THE WER-WOLF IN MYTH AND LEGEND
An extraordinary story about a wer-wolf comes from Ansbach in 1685:
The supposed incarnation of a dead burgomaster of that town was said
to be ravishing the neighbouring country in the form of a wolf,
devouring cattle as well as women and children. At last the ferocious
beast was caught and slaughtered, and its carcass was encased in a
suit of flesh-coloured cere-cloth, while its head and face were
adorned with a chestnut-coloured wig and long white beard, after the
animal's snout had been cut off and a mask resembling the dead
burgomaster's features had been substituted. This effigy was hanged,
its skin stuffed and put in a museum, where it was pointed out as a
proof of the actual existence of wer-wolves. This incident appears to
prove that the belief in wer-wolves had been shaken at that date, but
it has never been finally eradicated, and it is only natural that a
theme which has had such world-wide credence should occur again and
again in mythology and literature. It is dealt with in the story of
the festival of the god Zeus, which was held every nine years on the
Wolf mountain in Arcadia. During the banquet a man, having tasted of a
flowing bowl in which human and animal flesh were mixed, was turned
into a wolf and remained a wolf nine years. If he had abstained from
eating human flesh in the interval he became once more a man. The
tradition appears to have originated in the existence of a society of
cannibal wolf-worshippers, a member of which perhaps represented the
sacred animal for nine years in succession.
This compares in some degree with the practices of the Human Leopard
Society, which is of comparatively recent origin.
Lycaon, the King of Arcadia and father of Callisto, was turned into a
wolf because he offered human sacrifices to Jupiter, or, in the version
given by Ovid, because he tried to murder Jupiter, who was his guest.
Others believe that Lycaon is the Constellation of the Wolf, and that in
him were the united qualities of wolf, king, and constellation.
Pliny points out that the origin of transformation into wolves was due
to Evanthes, a Greek author of good repute, who tells the story of
Antheus, the Arcadian, a member of whose family is chosen by lot and
then taken to a certain lake in the district, across which he swims and
is changed into a wolf for a space of nine years. So, too, Demæntus,
during a sacrifice of human victims, tasted the entrails of a boy who
had been slaughtered, upon which he turned into a wolf, but ten years
later he was victorious in the pugilistic contests at the Olympic games.
The following quaint story is taken from Petronius, being told by one
Niceros, at a banquet given by Trimalchio.
"It happened that my master was gone to Capua to dispose of some
second-hand goods. I took the opportunity and persuaded our guest to
walk with me to our fifth milestone. He was a valiant soldier, and a
sort of a grim water-drinking Pluto. About cock-crow, when the moon was
shining as bright as midday, we came amongst the monuments. My friend
began addressing himself to the stars, but I was rather in a mood to
sing or count them; and when I turned to look at him, lo! he had already
stripped himself and laid his clothes near him. My heart was in my
nostrils, and I stood like a dead man; but he made a mark round his
clothes and on a sudden became a wolf. Do not think I jest, I would not
lie for any man's estate. But to return to what I am saying. When he
became a wolf he began howling and fled into the woods. At first I
hardly knew where I was, and afterwards, when I went to take up his
clothes, they were turned into stone. Who then was more like to die from
fear than I? Yet I drew my sword, and cutting the air right and left
came thus to my sweetheart's house. When I entered the courtyard I was
like to breathe my last, perspiration poured from my neck, and my eyes
were dim. My Melissa met me to ask where I had been so late, and said,
'Had you only come sooner you might have helped us, for a wolf came to
the farm and worried our cattle; but he had not the best of the joke,
for all he escaped, as our servant ran a lance through his neck.' When I
heard this I could not doubt what had happened, and as the day dawned I
ran home as fast as a robbed innkeeper. When I came to the spot where
the clothes had been turned into stone I could find nothing except
blood. But when I got home I found my friend, the soldier, in bed,
bleeding at the neck like an ox, and a doctor dressing his wound. I then
knew he was a turnskin; nor would I ever have broken bread with him
again, no not if you had killed me."
The expression turnskin or turncoat is a translation of the Latin
_versipelles_, a term used to describe a wer-wolf.
