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WERWOLVES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES
THE HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON
SCOTTISH GHOST TALES
BYEWAYS OF GHOSTLAND
GHOSTLY PHENOMENA
THE REMINISCENCES OF MRS. E. M. WARD
WERWOLVES
BY
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1912_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 1
II. WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS COMPARED WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF
LYCANTHROPY 20
III. THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 44
IV. HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 55
V. WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 71
VI. THE WERWOLF IN THE BRITISH ISLES 92
VII. THE WERWOLF IN FRANCE 110
VIII. WERWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND GHOULS 126
IX. WERWOLVES IN GERMANY 143
X. A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK IN THE HARZ MOUNTAINS; OR, THE
CASE OF THE COUNTESS HILDA VON BREBER 161
XI. WERWOLVES IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA 174
XII. THE WERWOLF IN SPAIN 194
XIII. THE WERWOLF IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS 212
XIV. THE WERWOLVES AND MARAS OF DENMARK 225
XV. WERWOLVES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 236
XVI. WERWOLVES IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, AND FINLAND 256
XVII. THE WERWOLF IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 270
WERWOLVES
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A WERWOLF?
What is a werwolf? To this there is no one very satisfactory reply.
There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature
and classification of werwolves, their existence is so keenly disputed,
and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints,
that any attempt at definition in a restricted sense would be well-nigh
impossible.
The word werwolf (or werewolf) is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _wer_,
man, and _wulf_, wolf, and has its equivalents in the German _Waehrwolf_
and French _loup-garou_, whilst it is also to be found in the languages,
respectively, of Scandinavia, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan
Peninsula, and of certain of the countries of Asia and Africa; from
which it may be concluded that its range is pretty well universal.
Indeed, there is scarcely a country in the world in which belief in a
werwolf, or in some other form of lycanthropy, has not once existed,
though it may have ceased to exist now. But whereas in some countries
the werwolf is considered wholly physical, in others it is looked upon
as partly, if not entirely, superphysical. And whilst in some countries
it is restricted to the male sex, in others it is confined to the
female; and, again, in others it is to be met with in both sexes.
Hence, when asked to describe a werwolf, or what is generally
believed to be a werwolf, one can only say that a werwolf is an
anomaly--sometimes man, sometimes woman (or in the guise of man or
woman); sometimes adult, sometimes child (or in the guise of
such)--that, under certain conditions, possesses the property of
metamorphosing into a wolf, the change being either temporary or
permanent.
This, perhaps, expresses most of what is general concerning werwolves.
For more particular features, upon which I will touch later, one must
look to locality and time.
Those who are sceptical with regard to the existence of the werwolf, and
refuse to accept, as proof of such existence, the accumulated testimony
of centuries, attribute the origin of the belief in the phenomenon
merely to an insane delusion, which, by reason of its novelty, gained a
footing and attracted followers.
Humanity, they say, has ever been the same; and any fresh idea--no
matter how bizarre or monstrous, so long as it is monstrous enough--has
always met with support and won credence.
In favour of this argument it is pointed out that in many of the cases
of persons accused of werwolfery, tried in France, and elsewhere, in the
middle of the sixteenth century, when belief in this species of
lycanthropy was at its zenith, there was an extraordinary readiness
among the accused to confess, and even to give circumstantial evidence
of their own metamorphosis; and that this particular form of
self-accusation at length became so popular among the leading people in
the land, that the judicial court, having its suspicions awakened, and,
doubtless, fearful of sentencing so many important personages, acquitted
the majority of the accused, announcing them to be the victims of
delusion and hysteria.
