Rhys Ford brings wolves to play on the Once Upon a Wolf blog tour! The werewolf romance will be out February 16th! Rhys chats a bit about her shifter book and its results. Plus, she drops some shifter history! Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd a kickass giveaway right in time for Valentine's Day! Rhys take it away...
So…. Werewolves.
Everyone knows about them.
Everyone has an idea about what they are.
And much like people’s opinion about whether or not ketchup belongs on scrambled eggs, everyone has an opinion about what makes a werewolf.
When I was challenged to write a shifter book, I sat down and thought hard about the werewolf I wanted to write. It was going to be gritty, fangy and hardcore.
Then I sat down and wrote Once Upon A Wolf… and it came out… sweet.
Like roses, chocolates, and warm socks out of the dryer sweet. And I wasn’t only good with it, I loved how sweet it came out. Because when it was all said and done, I realized I kind of wanted a werewolf romance story where the romance was key and the werewolf fell in love.
So for this blog tour, it’s going to be short, sweet and all about werewolves. With the assistance of one of the Five, Lee Jay Stura, we’re going to be exploring different aspects of werewolves; mythology, cultural views, in books, on screen, and pop culture.
I’m also going to be giving away a $25 USD gift certificate on each stop of the blog tour. So get your fangs and claws on, enter to win and grab a copy of Once Upon A Wolf by Rhys Ford, out on February 16, 2018.
Shifters Around The World
Werewolves and other types of shapeshifters come from different cultures all around the world. Whether they’re born that way, cursed, or did an arcane ritual to become a shifter, their legends are a part of history, and while they’re not always used to frighten travelers and children as they were in the past, they very much influence our entertainment in the present day.
Some of the first shapeshifter stories come from ancient Greece. Herodotus wrote of the Neuri, people who were turned into wolves every year for several days. In 200 BC, King Lycaon was turned into a wolf for sacrificing his own son and feeding the flesh to Zeus. The word lycanthropy, comes from Lycaon’s name. Arcadia, according to Ovid, also had men who could become wolves.
In South America there are tales of the Lobizón or Lobisón, which is a fox-like werewolf. The Lobizón’s legend started as a cursed seventh son that was monstrous and would spend all its time haunting cemeteries, reeking of death, and eating the dead. With the arrival of Europeans, the stories of the Lobizón were corrupted and combined with the European idea of the werewolf until the Lobizón became a half-man, half-animal, figure that was active on the full moon and no longer confined to burial grounds.
It wasn’t only wolves in South America where the jaguar was so important that the animal was considered a deity by many of the ancient people and a monster by others. The Runauturuncu was a sorcerer that made a pact for power and revenge, becoming a man/jaguar mix. They would receive an animal’s strength, a human’s cunning, fangs, and claws.
On the other side of the world, we shift from jaguars to tigers with the weretigers of India and China. In India, the weretigers were not always human to start. Some where tigers who supposedly ate enough humans to become human, but inevitably, they would always revert to their animalistic ways and shape. This legend spread into Thailand as well.
Ancient Chinese teachings said that all people other than the Han were animals in disguise. Some of them were tigers. Some were the ghosts of people killed by tigers, that encouraged tigers to kill more humans in a nasty circle. Occasionally the Chang, would turn normal humans into weretigers as well.
In Japan, they divided their werecreatures, the Henge, by sex Kitsune normally being female and Tanuki male. Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox, and foxes have been entwined in Japanese mythology for centuries. In China the fox spirit, Huli jing, is very similar to the Kitsune where it also can shapeshift into a human, and they will grow more tails as they age becoming more and more powerful. A Kistune with nine tails would be very, very old and strong. There are legends where a Fox-woman has married a human man and bore him children. Kitsune are not seen as the monsters that werewolves and other violent werecreatures are.
Tanuki, the Japanese racoon-dog, is also a mischievous shapeshifter. He is said to be jolly but gullible. He’s not the cunning creature that the Kitsune is, and he’s depicted favorably as well. Tanuki seemed less inclined to get married than the fox spirits. They far preferred taking on human form to make humans look stupid not to entice them into bed.
Unlike the Kitsune, who seemed to be able to come and go as they pleased in their stories, the Selkies and Swan Maids of Europe were normally trapped by men who took their magic from them. Selkies were seals who would shed their skins in order to appear human. Swan Maids, who could also be male, also had swan skins or feathers that they could shed to become human. Their skins would be stolen, and it would often take years for them to regain their skins to escape back to the sea.
Once Upon A Wolf by Rhys Ford
February 16, 2018 • Published by Dreamspinner Press
Gibson Keller’s days are fairly routine: wake up early, get some work done, drink lots of coffee, and take care of Ellis, his older brother stuck in wolf form after coming home from the war. It’s a simple life made up of long runs on two legs—or four—and quiet evenings…. Until Ellis chases a handsome man off a cliff and into the frozen waters beside their cabin, changing Gibson’s life forever.
For Zach Thomas, buying an old B&B is a new start. Leaving behind his city life, he longs to find peace and quiet, and hiking the trails behind his property seems safe enough—right up to the moment an enormous black wolf chases him into a lake, nearly drowning him. Discovering werewolves are real astounds him, but not as much as the man who rescues him from the icy water then walks into Zach’s heart as if he owns it.
Loving a werewolf—loving Gibson with all his secrets—has its challenges but Zach believes their love is worth fighting for, especially since his heart knows the big bad wolf is really a prince in disguise.
Dreamspinner Press Link (https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/once-upon-a-wolf-by-rhys-ford-9348-b)
Amazon Link (https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Wolf-Wayward-Wolves-ebook/dp/B079G9BB2Z/)
Follow the rest of the Once Upon A Wolf Blog Tour (Feb 13-17)
About Rhys Ford
She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and HarleyDoodle, an off-kilter flower-faced grey and white cat-dog , as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people
Rhys’ Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhys_Ford
Rhys Ford’s books can found at Dreamspinner Press (http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com), DSP Publications (https://www.dsppublications.com/) and all major online book stores.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Enter for a chance to win $25 USD gift certificate: winner's choice. Giveaway ends February 21st, 2018 Midnight EST. Good luck!
Should you win, please respond within 48 hours of contact from the blog, or a new winner will be selected. Thank you!
Thanks for the post, I knew about some legends but there are more than I thought so.
ReplyDeleteOh, how I love that you talk about the Kitsune! I'm so excited about this new book of yours! ~ Irishjeeper
ReplyDeleteIndonesia has weretigers myth too :)
ReplyDeleteI'm finding the tour info more interesting than I thought it would be. ☺
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the release, and thanks for the background on shapeshifters in different cultures. - Purple Reader,
ReplyDeleteTheWrote [at] aol [dot] com
Hi Rhys I enjoyed the post I didn't realise there were so many cultures that had shifters in them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing more shifter mythology.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the fun interesting post =)
ReplyDeleteThe story you shared about the Fox-woman reminded me of the Korean comedy series called My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox. That was fun! ^_^
ReplyDelete