Another story in which the human being suffers from the wound inflicted
on the wer-wolf concerns a fine lady of Saintonge, who used to wander at
night in the forests in the shape of a wolf. One day she caught her paw
in a trap set by the hunters. This put an end to her nocturnal
wanderings, and afterwards she had to keep a glove on the hand that had
been trapped, to conceal the mutilation of two of her fingers.
Eliphas Levi, the occultist, has endeavoured to explain this
sympathetic condition between the man and his animal presentment.
"We must speak here of lycanthropy, or the nocturnal transformation of
men into wolves, histories so well substantiated that sceptical science
has had recourse to furious maniacs, and to masquerading as animals for
explanations. But such hypotheses are puerile and explain nothing. Let
us seek elsewhere the solution of the mystery, and establish--First,
that no person has been killed by a wer-wolf except by suffocation,
without effusion of blood and without wounds. Second, that wer-wolves,
though tracked, hunted, and even maimed, have never been killed on the
spot. Third, that persons suspected of these transformations have always
been found at home, after the pursuit of the wer-wolf, more or less
wounded, sometimes dying, but invariably in their natural form....
"We have spoken of the sidereal body, which is the mediator between
the soul and the material organism. This body remains awake very often
while the other is asleep, and by thought transports itself through
all space which universal magnetism opens to it. It thus lengthens,
without breaking, the sympathetic chain attaching it to the heart and
brain, and that is why there is danger in waking up dreaming persons
with a start, for the shock may sever the chain at a blow and cause
instantaneous death. The form of our sidereal body is conformable to
the habitual condition of our thoughts, and in the long run it is
bound to modify the features of the material organism. Let us now be
bold enough to assert that the wer-wolf is nothing more than the
sidereal body of a man whose savage and sanguinary instincts are
represented by the wolf, who, whilst his phantom is wandering abroad,
sleeps painfully in his bed, and dreams that he is a veritable wolf.
What renders the wer-wolf visible is the almost somnambulistic
over-excitement caused by the fear of those who see it, or their
disposition, more particularly among simple country-folk, to place
themselves in direct communication with the astral light which is the
common medium of dreams and visions. The blows inflicted on the
wer-wolf really wound the sleeper by the odic and sympathetic
conjestion of the astral light and by the correspondence of the
immaterial with the material body...."[39]
This peculiarity of the wound dealt to the wer-wolf being reproduced in
the human being is emphasised by an incident which occurred about 1588
in a tiny village situated in the mountains of Auvergne. A gentleman was
gazing one evening from the windows of his castle when he saw a hunter
he knew passing on his way to the chase. Calling to him, he begged that
on his return he would report what luck he had had. The hunter after
pursuing his way was attacked by a large wolf. He fired off his gun
without hitting the animal. Then he struck at it with his hunting knife,
severing one of the paws, which he picked up and put in his knapsack.
The wounded wolf ran quickly into the forest. When the hunter reached
the castle he told his friend of his strange fight with a wolf, and to
emphasise his story opened his knapsack, in which to his horror and
surprise he saw, not a wolf's paw as he had expected, but the hand of a
woman which had a gold ring on one of the fingers.
The owner recognised the ring as belonging to his wife, and hastening
into the kitchen to question her he found her with one arm hidden
beneath the folds of a shawl. He drew it aside and saw she had lost
her hand. Then she confessed that it was she who, in the form of a
wolf, had attacked the hunter. She was arrested and burnt to death
soon afterwards at Ryon.
In another variation of the wer-wolf story, the human being retains a
material object acquired by his animal replica and is freed thereby
from his obsession.
A man, who from his childhood had been a wer-wolf, when returning one
night with his wife from a merrymaking, observed that the hour was at
hand when the transformation usually took place. Giving the reins to
his wife, he got out of the cart and said, "If anyone comes to thee,
strike at it with thy apron." Then he went away and a few minutes
later the poor woman was attacked by a wolf. Remembering what her
husband had told her, she struck at it with her apron, and the animal
tore out a piece and ran off. Presently the man himself returned
holding in his mouth the torn fragment of the apron. Then his wife
cried out in terror, "Good Lord, man! Why, thou art a wer-wolf!"
