason.The Oceanid Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena, was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. In one story, her pride led Zeus to trick her into transforming into a fly. He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. Metis, however, was already pregnant. She stayed alive inside his head and built an armor for her daughter. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have a headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. Athena sprang from her father's head, fully grown, and in battle armor.
In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them.
- Zeus transformed King Lycaon and his children into wolves as a punishment for either killing Zeus's children or serving him the flesh of Lycaon's own murdered son Nyctimus, depending on the exact version of the myth.
- Ares assigned Alectryon to keep watch for Helios the sun god during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery and humiliation that morning. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows to signal the morning and the arrival of the sun.
- Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone. She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.
- Athena transformed Arachne into a spider for challenging her as a weaver and/or weaving a tapestry that insulted the gods. She also turned Nyctimene into an owl, though in this case it was an act of mercy, as the girl wished to hide from the daylight out of shame of being raped by her father.
- Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag for spying on her bathing, and he was later devoured by his hunting dogs.
- Galanthis was transformed into a weasel or cat after interfering in Hera's plans to hinder the birth of Heracles.
- Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions after making love in a temple dedicated to Zeus or Cybele.
- Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was raped by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection.
- Hera punished young Tiresias by transforming him into a woman and, seven years later, back into a man.
- King Tereus, his wife Procne, and her sister Philomela were all turned into birds, after Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue, and in revenge she and Procne served him the flesh of his murdered son Itys.
- Callisto was turned into a bear by either Artemis or Hera for being impregnated by Zeus.
- Selene transformed Myia into a fly when she became a rival for the love of Endymion.
- Danaë as a shower of gold
- Europa as a bull
- Leda as a swan
- Ganymede, as an eagle
- Alcmene as her husband Amphitryon
- Hera as a cuckoo
- Aegina as an eagle or a flame
- Persephone as a serpent
- Io, as a cloud
- Callisto as either Artemis or Apollo
- Nemesis transformed into a goose to escape Zeus' advances, but he turned into a swan. She later bore the egg in which Helen of Troy was found.
Vertumnus transformed himself into an old woman 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. Unlike Zeus and other gods' shapeshifting, 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. 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.
Clytie was a nymph who loved Helios, but he did not love her back. Desperate, she sat on a rock with no food or water for nine days looking at him as he crossed the skies, until she was transformed into a purple, sun-gazing flower, the heliotropium.
As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemon were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees.
Eos, the goddess of the dawn, secured immortality for her lover the Trojan prince Tithonus, but not eternal youth, so he aged without dying as he shriveled and grew more and more helpless. In the end, Eos transformed him into a cicada.
In some variants of the tale of Narcissus, he is turned into a narcissus flower.
Sometimes metamorphoses transform 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 throw a rock 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 often known to have transformed into a dragon or serpent towards the end of his life. Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea, a statue he had made. Aphrodite had pity on him and transformed the stone into a living woman.
British and Irish
, witches, and wizards were all noted for their shape-shifting ability. Not all fairies could shape-shift, some having only the appearance of shape-shifting, through their power, called "glamour", to create illusions, and some were limited to changing their size, as with the spriggans, and others to a few forms. 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.
Celtic mythology
was transformed by Arawn into Arawn's 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 turns himself into three clergymen in succession to try to pay a ransom.
Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion transform flowers into a woman named Blodeuwedd, and when she betrays her husband Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who is transformed into an eagle, they transform her again, into an owl.
Gilfaethwy raped Goewin, Math fab Mathonwy's virgin footholder, with help from his brother Gwydion. As punishment, Math turned them into different types of 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 the wisdom from a potion that Ceridwen was brewing for her son, fled from her through a succession of changes, which she answered with changes of her own. This ended when he turned into a grain of corn and she turned into a hen and ate him. She became pregnant, and he was reborn as a baby. He grew up to be the bard Taliesin. In the Book of Taliesin, he mentions many forms which he is able to take, including that of lantern-light.
File:Thekelpie large.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.8|Kelpie by Herbert James Draper: transformed into a human
Tales abound about the selkie, a seal that can remove its skin to make contact in human guise with people for only a short amount of time before it must return to the sea. Clan MacColdrum of Uist's foundation myths include a union between the founder of the clan and a shape-shifting selkie. Another such creature is the Scottish selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry the selkie seduces a human woman. Such stories surrounding these creatures are usually romantic tragedies.
Scottish mythology features shapeshifters, which allows the various creatures to trick, deceive, hunt, and kill humans. Water spirits such as the each-uisge, which inhabit lochs and waterways in Scotland, were said to appear as a horse or a young man. Other tales include kelpies who emerge from lochs and rivers in the disguise of a horse or woman to ensnare and kill weary travelers. Tam Lin, a man captured by the Queen of the Fairies is changed into all manner of beasts before being rescued. He finally turned into a burning coal and was thrown into a well, whereupon he reappeared in his human form. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is a common thread in folktales.
Perhaps the best-known Irish myth is that of Aoife who turned her stepchildren, the Children of Lir, into swans to be rid of them. Likewise, in the Tochmarc Étaíne, Fuamnach jealously turns Étaín into a butterfly. 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 before being eaten and reborn as a human.
The Púca is a Celtic faery, and also a deft shapeshifter. He can transform into many different, terrifying forms.
Sadhbh, the wife of the famous hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, was changed into a deer by the druid Fer Doirich when she spurned his amorous interests.