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In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting (or metamorphosis) is the ability of a being or creature to completely transform its physical form or shape. This is usually achieved through an inherent ability of a mythological creature, divine intervention, or the use of magic.




Folklore and mythology

Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), the huli jing of East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune and Korean kumiho), and the gods, goddesses, and demons of numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. Shapeshifting to the form of a wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy, and such creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes. Therianthropy is the more general term for human-animal shifts, but it is rarely used in that capacity. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.




Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Circe's transforming of Odysseus' men to pigs in Homer's The Odyssey, and Apuleius's Lucius becoming a donkey in The Golden Ass. Proteus was noted among the gods for his shapeshifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his various changes. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason.


In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them.

  • Zeus transformed King Lycaon into a wolf (hence Lycanthropy) as a punishment for either killing Zeus' children or serving him the flesh of Lycaon's own murdered son Nyctimus, depending on the exact version of the myth.
  • Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone. She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.
  • While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa, turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse with Poseidon in Athena's temple – even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure. Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortals as a means of gaining access:

  • Danaë as a shower of gold
  • Europa as a bull
  • Leda as a swan
  • Ganymede, as an eagle
  • Alcmene as her husband Amphitryon
  • Hera as a cuckoo
  • Leto as a quail
  • Maia as a gopher
  • Semele as a mortal shepherd
  • Io, as a cloud
  • Nemesis (Goddess of retribution) transformed into a goose to escape Zeus' advances, but he turned into a swan. She later bore the egg in which Helen of Troy was found.







    British and Irish




    Celtic mythology






    Tales abound about the selkie, a seal that can remove its skin to make contact with humans for only a short amount of time before it must return to the sea. Clan MacColdrum of Uist's foundation myths include of a union between the founder of the clan and a shapeshifting selkie. Another such creature is the Scottish selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry the (male) selkie seduces a human woman. Such stories surrounding these creatures are usually romantic tragedies.

    Scottish mythology features shapeshifters, which allows the various creatures to trick, deceive, hunt, and kill humans. Water spirits such as the each uisge, which inhabit lochs and waterways in Scotland, were said to appear as a horse or a young man. Other tales include kelpies who emerge from lochs and rivers in the disguise of a horse or woman in order to ensnare and kill weary travelers. Tam Lin, a man captured by the Queen of the Fairies is changed into all manner of beasts before being rescued. He finally turned into a burning coal and was thrown him into a well, whereupon he reappeared in his human form. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is a common thread in folktales.





    In the Lokasenna, Odin and Loki taunt each other with having taken the form of females and nursing offspring to which they had given birth. A 13th century Edda relates Loki taking the form of a mare to bear Odin's steed Sleipnir which was the fastest horse ever to exist, and also the form of a she-wolf to bear Fenrir.

    Svipdagr angered Odin, who turned him into a dragon. Despite his monstrous appearance, his lover, the goddess Freyja, refused to leave his side. When the warrior Hadding found and slew Svipdag, Freyja cursed him to be tormented by a tempest and shunned like the plague wherever he went. In the Hyndluljóð, Freya transformed her protégé Óttar into a boar to conceal him. She also possessed a cloak of falcon feathers that allowed her to transform into a falcon, which Loki borrowed on occasion.

    The Volsunga saga contains many shapeshifting characters. Siggeir's mother changed into a wolf to help torture his defeated brothers-in-law with slow and ignominious deaths. When one, Sigmund, survived, he and his nephew and son Sinfjötli killed men wearing wolfskins; when they donned the skins themselves, they were cursed to become werewolves.


    Fafnir was originally a dwarf, a giant or even a human, depending on the exact myth, but in all variants he transformed into a dragon—a symbol of greed—while guarding his ill-gotten hoard. His brother, Ótr, enjoyed spending time as an otter, which led to his accidental slaying by Loki.

    In Scandinavia, there existed, for example, the famous race of she-werewolves known with a name of Maras, women who took on the appearance of the night looking for huge monster half human and half wolf. If a female at midnight stretches the membrane which envelopes the foal when it is brought forth, between four sticks and creeps through it, naked, she will bear children without pain; but all the boys will be shamans, and all the girls Maras.


