This werewolf trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and runs the whole history of the shapeshifter, from Lycaon being turned into a wolf by Zeus and the Neuri of Herodotus, through the werewolf trials of Peter Stumpp and Gilles Garnier and the Beast of Gévaudan, to Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, Remus Lupin, Jacob Black and Discworld's Angua. The second half is for film and TV fans: Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers, Underworld, both Wolfman remakes, Being Human, True Blood, MTV's Teen Wolf and Marvel's Werewolf by Night, plus the Werewolf party game, Skyrim and a couple of moon-themed songs. Every answer was checked against a reference page before publishing, so you can settle arguments with it. Fifty questions, graded from easy to expert, free to play, with an explanation after each one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Werewolf' descends from wer(e)wulf, a compound from which historical language in which wer meant 'man'?
Old English
The wer element meant 'man', so the word is literally 'man-wolf'. It is a cognate of Middle Dutch weerwolf.
Q 02The word 'lycanthropy' comes from an Ancient Greek term meaning what?
Wolf-man
Lukánthrōpos combines lýkos (wolf) and ánthrōpos (man). The Greek root also gives us the name Lycaon.
Q 03In Greek myth, Lycaon was turned into a wolf by Zeus after serving the god a meal of what?
His own son
Lycaon killed and cooked his son Nyctimus to test whether Zeus was truly a god. Zeus later restored the boy to life.
Q 04Which ancient historian reported that the Neuri were said to turn into wolves once a year?
Herodotus
He recorded the claim in his Histories, attributing it to the Scythians and to Greeks settled in Scythia, and said he did not believe it himself.
Q 05Which Roman work has a soldier urinate in a circle around his clothes and turn into a wolf?
Petronius' Satyricon
The tale is told by the freedman Niceros at Trimalchio's dinner. The soldier's clothes turn to stone until he returns.
Q 06In Marie de France's 12th-century lai Bisclavret, how does the knight's wife trap him in wolf form?
Steals his hidden clothing
Bisclavret needs his clothes to change back, so she has a knight take them. The king later adopts the strangely noble wolf at court.
Q 07When Bisclavret finally gets revenge on his treacherous wife, which body part does the wolf tear off?
Her nose
The lai adds that many of the wife's female descendants were born without noses afterwards.
Q 08Norse ulfheðnar warriors were like berserkers but went into battle wearing what instead of bearskins?
Wolfskins
They were reputed to channel the spirit of the animal they wore to become more effective in battle.
Q 09Peter Stumpp, the 'Werewolf of Bedburg' executed in 1589, said the Devil gave him what to transform?
A magical belt
Stumpp said the girdle turned him into 'a greedy, devouring wolf'. His severed head was displayed on a pole with a wooden wolf.
Q 10Gilles Garnier, the 'Hermit of St. Bonnot', was convicted of lycanthropy in the 1570s in which French town?
Dole
Garnier claimed a spectre gave him an ointment that turned him into a wolf. He was tried by secular courts and burned at the stake.
Q 11The Beast of Gévaudan terrorised south-central France between 1764 and which year?
1767
One 1987 study counted 210 attacks and 113 deaths. The region is now largely the department of Lozère.
Q 12Which local hunter is credited with shooting the final Beast of Gévaudan at Mont Mouchet in June 1767?
Jean Chastel
The royal gunbearer François Antoine had already killed a huge grey wolf in 1765, but attacks continued afterwards.
Q 13The tale that the Beast of Gévaudan was felled by silver bullets made from melted-down medals of the Virgin Mary was invented by which writer?
Henri Pourrat
The silver-bullet detail entered retellings only from the 1930s onward; earlier accounts say nothing about it.
Q 21Twilight's Jacob Black, the wolf shapeshifter played by Taylor Lautner, belongs to which tribe?
Quileute
Jacob lives on the reservation at La Push, Washington. Stephenie Meyer said she originally intended him as a minor plot device.
Q 22In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the werewolf Angua von Überwald serves in which organisation?
Ankh-Morpork City Watch
She first appears in Men at Arms, keeps a strict vegetarian diet in human form, and falls in love with Carrot Ironfoundersson.
Q 23The 1985 werewolf film Silver Bullet is based on a novella by which author?
Stephen King
Q 14Wolfsbane, traditionally used against lycanthropy, is a common name for which flowering genus?
Aconitum
Also called monkshood, its alkaloid aconitine is so toxic that 2 mg can be fatal. The Greek name lycoctonum literally means 'wolf's bane'.
Q 15Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychiatric syndrome involving a delusion that the patient can do what?
Transform into an animal
Despite the name, the delusion is not limited to wolves; cases involving dogs, cats and other animals are recorded.
Q 16In the penny dreadful Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, the title character agrees to be a werewolf for how long?
18 months
In exchange the kind-hearted old shepherd gets youth, wealth and knowledge, a bargain that plays out across Renaissance Italy.
Q 17Whose 1857 novel The Wolf Leader follows Thibault, a shoemaker who makes a pact with an upright-walking wolf?
Alexandre Dumas
The story is set around 1780 in Villers-Cotterêts, the author's home town, and is said to be based on a folk tale he heard as a child.
Q 18Which 1933 novel by Guy Endore is often called the most renowned lycanthropy novel of the 20th century?
The Werewolf of Paris
Hammer's 1961 film The Curse of the Werewolf was based on it, though the studio moved the setting to Spain to save on sets.
Q 19Which werewolf bit Remus Lupin as a child in the Harry Potter series?
Fenrir Greyback
Lupin's schoolfriends became Animagi to keep him company during transformations and nicknamed him Moony.
Q 20Which actor played Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter films?
David Thewlis
Lupin taught Defence Against the Dark Arts in Harry's third year and coached him to cast a Patronus.
The novella is Cycle of the Werewolf. Corey Haim's Marty names his souped-up wheelchair after the film's title.
Q 24In Werewolf of London (1935), where is botanist Wilfred Glendon bitten while hunting a rare flower?
Tibet
The plant, Mariphasa lumina lupina, is said to feed on moonlight and is the only thing that can hold off his transformations.
Q 25Which actor played the botanist-turned-werewolf in Universal's Werewolf of London (1935)?
Henry Hull
Jack Pierce, who created Karloff's Frankenstein look, designed the makeup, and Hull's actor-friendly version was later recycled.
Q 26Who played Larry Talbot in Universal's The Wolf Man (1941)?
Lon Chaney Jr.
Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales, and is finally beaten to death with his own silver-headed cane.
Q 27Which screenwriter invented the 'Even a man who is pure in heart...' verse for The Wolf Man (1941)?
Curt Siodmak
Siodmak also wrote Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man; much of what audiences think of as werewolf 'lore' traces to his scripts.
Q 28Who played Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)?
Bela Lugosi
The plot revives Talbot when grave robbers open his crypt under a full moon and remove the wolfsbane laid over him.
Q 29Which pub do the American backpackers enter on the moors at the start of An American Werewolf in London?
The Slaughtered Lamb
The moors scenes were shot around the Black Mountains in Wales, not Yorkshire, with Crickadarn standing in for East Proctor.
Q 30Whose transformation effects in An American Werewolf in London won the first Oscar for Best Makeup?
Rick Baker
The category was created in 1981. The film's soundtrack is built almost entirely from songs with 'moon' in the title.