"Thank thee, mother!" replied he, "but now I am free!" and after this
incident he kept human form until the day of his death.[40]
In "William of Palermo," the old romance known as "William and the
Wer-Wolf," translated from the French at the command of Sir Humphrey
de Bohun about A.D. 1350,[41] the wer-wolf appears as a sort of a
guardian angel. The brother of the King Apulia, envious of the
heir-apparent, bribes two women to murder the king's son. While the
boy William is at play a wer-wolf runs off with him, swims across the
Straits of Messina, and carries him into a forest near Rome, where it
takes care of him and provides him with food. The wer-wolf in reality
is Alphonso, heir to the Spanish throne, who has been transformed by
his stepmother Queen Braunde, who desires her own son Braundinis to
wear the crown of Spain.
The wer-wolf embraces the king's son
With his fore-feet,
And so familiar with him
Is the king's son, that all pleases him,
Whatever the beast does for him.
While the wer-wolf seeks provender, a cowherd finds William and takes
him to his hut, where the Emperor meets him when out hunting. Placing
him behind him on his horse he takes him to Rome and gives him in
charge of his daughter Melior, to be her page.
William and Melior fall in love with one another, and to avoid the
Emperor's wrath devise an escape, disguised in the skins of white
bears, helped by Melior's friend Alexandrine. When Melior asks whether
she makes a bold bear, Alexandrine answers, "Yes, Madame, you are a
grisly ghost enough, and look ferocious." Together the lovers wander
out of the garden on all fours and making their way to the forest hide
in a den. Meanwhile the wer-wolf has followed William's fortunes, and
finding the wanderers in need, he sets on a harmless passer-by who
carries provisions, and seizing bread and boiled beef out of his bag,
lays it before the lovers, then runs off and, attacking another
traveller, secures two flagons of wine.
Being pursued, the lovers escape to Palermo, led always by the
wer-wolf, Alphonso, half-brother to Braundinis, who was destined by
Melior's father to become his son-in-law. William does battle with the
proposed suitor and, still helped by the wer-wolf, whose symbol is
painted on his shield, overcomes his rival, takes the King and Queen
of Spain prisoner and refuses to let them go until Queen Braunde
promises to transform the rightful heir from a wolf back into a human
being. "Unless she disenchants you, she shall be burnt," he says
forcibly. Braunde takes her stepson, the wolf, into a private chamber,
draws forth a magic ring with a stone in it that is proof against all
witchcraft and binds it with a red silk thread round the wolf's neck.
Then she takes a book out of a casket and reads in it a long time till
he turns into a man. The wer-wolf is delighted, but apologises to his
stepmother for having no clothes on, and she commands him to choose
who shall fetch his clothes. He answers that he will take his attire
and the order of knighthood from the worthiest man alive, William of
Palermo. William, being called, enters the chamber, where he sees a
man who is an utter stranger and is only satisfied when he hears
Alphonso's explanation, "I am the wer-wolf who saved you from many
perils." William and Melior are married, all ends happily and William
becomes Emperor of Rome.
The Bretons give the name of Bisclavaret to the wer-wolf, or wer-fox,
which throws itself upon the hunter's horse and terrorises it. The same
thing is called Garwal by the Normans. Bisclavaret is supposed to be a
wizard, and if in olden times an unknown lady offered food to the
hunters at the moment the animal appeared she was thought to be a witch.
Marie de France in her "Lay of the Bisclavaret" used the idea of a
wer-wolf, and again in this case the animal has no savage instincts
except against his enemies, a faithless wife and her perfidious lover.
A gallant knight of Brittany, a favourite with the king, weds a fair
lady whom he loves tenderly. Only one cloud darkens the wife's
horizon. Her husband leaves her invariably three days a week and she
does not know where he goes. One day she has the temerity to ask him,
and he warns her that the information may be dangerous, but when she
pleads with him he says:
"Learn then that I become a wer-wolf during my absence. I go into the
forest, hide in the thickets and seek my prey."
"But, my dear, tell me whether you take off your clothes," says the
wife, "or whether you keep them on?"
"I am naked when the transformation occurs, Madame."
"And where do you leave your clothes?"
