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Selene transformed Myia into a fly when she became a rival for the love of Endymion.

Callisto was turned into a bear by either Artemis or Hera for being impregnated by Zeus.

King Tereus, his wife Procne and her sister Philomela were all turned into birds (a hoopoe, a swallow and a nightingale respectively), after Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue, and in revenge she and Procne served him the flesh of his murdered son Itys (who in some variants is resurrected as a goldfinch).

Hera punished young Tiresias by transforming him into a woman and, seven years later, back into a man.

Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was raped by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection.

Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions after making love in a temple dedicated to Zeus or Cybele.

Galanthis was transformed into a weasel or cat after interfering in Hera's plans to hinder the birth of Heracles.

Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag for spying on her bathing, and he was later devoured by his own hunting dogs.

She also turned Nyctimene into an owl, though in this case it was an act of mercy, as the girl wished to hide from the daylight out of shame from being raped by her father.

Athena transformed Arachne into a spider for challenging her as a weaver and/or weaving a tapestry that insulted the gods.

She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.

Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone.

Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows to signal the morning and the arrival of the sun.

Ares assigned Alectryon to keep watch for Helios the sun god during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery and humiliation that morning.

Zeus transformed King Lycaon and his children into wolves (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.

In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them. The Children of Lir, transformed into swans in Irish tales Athena sprang from her father's head, fully grown, and in battle armor. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have a headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. She stayed alive inside his head and built armor for her daughter.

He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. In one story, she was so proud, that her husband, Zeus, tricked her into changing into a fly.

The Oceanid Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena, was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason. Proteus was noted among the gods for his shape-shifting both Menelaus and Aristaeus seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his various changes. Vertumnus, in the form of an old woman, wooing Pomona, by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.Įxamples of shape-shifting 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. While the popular idea of a shapeshifter is of a human being who turns into something else, there are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves as well. The prefix "were-", coming from the Old English word for "man" (masculine rather than generic), is also used to designate shapeshifters despite its root, it is used to indicate female shapeshifters as well. Other terms for shapeshifters include metamorph, the Navajo skin-walker, mimic, and therianthrope.

It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants. Therianthropy is the more general term for human-animal shifts, but it is rarely used in that capacity. Shape-shifting to the form of a gray wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy, and such creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes. Popular shape-shifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), ichchadhari naag and ichchadhari naagin (shape-shifting cobras) of India, the huli jing of East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune and Korean kumiho), and the gods, goddesses, and demons and demonesses like succubus and incubus and other numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. 1722 German woodcut of a werewolf transforming