    Other lore

    In Poland, in the parish church of Schwarzenstein, hang two horse-shoes related to the story of the tavern-keeper of Eichmedian. A greedy woman, she charged double the honest rate for board and lodging. Late one evening, a group of guests accused her of cheating them. Defending herself, she swore an oath before them, saying: "If my business is not just, then ride my back the Devil must!"

    The room suddenly darkened and the Devil suddenly appeared before her. He gestured, and unable to resist, she knelt on all fours and found herself changing into a bay mare. The Devil mounted, gave a great laugh and rode her out of the village. At headlong speed he rode to the town of Schwarzenstein, and to a blacksmith's shop there, arriving in the small hours of the morning. He roused the blacksmith and demanded that his steed be shod at once. The blacksmith, yawning, complained of the late hour and that his forge was shut down and cold. But the Devil insisted and promised gold if it were done swiftly, and so the blacksmith agreed. He lit his furnace, and had the Devil work the bellows. The blacksmith had not long begun his work however when the mare began to speak, evidently having worked out how to form human words with her equine lips. "Don't you know me?" she begged. "It is I, the tavern-keeper of Eichmedian!" The blacksmith was horrified and nothing could persuade him to continue with the shoeing. The Devil raged but there was nothing he could do, and as a cock heralded the arrival of dawn, the spell was broken. The Devil vanished and the tavern-keeper returned to her human form. Repenting of her greedy ways, she had the two horse-shoes which the smith had already fashioned nailed up in the church as a warning to other cheats.













    In Japanese folklore ōbake are a type of yōkai with the ability to shapeshift. The fox, or kitsune is among the most commonly known, but other such creatures include the bakeneko, the mujina and the tanuki.



    Trinidad and Tobago

    The Ligahoo or loup-garou is the shapeshifter of Trinidad and Tobago's folklore. This unique ability is believed to be handed down in some old creole families, and is usually associated with witch-doctors and practitioners of African magic.


  • In The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, a Northumbrian legend from about the thirteenth century, Princess Margaret of Bamburgh is transformed into a dragon by her stepmother; her motive sprung, like Snow White's stepmother's, from the comparison of their beauty.
  • In The Marmot Queen by Italo Calvino, a Spanish queen is turned into a rodent by Morgan le Fay.
  • The Deer in The Wood, an Neapolitan tale written by Giambattista Basile, describes the transformation of Princess Desiderata into a doe by a jealous fairy.
  • In Dapplegrim if the youth found the transformed princess twice, and hid from her twice, they would marry.
  • Themes

    Shapeshifting may be used as a plot device, such as when Puss in Boots in the fairy tales tricks the ogre into becoming a mouse to be eaten. Shapeshifting may also include symbolic significance, like the Beast's transformation in Beauty and the Beast indicates Belle's ability to accept him despite his appearance.



    Punitive changes


    Transformation chase


    The Grimm Brothers fairy tale Foundling-Bird contains this as the bulk of the plot. In the Italian Campania Fables collection of Pentamerone by Gianbattista Basile, tells of a Neapolitan princess who, to escape from her father who had imprisoned her, becomes in a huge she-bear. The magic happens due to a potion given to her by an old witch. The girl, once gone, can regain her human aspect.


    In fairy tales of the Aarne–Thompson type 313A, The Girl Helps the Hero Flee, such a chase is an integral part of the tale. It can be either a transformation chase (as in The Grateful Prince, King Kojata, Foundling-Bird, Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter, or The Two Kings' Children) or an obstacle chase (as in The Battle of the Birds, The White Dove, or The Master Maid).

    In a similar effect, a captive may shapeshift in order to break a hold on him. Proteus and Nereus's shapeshifting was to prevent heroes such as Menelaus and Heracles from forcing information from them. Tam Lin, once seized by Janet, was transformed by the faeries to keep Janet from taking him, but as he had advised her, she did not let go, and so freed him. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through many transformations is found in folktales throughout Europe, and Patricia A. McKillip references it in her Riddle-Master trilogy: a shapeshifting Earthmaster finally wins its freedom by startling the man holding it.







