Mardagayl

In old Armenian folklore, there are many tales of humans who choose to become… something else.

This is one of those tales.
This is the legend of the Mardagayl.

Sometimes, if a woman is judged to have lived a dishonourable life—committing sins serious enough to earn supernatural side-eye—a spirit comes to call. Its verdict is brutal: a seven-year curse. She is ordered to wear a wolfskin and walk the night transformed, her punishment stitched directly to her body.

The skin does more than change her shape. It awakens a monstrous hunger for human flesh—starting, horrifyingly, with her own family.

As a wolf (or in some versions, a half-wolf thing that’s arguably worse), she devours her own children. This does nothing to satisfy the craving. She moves on to the children of her relatives, beginning with the closest blood ties, and when there are none left… the children of strangers will do. Still hungry, she stalks the night, doors and locks popping open at her approach as though they know resistance is pointless.

Every morning, the curse loosens its grip. She returns to human form and removes the wolfskin. Every night, she puts it back on, and the cycle begins again.

In some legends, this transformation is entirely involuntary—a punishment she cannot escape. In others, she chooses to don the skin and can transform at will, which somehow makes the story even more unsettling.

The mardagayl can run like the wind, fast enough to reach neighbouring towns, eat their children, and return home before anyone notices she was gone. No knife or weapon can kill her.

There is only one way to stop a mardagayl: steal her wolfskin while she’s human and burn it. Naturally, she knows this. Naturally, she hides it very, very well.

After seven years, the punishment ends. The wolfskin ascends to heaven of its own accord (as cursed pelts apparently do), and the woman resumes her everyday life—though she may be left with a small souvenir of her time as a monster. Most often, a tail.

This is one of the rare legends of a female werewolf, which makes it a particular favourite of mine.

Do you have a favourite werewolf legend?