Why are vampires afraid of wolves?

Answer 1

There is no folklore to back this up. In fact, according to Stoker, Dracula had not only an affinity for all wolves, the wolves in Transylvania answered his command.

In the real world, vampires and werewolves are a fundamentally different kind of creature. They are near-opposites and this makes vampire-werewolf relations difficult. Behavior, lifestyle, eating habits and other characteristics can be drastically different between werewolf and vampire. Werewolves can be prone to violent outbursts if they smell a vampire nearby and some vampires avoid werewolves for that reason.

From InuNoTaisho...

To elaborate on this further, according to many old European legends, a vampire could either turn into a wolf himself, or command wolves to do his bidding. I believe there is a bit in Stoker's novel about Dracula wherein the vampire does become a wolf while in London. As for "werewolves", they were a different sort of creature from an ordinary wolf. Werewolves were born when a human is either cursed by a witch, or is scratched or bitten by a werewolf. The original werewolves could only transform during a full moon, and during the rest of the time, they were vulnerable human beings like everyone else. Once transformed into their wolfish form, that human being would no longer have any control over the wolf's desire to hunt and kill.

Part of the confusion here stems from the fact that old vampire and werewolf legends have morphed quite a bit in modern popular culture. Nowadays, you see stories about vampires that walk during the day, have babies, and all kinds of things the original vampires could never do. This is true for the werewolves too. This kind of change got started during the Hammer Films period of vampire movies when Christopher Lee played a vampire that was more romantically involved with his victims. Prior to his films, vampires were only violent killers who were sometimes exceedingly ugly or frightening. Then, in the 60's, along comes Barnabas Collins, a man who was cursed by a witch to become a vampire. During the Dark Shadows TV soap Opera he appeared in, he also had a lot of interaction with Quentin Collins, who was a werewolf. Both characters were far more romantic and angsty about their afflictions and their love lives than most of their predecessors.

In most older story mythos, the vampires are considered the top of the monster heap when it comes to power. One modern example of an old style vampire is in the British TV series called "Being Human", wherein the vampire character "Mitchell" struggles to contain his powerful and murderous vampire nature, and his apartment mate, "George", is a werewolf who turns on the full moon. To contain the wolf and the destruction it causes, George locks himself in a cage for the night of a full moon. He and Mitchell never go head to head, but there is a secondary story arc about werewolves and vampires hating each other and fighting. Later on, we meet the vampire "Old Ones" who look down on werewolves, referring to them as dogs, or even puppies. This, of course, hacks off George to no end.

Another example is the movie series "Underworld", wherein vampires and werewolves have been at war for ages. Vampires are depicted as more powerful, but werewolves are fast and vicious enough to be a real threat to them.

To date, the "Twilight" series of books have taken the most liberties with changing both vampires and werewolves away from what they originally were. In fact, Edward really doesn't qualify as a true vampire according to those old tales. He is something else entirely that resembles a vampire in nature. Same thing goes for the werewolves. The wolves are probably more accurately described as "shape-shifters", since they can control their dual natures.