    Needed items

    Some shapeshifters are able to change form only if they have some item, usually an article of clothing. In Bisclavret by Marie de France, a werewolf cannot regain human form without his clothing, but in wolf form does no harm to anyone. The most common use of this motif, however, is in tales where a man steals the article and forces the shapeshifter, trapped in human form, to become his bride. This lasts until she discovers where he has hidden the article, and she can flee. Selkies feature in these tales. Others include swan maidens and the Japanese tennin.

    Inner conflict

    The power to externally transform can symbolize an internal savagery; a central theme in many strands of werewolf mythology, and the inversion of the "liberation" theme, as in Dr Jekyll's transformation into Mr. Hyde.



    Ill-advised wishes

    Many fairy-tale characters have expressed illadvised wishes to have any child at all, even one that has another form, and had such children born to them. At the end of the fairy tale, normally after marriage, such children metamorphose into human form. Hans My Hedgehog was born when his father wished for a child, even a hedgehog. Even stranger forms are possible: Giambattista Basile included in his Pentamerone the tale of a girl born as a sprig of myrtle, and Italo Calvino, in his Italian Folktales, a girl born as an apple.



    Monstrous bride/bridegroom

    Such wished-for children may become monstrous brides or bridegrooms. These tales have often been interpreted as symbolically representing arranged marriages; the bride's revulsion to marrying a stranger being symbolized by his bestial form.



    In some tales, the hero or heroine must obey a prohibition; the bride must spend a period of time not seeing the transformed groom in human shape (as in East of the Sun and West of the Moon), or the bridegroom must not burn the animals' skins. In The Brown Bear of Norway, The Golden Crab, The Enchanted Snake and some variants of The Frog Princess, burning the skin is a catastrophe, putting the transformed bride or bridegroom in danger. In these tales, the prohibition is broken, invariably, resulting in a separation and a search by one spouse for the other.