"I must not tell you, because if I were seen when I take them off I
should remain a wer-wolf for the rest of my life. I can only recover
human form at the moment I put them on again. After that you will not
be surprised if I say no more." But she urges him to tell her, and
finally he says that he hides his clothes under a bush near an old
stone cross in the corner of a chapel, and there he puts them on when
he wishes to resume his original shape.
Frightened by his awful story the wife decides to live with him no more
and immediately sends for a young man who is in love with her, tells him
the story and enjoins him to go and take away her husband's clothes.
Thus she betrays her husband, the wer-wolf, who does not return and is
given up for dead, and some time after she marries her false lover.
About a year later the king goes on a hunting expedition in the
forest. There he comes across the wer-wolf, and the hounds immediately
take up the scent and give chase the whole day long. Wounded by the
hunters and wearied nigh unto death, the wolf seizes the bridle of the
king's horse and licks his majesty's foot. The king, in great fear,
calls his companions to look at the extraordinary wild beast that is
capable of this humble action. He refuses to allow the wolf to be
slaughtered and takes it back, in his train, to the castle. There the
wolf lives in great comfort like a domestic pet and harms no one.
Presently a great function is held at the court and the wer-wolf's
former wife comes there with her new husband. The moment the wolf sets
eyes on him he springs at his throat, and would surely have killed him
had not the king beaten him off with a whip. For the rest of the
gentleman's visit the wolf is kept under strict discipline.
Some time afterwards, the king, accompanied by his faithful wolf, pays
a visit to the lady, and the animal springs at her ferociously and
bites off her nose. Then the courtiers say that the matter must be
inquired into, for the wolf only turns savage when in the presence of
this lady and her new husband. The king decides to have the couple
arrested and the lady has to confess what happened, saying she thinks
the wer-wolf must be her transformed husband. After hearing her story
the king orders the wer-wolf's clothes to be placed where he can get
them privately, and after waiting outside the room in which the
metamorphosis is to take place, for some time, he enters and finds the
former knight, his old friend whom he thought dead, lying quietly
asleep. He restores all his honours and has his faithless wife chased
out of the kingdom in company with her false lover. All their
daughters are born without noses as a punishment for the wicked fraud
practised on the wer-wolf.[42]
Olaus Magnus[43] declares that although the inhabitants of Prussia,
Livonia, and Lithuania suffer considerably from the depredations of
wolves as far as their cattle are concerned, their losses are not so
serious in this quarter as those they suffer at the hands of wer-wolves.
On Christmas Eve multitudes of wer-wolves gather at a certain spot and
band together to attack human beings and animals. They besiege
isolated houses, break in the doors and devour every living thing.
They burst into the beer-cellars and there empty the casks, thus
proving their human tastes. A ruined castle near Courland appears to
have been their favourite meeting-place, where thousands congregate in
order to test their agility. If any of them fail to bound over the
castle wall they are slain by the others, as they are considered in
that case to be incompetent for the work in hand.
It is believed that a messenger in the person of a lame youth is sent
round the neighbourhood to call these followers of the devil to a
general conclave. Those who are reluctant to attend the meeting are
beaten with iron scourges. When the gathering is assembled the human
forms vanish and the whole multitude become wolves. The troops follow
the leader, "firmly convinced in their imagination that they are
transformed into wolves." The sorcery lasts for twelve days, and at
the expiration of this period the human forms are resumed.
Referring further to these Courland wer-wolves, it is said of them
that Satan holds them in his net in three ways. Firstly they execute
certain depredations, such as mangling cattle, in their human shapes,
but in such a state of hallucination that they believe themselves to
be wolves and are regarded as such by others in a like predicament.
Though not true wer-wolves they hunt in packs. Secondly they leave
their bodies lying asleep and send forth their imagination in a dream
that they believe they have injured the cattle, but that it is the
devil who does what is suggested to them by their thoughts, and
thirdly that the evil one induces real wolves to do the horrid deeds,
but impresses the scene so vividly on the mind of the sleeper that he
considers himself to be guilty of the act.
The following stories exemplify these conditions. The first is told of
a man who when starting on a journey saw a wolf attacking one of his
sheep. He fired and it fled wounded into the thicket. On his return he
was told that he had fired at one of his tenants, called Mickel.
