This doesn’t necessarily mean that the werewolf was gay, does it? Oh, it does. Okay. I thought maybe it was just a werewolf story for gay people. Granted I’m not sure what would constitute a “gay” story. If one or more of the lead characters was gay, I would imagine. Or if the story examines interests and concerns applying to gay people. You could have a story about a gay couple, for example, and they run into a werewolf. The werewolf need not be gay; if the encounter occurs in passing, I doubt the sexuality of the werewolf would be mentioned at all. That story would still qualify as a “gay” story, though, right, based on its protagonists? Anyway, this one story in particular does seem to feature a werewolf character who is gay, or at least bisexual. Is it the first ever written account of a homosexual werewolf?
Supposedly the story of “Bisclavret,” written in the 1100s by Marie de France, chronicles the exploits of a Breton (i.e. a Frenchman of the Brittany coast), a werewolf tricked by his wife and trapped in the form of the beast, who is taken in by the king and, um, things happen. I’ve actually heard of this story before, but I’ve never seen any mention of the homosexual aspects. The parallels to one leading a double life seem obvious, though, so perhaps the story was intended as a metaphor all along.