Tag Archives: werewolves

The lunar cycles this year have been incredibly strong, have you noticed? Mordecai noticed (and thus I did, sharing a house as we do); his moods have been erratic, he’s had insomnia, and his hair has changed from perfectly coiffed to being uncharacteristically unruly. Clearly, I believe he has inherited some lycanthropy, it being a recessive gene in parts of our family, and it would not surprise me one bit if we were to witness my brother turning into a werewolf one night.

I have stepped up my venomous plant plantings because of this.

Mordecai’s possible lycanthropy brings me to today’s word.

Teratoid is an adjective meaning both abnormal in form or development; malformed and resembling a monster. It is also a noun, medically speaking, meaning of a pathological growth, exceedingly complex or highly organized.

Teratoid comes from the Ancient Greek τερας or teras, which means monster plus εἶδος  or eidos, which means form, likeness. (Terat + oid.)

Medical doctors might discuss tumors as teratoids or teratomas. This means that the tumor is abnormal and displays mutant and abnormal qualities.

Strictly speaking, if Mordecai is a lycanthrope, he would not be a teratoid human. He would be a werewolf, which, we all know, is not a monster but is in fact a human who is able to shape shift into a wolf-like creature. There is a difference, you know.

18th Century Etching of a "werewolf"

As most of you, we experienced a Super Moon. The moon was 221,565 miles away, the closest it’s been to the Earth since 1993.

Did you feel the pull?

Did you run into any werewolves?

Bubo flew all night long; she traveled across Prospect Park and swooped south, skimming the sand at Coney Island. She met up with friends in The Green-wood Cemetery and when she came home, just before dawn, she was glistening with dew and moon bits.

I sat on the Widow’s Walk, basking in the moonlight, trying to identify constellations in the bright glow of this Super Moon. It made me smile to see so many people step outside and stop on the sidewalks to stare at the moon. We need to stop and stare at the moon more often, super or not.

Bubo apparently had very vivid dreams. While I herded the worms in the rain-soaked garden this morning, Bubo sat on my shoulder and told me her dreams. Have you ever heard the dreams of a great horned owl? If you have, then you know what my day has been like.