>The war-bands consisted of shape-shifting warriors wearing animal skins to assume the nature of wolves or dogs.[42][43][44] Members of the kóryos adopted wolfish behaviours and bore names containing the word 'wolf' or 'dog', each a symbol of death and the Otherworld in Indo-European belief.[45] The idealized attributes of the kóryos were indeed borrowed from the imagery surrounding the wolf: violence, trickery, swiftness, great strength, and warrior fury.[46] By identifying with the wild animals, kóryos members perceived themselves as physically and legally moved outside the human world, and therefore no longer restrained by human taboos. When returning to their normal life, they would feel no remorse for breaking the rules of their home society because they had not been humans or at least not living in the cultural space of the host society when those rules were broken.[33]
>In Ancient Greece, the wolfish ways of fighting were reserved to the adolescent groups passing the warrior initiation. Young members of the Athenian ephebos and the Spartan crypteia were able to use war techniques usually forbidden to the adult warrior: they covered their actions and prowled at night, using tricks and ambushes.[47] The ephebos in particular were under the patronage of the god Apollo, associated in many myths with wolves and bearing the epithet Lykeios.[48] During his initiation, the Irish mythical hero Sétanta, a typical depiction of the kóryos member, is given the name Cú Chulainn ('hound of Culann').[49] The young members of the Ossetic balc were strongly associated with the wolf and described as a k'war ('herd').[50] The Avestan literature also mentions the mairyō ('wolf, dog') as the young male serving in warrior-bands.
>In the Norse tradition, berserkers were sometimes called úlfheðnar ('wolf-skinned'), and the frenzy warriors wearing the skins of wolves were designated as úlfheðinn ('wolf-coat').[52][53] The folk legend of the werewolf ('man-wolf'), found in many European traditions, is probably reminiscent of the wolfish behaviour of the warrior-bands. Similar word-formations can be found in Western Indo-European languages, such as Ancient Greek luk-ánthrōpos ('wolf-man'), Proto-Germanic *wira-wulfaz ('man-wolf'), Proto-Celtic *wiro-kū ('man-dog'), or Proto-Slavic *vьlko-dlakь ('wolf-haired one').