(Detail from an Attic red-figure lekythos, ca. 460 BC. Found in Italy,
[Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
An interesting characteristic
of the ancient father of history, Herodotus, was that the man often believed in
the unbelievable—or, at least, gave off that impression in his writing. Odd
folklore, mythology, tall tales and bizarre theories on science and geography
all made appearances in Herodotus’ The
Histories. Yet, in the peculiar collection of history, folklore and myth
that is the work of Herodotus, the description of the Neuri people has to be
one of the most baffling. It is such an odd tale that Herodotus, himself,
blatantly stated his disbelief of the Neurian story, but he recorded the
peculiar yarn all the same.
According to Book IV of The Histories, the Neuri people were neighbors
of the Scythians. The Scythian people inhabited a large territory usually
centered around Ukraine and southern Russia, but they lived a nomadic lifestyle,
so their borders could be flexible. The Neurians were located somewhere on the
border of this large swath of Scythian territory.
Readers of The Histories are introduced to the
Neuri people at a time of chaos. Herodotus wrote that only a single generation
before Darius I of Persia crossed the Danube River to attack the Scythians
(around 513 BCE), the whole of the Neurian lands were infested with vicious
snakes. Herodotus wrote that hordes of snakes just suddenly and mysteriously
appeared throughout the territory. To make matters worse, even more snakes were
apparently pouring in from an uninhabited land to the north. The snake
infestation was so bad that the Neurians had to flee their lands and seek shelter
with another nomadic group, the Bundinians, who lived in, or near, the area of
Scythia.
After this odd introduction
to the Neuri people, Herodotus made another shocking disclosure—the Neurians
were sorcerers and werewolves. Supposedly, due to some sort of magic, the Neuri
people (yes, the entire Neurian population) would turn into beasts for multiple
days on a seemingly set annual cycle. After their few days as wolves were up,
the Neurians would simply return to their original human form and life would go
on, as usual. Again, Herodotus quickly pointed out that the story was too
far-fetched for his taste and that he was only recording what was told to him
by other Greeks and Scythians. He wrote, “I do not believe this tale; but all
the same, they tell it, and even swear to the truth of it” (Herodotus (Book
IV), The Histories, Penguin Classics,
2002). Nevertheless, the tale remained alive until the 1st century CE, when a
Roman geographer named Pomponius Mela made a mention of the Neurian werewolves
around 43 or 44 CE in his De situ orbis (A Description of the World).
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
- The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pomponius-Mela
- https://linguistics.osu.edu/herodotos/ethnonym/thracian-scythians/budinians
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Darius-I
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