Walt Alderfer, age 10, of Annapolis. Md., for his question:

DO WEREWOLVES REALLY EXIST?

A werewolf is a person who changes into a wolf. Werewolves exist only in stories and superstition. They do not exist in real life.

Werewolves have been appearing in stories for many years. Sometimes a person can turn into a werewolf by drinking the water from a wolf's footprint or by putting on a wolf's skin. In other stories, people are transformed into werewolves by someone else's magic power.

The technical word for werewolf is lycanthrope. This word comes from Lycaon, the name of a king in Greek mythology who was turned into a wolf by the god Zeus. Lycanthropy is a form of mental illness in which a person imagines himself to be a wolf.

Werewolves in most stories try to eat people. Also, in most stories there are magic ways to turn a werewolf back into a human.