Here’s a fun subject – what about werewolf hands? Claws? Hands with claws! Can werewolves with hands use their hands? Are they smart enough to? What about werewolves who turn into giant with wolves wolf paws? Can they use those as hands?

Let’s find out!

First of all, to answer the initial question – all werewolves are intelligent, so yes, they can all use their hands (if they have hands),and even if they don’t have proper hands (which plenty do; more than you think!), they very, very often are still perfectly capable of using their paws as hands!

Why? Because, again, werewolves retain their human intelligence regardless of their form, and that is some thing that makes them so terrifying.

As an aside, have a handy post regarding werewolf appearances, including the paws vs hands thing, i.e. the humanoid wolf thing in general.

There’s a lot of evidence for this in folklore, too. A prime example is the werewolves of Ossory legend, about a monk who met two werewolves on a road. In it, it is specified that the priest, even after the werewolves speak to him, is only convinced that the werewolves are human beings after he sees one of the werewolves use “his front paws as hands” to peel back the wolf skin on the other werewolf and reveal her human form.

A few other examples exist in assorted other legends and accounts. Some, however, come from that age wherein werewolves were being turned to insane beings of Satanic evil (I have literal tons of posts on this subject). For instance, we have a werewolf who slew someone and then dragged her off “with his hands” that are mentioned to be “seemingly paws.”

In Chinese legend, werewolves very blatantly use their hands and/or paws (it is somewhat unspecified, but generally assumed to be paws, as they seem to be giant wolves). We see werewolves capable of opening doors and opening windows. For more on Chinese werewolves and how awesome they are, here is a post on amazing werewolf grandmas (who did both of the aforementioned feats).

So there you have it – yes, werewolves can use their hands (or their paws as hands, if they have paws instead), because they are still totally intelligent! And yes, they do that in folklore.