2023/11/09
Word count: 571
Reading time: ~4 minutes
We weren't allowed to be there without a teacher present, but they often forgot to lock the door, and way in the back, far away from the windows, back where no one could find me, there just so happened to be a shelf full of 'mystery books.' They had everything, from UFOs, cryptids, and mythology to ESP, folklore... and werewolves.
These weren't big tomes - it was a village school with only 120 students, ranging from 5 to 12 years old. They were paperbacks catered mostly to 3rd graders, and they had all the trappings that those kinds of books tend to have, being sensationalist, scatterbrained, and simplistic at the best of times, and downright misinformed at the worst.
I know now that hypertrichosis had little to nothing to do with werewolf mythology. Werewolves were largely born out of fear of your neighbor, fear that they might be hiding something - and hypertrichosis is not exactly easy to hide. The tell-tale signs of werewolves are monobrows that can be plucked, a furry back that can be covered up, and a tendency to disappear for long stretches of time, while livestock get killed by wild animals.
But of course I didn't know that back then. My folkloric studies, as a 3rd grader, consisted of Dragonology and looking at pictures in my aunt's "Mysteries of the Unknown" collection, that I was far too young to have the patience to read.
So when I read about people who were thought to be werewolves because of their appearance, I took it at face value.
I wish the story takes a fantastical turn here, and that I started drawing fur on myself or wearing fur to school. But I was a quiet creature. I already got chased around by bullies at recess - why I hid in the library in the first place - and I didn't need to add to that.
But I envied the people who had fur. At least they were targeted for something visible, I thought. They didn't have to wonder why people might throw rocks at them or call them animals or act like their touch was poisonous.
I still sometimes wish I had hypertrichosis.
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Update (2024/01/10): I finally found the cover of one of the books I would read over and over
I think that specific werewolf depiction is one of the reasons I am what I am today. The horns, the mane, the bulk... I remember trying to draw it, but I could never make it look quite right. Probably because I was 8.
Turns out the artwork is "The Orphan" by Don Maitz (1979). The original sold back in 2018, so I guess I'll just have to print out my own copy to frame.