Time for a question a lot like the last fact – this time, though, we’re going into a little more depth. The answer may seem simple, but you’ll get some different responses based on what lore you’re going by.
The question this week is… How do werewolves feel about water? And can they swim?
First let’s take a look at real wolves. How do they feel about water? Wolves don’t mind water at all. Wolves are among the best (many scientists argue the best) endurance animals in the animal kingdom, and definitely king of endurance runners. This means they are also excellent swimmers, given their stamina. They will pursue prey into the water if need be, and they’ll often still catch it.
Guess what else?
Many wolves also eat fish and there are at least two subspecies of wolves that live on a diet of up to 90% seafood.
They are called Coastal Wolves or Sea Wolves and are found on the Pacific coast of Canada.
They are such excellent swimmers they’ve been found as far as about 8 miles away from landmasses, and they get back just fine. They eat a variety of seafood, including primarily salmon (not just for bears), but also barnacles, seals, clams, otters, and the carcasses of whales.
Aren’t wolves amazing?
Now, what does that say about werewolves?
Humans and wolves both have capacity to swim very well, and it’d make sense that werewolves would have an instinct to know how to swim, so it follows that werewolves would be very impressive swimmers (regardless of if you have wolf werewolves or humanoid ones).
That’s my personal take on it.
However, sometimes people like to do a very strange thing and make werewolves sensitive to water. Granted, I’ve pretty much only seen this in one TV show, wherein werewolves could not cross running water. This does, of course, have absolutely no folkloric precedence and was something attributed to evil spirits, undead, and vampires (all of which often fall into the same category). It was never associated with werewolves. Werewolves in folklore have never in any way been weak to water, be it running water or holy water or what have you.
Werewolves in legend, in fact, were sometimes seen as associated with water. Just ask the Arcadians and their werewolf rituals that involved swimming a body of water to come out the other side as a wolf.
There’s not a lot more to say about it, really! So the answer is – yes, werewolves can absolutely swim. And let me assure you, they can outswim you, buddy, so don’t even try it.