Mickel's wife, when questioned, said that her husband had been sowing
rye and had asked her how he could get some meat for a feast. She said
on no account was he to steal from the master's flock as it was well
guarded by dogs. Mickel ignored her advice and had attacked the sheep.
He came home limping badly and in a passion had fallen upon his own
horse and had torn its throat. It seemed as though he were bewitched
or in a trance.
In 1684 a curious incident occurred to a man who had gone hunting in a
forest. At dusk a pack of wolves had rushed towards him, and as he
levelled his gun with the intention of aiming at the leader a voice
arose from their midst, saying, "Don't fire, Sir, for no good will come
of it." Then the phantom pack rushed onwards and he saw it no more.
The third story is about a man-wolf who was accused of sorcery of the
most flagrant kind. Finding a difficulty in getting evidence against
the criminal, the judge sent a peasant to his cell who was charged
with the unpleasant task of forcing a confession. The prisoner was
told that he might avenge himself upon another peasant to whom he owed
a grudge, by destroying his cow secretly, and if possible when in the
shape of a wolf himself. After much persuasion the supposed wer-wolf
undertook to carry out the suggested plan. The next morning the cow in
question was found to be fearfully mangled, but the strange part of
the story is this, that although witnesses were set to watch the man
in his cell, they swore unanimously that he had never left it and had
passed the whole of the night in deep sleep, only at one time making
slight movements of his head, his hands and his feet.[44]
Just as the man who thinks he changes into a wolf suffers from
lycanthropy, so the one who believes he changes into a dog is
suffering from kynanthropy, and those who change into kine from
boanthropy. Every part of the world chooses a special animal as being
the most suitable for disguise, and naturally enough the animal is one
which is common to the district. Thus we find the tiger chosen for
India and Asia, the bear for Northern Europe, the lion, leopard, and
hyæna for Africa, the jaguar for South America, and so forth.
Many superstitions surround the tiger. Besides being the abode of the
soul of a dead man it may be the temporary or even the permanent form
of a living human being. In India it is said that a certain root
brings about the metamorphosis and that another root is used for the
antidote. In Central Java powers of transformation are believed to be
hereditary, no shame is attached to it, and the wer-tiger is looked
upon as a friendly animal, and if his friends call upon him by name he
behaves like a domestic pet and is believed to guard the fields. In
the Malay Peninsula faith in the genuine wer-tiger persists, and it is
thought there also that the soul of a dead wizard enters the animal's
body. During the process of transformation the corpse is laid in the
forest, and beside it a supply of rice and water is placed, sufficient
for seven days, in which time transmigration, resulting from a
compact made by the _pawang's_ ancestors, is complete. A ceremony is
also gone through by the son of a _pawang_ who wishes to succeed his
father in tiger's form.
A wer-tiger belief exists in India, and the Garrows think the mania is
produced by a special drug which is laid on the forehead. First the
wer-tiger pulls the earrings out of his ears and then wanders forth
alone, shunning the company of his fellow-man. The disease lasts about
fourteen days, and patients are said to have glaring red eyes, their
hair dishevelled and bristled, and a peculiar convulsive manner of
moving the head. When taken by fits of this kind they are believed to
go forth in the night to ride on the backs of tigers.
Another form of the belief is the wizard in the shape of a tiger, and
the Thana tradition is that mediums are possessed by a tiger spirit. The
Binuas of Johore think that every _pawang_ has an immortal tiger spirit.
The belief that lion form is assumed by wizards is found near the
Luapula and on the Zambezi, where a certain drink is supposed to
effect the transformation. Among the Tumbukas people smear themselves
with white clay, which gives them a certain power of metempsychosis.
Not only can men take lions' shape but lions can change into men.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] "Mysteries of Magic," 1897, pp. 237-8.
[40] Thorpe, B., "Northern Mythology," 1851, Vol. II, pp. 168-9.
[41] Edited by W. W. Skeat, 1869.
[42] "Poesies de Marie de France," 1819, pp. 179-201.
[43] "History of the Goths, Swedes, and Vandals," 1658, pp. 193-4.
[44] _See_ Leubuscher, R., "Ueber die Wehrwölfe und Thierverwandlungen
in Mittelalter," 1850, pp. 9-11.