Argentina's President Didn’t Adopt A Jewish Child To Avoid Becoming A Werewolf; So What Did She Do?

Seems like the President of Argentina Cristina Fernández Kirchner did not exactly save a Jewish boy from becoming a werewolf. Apparently this is what happens when a tradition and an urban legend get intertwined. The tradition does dictate that the seventh child born to an Argentine family with six consecutive children of the same sex is eligible to become the godchild of the president; and the urban myth says this child’s fate is unlucky as it is meant to become a werewolf sooner or later. So technically Lair Tawil was safe.

According to the real legend of the ‘lobizón’ (or werewolf) it is only the seventh son of the seventh son who could be potentially cursed. The Guardian reported Argentine historian Daniel Balmaceda said, “The local myth of the ‘lobizón’ is not in any way connected to the custom that began over 100 years ago by which every seventh son (or seventh daughter) born in Argentina becomes godchild to the president.”

The tradition of the president adopting a seventh child began in 1907 when then-president José Figueroa Alcorta, was asked by Russian immigrants Enrique Brost and Apolonia Holmann to become their son’s godfather. “The couple wanted to maintain a custom from Czarist Russia, where the Tsar was said to become godfather to seventh sons, and Argentina’s president accepted.”

Although Isabel Perón passed the law in 1974, it’s still so that not every seventh child is eligible to become a presidential godchild; the honor is only given to those in which seven sons are born consecutively, with no daughters in between. The president with most godsons was Juan Perón, who had 1,982 over three terms in office. Kirchner has already become the presidential godmother of almost 700 children since taking office in 2007, and for all we know, she might've saved a few from becoming werewolves.