Chapter 1

I am not sure where to begin my story, so I will start at the beginning of my life and tell it as well as I can in the order in which it happened. I was born in the forest in the region of Europe now known as Latvia. Of course, I knew my mother, but I have no idea who my father was; even my mother did not know, for it was the custom of our tribe to have the women and children live in one large house and the men live in another. Each night, as the mood struck a person, he or she would visit the opposite house and have sex with one or more of the residents. All of us were conceived that way, so it was impossible to know which man was one's father. This was good, because it made every one of the men feel responsible for every one of the children. We were all loved and protected by the entire adult population, so we never lacked for a "parent."

Under normal circumstances, the men hunted and the women performed domestic duties and tended the small gardens. In good weather, everybody was out of the houses, even the shaman and his helpers. The children accompanied their mothers to various duties and helped whenever they could. There were no shirkers—we could not afford them. The sick and the elderly were cared for with as much love as were the children, but the lazy were not tolerated.

Thus it was that I accompanied my mother as she worked on pulling weeds from the fringe of our garden. I was about three years old and was assigned the duty of carrying the pulled weeds to the compost pile at the edge of the forest. It was on one of my trips with an armload of weeds that my misadventure occurred. I had just bent over to put the weeds on the compost pile when I was grabbed by the arm by powerful jaws and teeth.

I knew immediately that I was in trouble, but I didn't know how much trouble. My arm was held by a monster sized wolf. I had just learned what a wolf was only a few weeks before, and it was impressed upon me how dangerous they were. I let out my greatest scream to date, and I was able to attract my mother's attention.

She, too, screamed! This attracted the attention of a passing hunter who threw his spear at the wolf. The flint point failed to penetrate the wolf's skin (I would learn of the significance of this later on in my life), but it apparently startled the wolf sufficiently that he released me and dashed away into the forest.

My mother and I, both, were panic stricken, but she still had enough presence of mind to run to me and gather me up in her arms. Others of our tribe came running, so there was no likelihood that the wolves would attack any more of us for now.

My injury consisted mostly of a great fright and four small, but deep, puncture wounds on my upper arm around the muscles. My mother squeezed and massaged my arm to make the blood flow to try to prevent what we now know as infection. Back then, she was just making sure that all of the evil spirits were washed away.

I spent the rest of the day in the house with my mother, both of us crying a lot with relief. However, on the next day, we returned to our normal activities, since I did not show any after effects from the bite. The wounds healed in a few days, and we gave no more thought to the event, other than to keep a higher awareness of the potential for wolf attack.

My life for the next few years was normal for a growing boy. I learned to hunt and to knap flint well enough to get by, so I was growing into just another average boy of our tribe. There was nothing special about me all this time and I was regarded as just another growing boy.

The situation changed as I came of age. We males had a ceremony to initiate a boy into manhood on his 13^th birthday. The main feature of the ceremony was a ritual circumcision. I went through this act with as much fear and trepidation as any other boy. I was one of three boys being welcomed into manhood that day, the day of the spring-summer equinox. As our turns were selected by lot, I happened to be the last boy on the list. I listened as the other boys were cut by the shaman with the sliver of flint and heard their screams of pain. It may accurately be said that I was scared shitless!

When my turn came, I was ushered into the circle and the shaman prepared to cut off my foreskin. He looked me closely in the eye and drew back. He had me open my mouth and he took a good look at my teeth. I then turned around and he examined the small amount of bristly hair growing on my back along my backbone. Shaking his head, the shaman had me assume the ritual position and he reached for my penis.

Men held my arms and legs so that I would not hurt myself or anyone else while the shaman did his cutting. The shaman brought the sliver of flint down on my foreskin and found that he could not cut me! He tried for a full five minutes, much longer than it normally took for the full operation, but he could not draw any blood, much less, remove my foreskin.

All of the men of the tribe were there, so there was no way to keep my affliction a secret. The shaman gave up and pronounced the ceremony over. I was not cut, but the shaman said that I was to be treated just as any other man. He also announced that my name, for then on, would be "Vilkatas!"

The shaman ordered that the ceremonies continue and nothing be said of this unusual occurrence. He also ordered me to come by his ceremonial hut at mid-morning the next day. As soon as the part of the ceremony excluding the women broke up, there was a rush of women over to find out what had happened that was so unusual. They were soon informed of my great affliction, but this did not dampen the celebration.

The next day, I showed up at the shaman's ceremonial hut at the requested time. The shaman was already in there working on something. I could smell some very sweet smelling fumes escaping through the door as I stood there waiting to be recognized. I didn't expect him to call me for a while since he was in the middle of some incantation.

I had to wait for about 20 minutes while the shaman continued to chant and stir his mix. Finally, he acknowledged my presence and called me into the hut. I walked in with a swagger I didn't feel; actually I was almost as scared as I had been the day before.

"Relax, Vilkatas. You are here because you are a very fortunate person. Do you know what your name means?"

I had to say that I didn't, so the shaman told me, "Your name is an ancient word which means werewolf or shape-shifter. Sometime in the past, you were bitten by a werewolf while it was in wolf form. It infected you with the spirit of the werewolf which imparts to you many advantages. Now that you are a man, you will grow to be stronger and faster then any normal human or wolf. Your skin cannot be penetrated by anything that is not made of iron.

"You cannot be killed, though you can be wounded by broken bones and that sort of thing. Any broken bones will be repaired in seconds or minutes. Even if your head is cut off by an iron sword or ax, you will grow a new one.

"As you age, you will spend more and more of your time in the shape of a wolf unless something is done to prevent that. This morning, I have prepared an amulet for you to wear. As long as you wear the amulet, you can change back and forth from human form to wolf form as you wish. If the amulet is removed, you will instantly change to your wolf form, and you can change back only if you resume wearing the amulet.

"Here is the amulet that I have fashioned from gold and silver and amber. You must guard it and not let people see it because there will surely be somebody who will want to steal it from you for its precious materials. I will slip it over your head now, and when I do, you will be able to change to a wolf. I suggest that you try it so that you will know what to expect. While you are in the form of a wolf, you will still think as a human, so don't worry about that."

The shaman slipped the amulet over my head, and I was a bit surprised because I did not feel any different when he did. He nodded to me and I wished to be in the form of a wolf. My vision blurred just for a moment and I found myself looking at the world from a position much lower to the ground. I also noted that I could see farther around to my sides than I could before. I noticed that the colors of things were a little different, but not enough to make any real difference.

I walked around a little bit just to get the feel of the different way of doing it. I did stumble a couple of times at first because I forgot to move my forelegs. I was thrilled by the prospects I could visualize for my new shape, but I found that I could not talk when I tried to say something to the shaman. He understood my problem when I growled instead of speaking. "Don't try to talk when you are in wolf form. You don't have the right kind of equipment to talk like a human; you have to be in human form to do that."

I spent a few more minutes in the form of a wolf, reveling in the new sensations, but the shaman requested that I change back into human form. Again, there was that momentary blurring of vision, and I was back in my familiar human form. This was fun! If the shaman had not had other things to show me, I could have spent hours joyfully switching back and forth between human and wolf form.

"I am going to take away your amulet so that you can see what happens." He pulled the amulet from around my neck and I suddenly was back in wolf form. The shaman said, "Try to change back into human form and see what happens." I followed his orders, but I did not change back. "Nod your head if you made the try to change back." I nodded my head, so he said, "OK, now I will put the amulet back around your neck so that you can change back." He draped the amulet around my neck, and I was able to change back to human form without trouble.