Howls and Gatherings Through the Years

The first howl

In the autumn of 1994 a handful of people who had come to know one another in an online discussion group for werewolf fiction and film decided to meet in person. Since the previous year some of them had been saying, in earnest, that they felt themselves to be wolves or other animals inwardly. They had argued, compared notes and found words together, all in writing. Now they wanted to see one another's faces.

That meeting is remembered as the first howl. Its members did not yet call themselves therians. They still used the older words, were and lycanthrope, and it was only in December of that year that therianthropy was taken up as the general term. The gathering came first, and the name for the people gathering came a little later.

Little else about the day needs to be recorded. It was small, informal and private, and the people who were there are entitled to keep its details to themselves.

How the name stuck

Calling the meeting a howl was a small joke. Wolves howl to find one another and to draw the pack together, and a group that had begun among lovers of werewolf stories could hardly resist the image. The joke stayed. In time howl came to mean any in-person meeting of therians, whatever their species, from three friends on a hillside to a weekend with dozens of people.

Do people actually howl? Sometimes, and usually with laughter. It has never been required. Some otherkin and mixed gatherings have borrowed the word, and others prefer plainer ones such as meet or gathering. Nobody minds much either way.

Early regional howls

After the first, others followed. Members in different regions arranged their own, usually by posting in the discussion group and later on the forums, which often kept a board for each region. The gatherings were small and regular, and they were often named for a place or a season: the spring howl, the autumn howl, the howl at a particular lake.

The first howl in Europe was held in 1995 or 1996, at a time when the community there was small and its members were spread thin. For people who had believed themselves alone in an entire country, the chance to sit in a room with others like them was not a small thing.

What gatherings were like

There has never been a ceremony to a howl, and there is no proper way to hold one. But certain things happen at almost all of them.

• Walks. In woods, on hills, along rivers and beaches. Many therians feel most at ease outdoors, and walking side by side makes hard things easier to say.
• Shared meals. Often each person brings something. Food is a quiet way to make strangers into company.
• Fires, where they are allowed, and long talk around them late into the evening.
• Reading aloud. Essays, poems and old stories have been read at gatherings since the early years, a habit that suits a community that has always thought by writing.
• Quiet. Sitting together without needing to say anything is, for many, the best part.

For a great many people a howl is the first time they have said "I am a lynx" or "I am a dragon" aloud to someone who simply nods. That moment is the heart of the custom. The essay Notes From a Howl describes one gathering from the inside.

Camps and longer gatherings

In later years some groups began holding longer gatherings: a weekend at a campsite or in rented cabins, sometimes with dozens of people. These needed more planning than an afternoon walk. Someone had to book the site, collect contributions toward the cost, arrange meals and make sure everyone knew the few simple rules agreed in advance.

The best-run camps kept those rules short and sensible: look after the land and leave no trace; follow the site's rules about fires; keep a first-aid kit and know who can use it; respect other people's privacy and their sleep. And never approach wild animals, however strong the sense of kinship. A wolf therian is no safer around a real wolf than anyone else, and wild creatures deserve to be left in peace.

Online gatherings

The community met online long before it met in person, and live chat rooms had opened by the mid-1990s. In more recent years the word howl has also been borrowed for scheduled online meetings, held by voice or video, at which people from many places gather for an evening of talk.

These have real value. They reach people who live far from anyone else, people who cannot easily travel, people with health conditions or disabilities, and people whose families do not know. They also carry their own risks. Online, it is easy to share more than you meant to, and harder to know who you are talking to. Keep your full name, address and school or workplace to yourself, use the moderation tools the host provides, and be cautious about private messages from people you have just met.

Good practice that has lasted

Over three decades, the community has learned a small set of habits for meeting safely. None of them is new, and all of them still apply.

• Meet in public first. A first meeting belongs in a busy park, a cafe or another open place in daylight, not at someone's home.
• Tell someone where you are. Let a friend or family member know where you are going, who you are meeting and when you expect to be back.
• Bring a friend if you can, and arrange your own way home so that you can leave whenever you want.
• Minors come with a parent or guardian. Anyone under adult age should attend only with a parent or guardian present. Responsible organizers insist on this, and no adult should ever arrange to meet a young person alone.
• Respect privacy. Take no photographs without permission, share nobody's name or identity outside the gathering, and accept that some people prefer to stay anonymous.
• Leave if it feels wrong. You owe no one an explanation. A good gathering will never pressure anyone to stay, to drink, to share or to keep secrets.

If meeting others stirs up more than you expected, the page on wellbeing and care may help.

Why people still gather

Much has changed since 1994. The community is larger, younger and far more visible, as the main history page describes. But the reasons for meeting are the same as they were for that first handful of people. Words on a screen can tell you that others exist. Only sitting beside them can tell you what it feels like to be understood without explaining.

Not everyone wants that, and nobody needs it to be a therian or otherkin. Many people of long standing have never been to a howl. For those who do go, it is often remembered for years afterward, and the custom is likely to outlast many of the places where it was first arranged.