  • In George MacDonald's The Princess and Curdie, (1883) Curdie is informed that many human beings, by their acts, are slowly turning into beasts. Curdie is given the power to detect the transformation before it is visible, and is assisted by beasts that had been transformed and are working their way back to humanity.
  • L. Frank Baum concluded The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) with the revelation that Princess Ozma, sought by the protagonists, had been turned into a boy as a baby, and that Tip (who had been searching for her) is that boy. He agrees to the reverse transformation, but Glinda the Good disapproves of shapeshifting magic, so it is done by the evil witch Mombi.
  • In The Hobbit, the prequel to The Lord of the Rings, the character Beorn is normally a large human, but can shapeshift into a large bear.
  • In science fiction, The Thing written by John W. Campbell concerns a shapeshifting alien life form that can assume the memories of any creature it absorbs.
  • A Face Dancer is a type of human in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. A servant caste of the Bene Tleilax, Face Dancers are shapeshifters, and their name is derived from their ability to change their physical appearance at will. Originally, Face Dancers were Tleilaxu trained to mimic others using acting and makeup, enhanced by plastic surgery. As time went on, the Tleilaxu began to use genetic manipulation to enhance natural ability in phenotypic plasticity, so that Face Dancers could change height, increase and decrease apparent mass, change coloring and texture, and change facial features.
  • T. H. White, in the 1938 The Sword in the Stone, has Merlin and Madam Mim fight a wizards' duel, in which the duelists would endlessly transform until one was in a form that could destroy the other. He also had Merlin transform Arthur into various animals in as an educational experience.
  • Both the Earthmasters and their opponents in Patricia A. McKillip's 1976 The Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy make extensive use of their shapeshifting abilities for the powers of their new forms.
  • Mary Stewart's A Walk in Wolf Wood (1980) revolves about revealing that one man is an imposter, taking the form of a man who is living as a wolf in the woods.
  • Jane Yolen took up the notion of selkie in 1991 Greyling and transformed it into a foundling tale.
  • J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series contains both Animagi who can change to a single animal form and Metamorphmagi who can alter their appearance. The series included both a usurpation by a shapeshifter, and considerable precautions being taken by wizards and witches to attempt to identify such shapeshifters as they arose.
  • Wayne Gerard Trotman's science fiction novel, Veterans of the Psychic Wars contains Niburians, an ancient race of technologically advanced, psychic shapeshifters. In their natural state, they are described as shimmering humanoids. The Niburians are thought to be the secret mentors and protectors of humanity. However, out of fear and distrust, they have been hunted and killed by other alien races and are all but extinct. A Trinidadian character, Soraya Doyle, repeatedly refers to a Niburian as a Ligahoo.
  • In Wayne Gerard Trotman's novel, Kaya Abaniah and the Father of the Forest, a psychotic Niburian has been impersonating several of Trinidad and Tobago’s folkloric characters, including Papa Bois, Mama Dlo, Soucouyant, La Diablesse, and Ligahoo. The psychic shapeshifter from another world also transforms into various people both living and dead.
  • In the 2005 novel I, Coriander by Sally Gardner, Prince Tycho is transformed into a fox after refusing to marry Undwin, Queen Rosmore's daughter.
  • In Cassandra Clare's trilogy The Infernal Devices, Tessa Gray can change into any being, whether supernatural, dead or living, as long as she is holding one of their belongings. She can also access their memories.
  • In C.C. Hunter's Shadow Falls series, shapeshifters are a supernatural species with ability to transform into another animal. The more powerful they are, the faster they can change, and can also transform into mythical creatures, such as dragons or unicorns. Two of the series' prominent characters are shapeshifters named Perry and Steve.
  • Mindee Arnett's Arkwell Academy trilogy tells of a species known as shape-changers, who can transform into anyone as long as they acquire someone's tissues, such as teeth, hair, but most importantly, their heart, which will give them the target's appearance, abilities, memories.
  • The TV series Supernatural features shapeshifters as monsters which the Winchester brothers encounter several times in the series' run. These shifters literally shed their skins to assume new identities, although the original Alpha Shapeshifter can change appearance far more quickly, and can take on the memories of the person whose appearance they assume. Like the Alpha Shapeshifter, some shapeshifters have the ability to instantaneously transform into a different person. Their eyes show a retinal flare on cameras and they have a crippling weakness to silver.

    The final climactic scene in the 1990 Sierra graphical adventure game King's Quest V has King Graham in a shapeshifting battle with the wizard Mordack. The player's final action in the game comes after Mordack becomes fire and surrounds the player, when Graham becomes a rain cloud and extinguishes the fire.




    In the fantasy adventure film Willow an army of men outside a castle are transformed by a witch into pigs to stop them from attacking.

    In the Doctor Who episode "Terror of the Zygons", the main antagonists called the Zygons can shapeshift into humans.



    In X-Men the character Mystique is a blue female mutant that can transform into any sort of person, she can also change her voice.

    In Super Hybrid the story was about an alien creature that can shapeshift into any sort of cars.

    In Disney's Gravity Falls episode of season 2 "Into the Bunker", on Dipper's journal pages lead the gang to the author's hidden bunker where they find themselves face-to-face with an evil shapeshifter's enemy transforms was humans and creatures whom the author raised from a mysterious egg.

    The character Gumby can shape shift into anything.

    In The Amazing World of Gumball's season 3 episode "The Shell", Gumball convinces his love interest, Penny Fitzgerald, to burst out of her peanut shell (having cracked it by headbutting her earlier on in the episode), to which she obeys and reveals her true form as a fairy that shapeshifts depending on her emotions. With each transformation she makes, she always keeps her set of antlers. At the end of the episode, when Gumball kisses her fully on the lips, she makes all of her transformations before going back to her original transformation. From this point onwards it is valid that Penny is Gumball's girlfriend.

    The Disney animated show Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero has shapeshifting as a power of the main characters. With each form a character takes, they are given different powers.

    In Samurai Jack the main antagonist Aku is an evil demon whose main power is the ability to shapeshift into nearly any being he desires, such as a scorpion, octopus, dragon, human and several others.


    Shapeshifting Wikipedia