Cousin Silas is quite a fellow, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. Just look at him. A big believer in meditation, Silas spends each evening perched on the roof in the lotus position, his large wings fluttering in the breeze. Contrary to popular believe, Silas does not suffer from zoanthropy.
Zoanthropy is a noun and means the delusion that one is an animal or has taken the form of an animal. The word originated in the 1850s, and comes from the Modern Latin zoanthropia, from the Greek zoion for animal plus anthropos for man.
Connected to zoanthropy is the term therianthropy which refers to the metamorphosis of humans into other animals via shapeshifting. It comes from the Greek theríon, θηρίον, for wild animal or beast (it’s implied strictly mammalian), and anthrōpos, άνθρωπος, for human being. The origins can be traced back to the early 1900s in the transformation folklore of Asia and Europe.
Clearly, lycanthropy is the most well-known type of zoanthropy and therianthropy. (Lycanthropy being the transformation of a human into a wolf.) Did you know that the rarest form of zoanthropy is the wererat? While rare in traditional folklore, wererats are more common in modern tales.
Judging by the size of the rodents in the New York City subways, I would be nonplussed to discover a few of them were actually transformed humans.
