Chapter Sixty Three: The Silver Bullet

In most narratives of folklore, a silver bullet is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. The term silver bullet is also used in language as a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem. For example, the discovery of penicillin, circa 1930, was the "silver bullet" that allowed medical doctors to treat and successfully cure many diseases caused by bacterial infections.

Some authors asserted that the idea of the werewolf's supposed vulnerability to bullets cast from silver dates back to the Beast of Gévaudan, a man-eating animal killed by the hunter Jean Chastel in the year 1767. However, the allegations of Chastel purportedly using a gun loaded with silver bullets are derived from a distorted detail based primarily on Henri Pourrat's Histoire fidéle de la bête en Gévaudan, published in 1946. In this novel, the French writer imagines that the beast was shot thanks to the fictitious silver medals from the Virgin Mary, worn by Jean Chastel in his hat and then melted down to make bullets.

An account of a Jämte about were-bears in 1936 attributes bullets of silver as a method of killing. Swedish folklore tends to ascribe silver bullets as a "catch-all" weapon against creatures, as wizards or the skogsrå, that are "hard" against regular ammunition.

In the account of one of the fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm (prophet by their own right), entitled "The Two Brothers," a bullet proof witch is shut down by silver buttons, fired from a gun.

In some epic folk songs about Bulgarian rebel leader Delyo, he is often described as invulnerable to regular weapons, driving his enemies to cast a silver bullet in order to murder him.

In scientific terms, metallic materials differ in physical characteristics and ballistic effectiveness. Silver bullets differ from lead bullets in several respects. Lead has a 10% higher density than silver, so a silver bullet will have a little less mass than a lead bullet with identical dimensions. Pure silver is less malleable than lead and falls between lead and copper in terms of hardness (1.5 < 2.5 < 3.0 mohs) and shear modulus (5.6 < 30 < 48 GPa).

Nevertheless, a silver bullet accepts the rifling of a gun barrel.

The terminal impact is somewhat speculative and will depend on a variety of factors including bullet size and shape, flight distance, and target material. At short ranges, the silver bullet will most likely give better penetration due to its higher shear modulus, and will not deform as much as a lead bullet.

It can be inferred, then, that these silver bullets can indeed serve this purported purpose as testified by the accounts of the relevant folklores.

More importantly in film adaptations, where werewolves were killed only by silver bullets, the narration of the fantasy lends itself to another level of fantasy that involves the utility of science in the explanation of the intrinsic mystery of the sparkling prose as written. Both in creativity and in truth, one may freely imply the materiality of ideas from the eloquent usage of capable language in general.

WwW

For if God did not spare Angels when they

sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in

chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

if he did not spare the ancient world when he

brought the flood on the ungodly people,

but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness,

and seven others; if he condemned the cities of

Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to

ashes, and made them an example of what is

going to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot,

a righteous man, who was distressed by the

depraved conduct of the lawless (for that

righteous man, living along them day after day,

was tormented in his righteous soul by the

lawless deeds he saw and heard) -- if this is so,

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly

from trials and to hold the unrighteous

for punishment on the day of judgment.

2 Peter 2:4-9 (NIV)

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