Now, if it were admitted, argue these sceptics, that the bulk of
so-called werwolves were impostors, is it not reasonable to suppose that
all so-called werwolves were either voluntary or involuntary
impostors?--the latter, _i.e._, those who were not self-accused, being
falsely accused by persons whose motive for so doing was revenge. For
parallel cases one has only to refer to the trials for sorcery and
witchcraft in England. And with regard to false accusations of
lycanthropy--accusations founded entirely on hatred of the accused
person--how easy it was to trump up testimony and get the accused
convicted. The witnesses were rarely, if ever, subjected to a searching
examination; the court was always biased, and a confession of guilt,
when not voluntary--as in the case of the prominent citizen, when it was
invariably pronounced due to hysteria or delusion--could always be
obtained by means of torture, though a confession thus obtained,
needless to say, is completely nullified. Moreover, we have no record of
metamorphosis taking place in court, or before witnesses chosen for
their impartiality. On the contrary, the alleged transmutations always
occurred in obscure places, and in the presence of people who, one has
reason to believe, were both hysterical and imaginative, and therefore
predisposed to see wonders. So says this order of sceptic, and, to my
mind, he says a great deal more than his facts justify; for although
contemporary writers generally are agreed that a large percentage of
those people who voluntarily confessed they were werwolves were mere
dissemblers, there is no recorded conclusive testimony to show that all
such self-accused persons were shams and delusionaries. Besides, even
if such testimony were forthcoming, it would in nowise preclude the
existence of the werwolf.
Nor does the fact that all the accused persons submitted to the rack, or
other modes of torture, confessed themselves werwolves prove that all
such confessions were false.
Granted also that some of the charges of lycanthropy were groundless,
being based on malice--which, by the by, is no argument for the
non-existence of lycanthropy, since it is acknowledged that accusations
of all sorts, having been based on malice, have been equally
groundless--there is nothing in the nature of written evidence that
would justify one in assuming that all such charges were traceable to
the same cause, _i.e._, a malicious agency. Neither can one dismiss the
testimony of those who swore they were actual eye-witnesses of
metamorphoses, on the mere assumption that all such witnesses were
liable to hallucination or hysteria, or were hyper-imaginative.
Testimony to an event having taken place must be regarded as positive
evidence of such an occurrence, until it can be satisfactorily proved to
be otherwise--and this is where the case of the sceptic breaks down; he
can only offer assumption, not proof.
Another view, advanced by those who discredit werwolves, is that belief
in the existence of such an anomaly originates in the impression made
on man in early times by the great elemental powers of nature. It was,
they say, man's contemplation of the changes of these great elemental
powers of nature, _i.e._, the changes of the sun and moon, wind, thunder
and lightning, of the day and night, sunshine and rain, of the seasons,
and of life and death, and his deductions therefrom, that led to his
belief in and worship of gods that could assume varying shapes, such,
for example, as India (who occasionally took the form of a bull),
Derketo (who sometimes metamorphosed into a fish), Poseidon, Jupiter
Ammon, Milosh Kobilitch, Minerva, and countless others--and that it is
to this particular belief and worship, which is to be found in the
mythology of every race, that all religions, as well as belief in
fairies, demons, werwolves, and phantasms, may be traced.
Well, this might be so, if there were not, in my opinion, sufficient
accumulative corroborative evidence to show that not only were there
such anomalies as werwolves formerly, but that, in certain restricted
areas, they are even yet to be encountered.
Taking, then, the actual existence of werwolves to be an established
fact, it is, of course, just as impossible to state their origin as it
is to state the origin of any other extraordinary form of creation.
Every religious creed, every Occult sect, advances its own respective
views--and has a perfect right to do so, as long as it advances them as
views and not dogmatisms.
I, for my part, bearing in mind that everything appertaining to the
creation of man and the universe is a profound mystery, cannot see the
object on the part of religionists and scientists in being arbitrary
with regard to a subject which any child of ten will apprehend to be one
whereon it is futile to do other than theorize. My own theory, or rather
one of my own theories, is that the property of transmutation, _i.e._,
the power of assuming any animal guise, was one of the many
properties--including second sight, the property of becoming invisible
at will, of divining the presence of water, metals, the advent of death,
and of projecting the etherical body--which were bestowed on man at the
time of his creation; and that although mankind in general is no longer
possessed of them, a few of these properties are still, in a lesser
degree, to be found among those of us who are termed psychic.
The history of the Jews is full of references to certain of these
properties. The greatest of all the Superphysical Forces--the creating
Force (the Hebrew Jah, Jehovah)--so says the Bible, constantly held
direct communication with His elect--with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and
Moses, while His emissaries, the angels, or what modern Occultists would
term Benevolent Elementals, conversed with Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and
hosts of others. In this same history, too, there is no lack of
reference to sorcery; and whilst Black Magic is illustrated in the
tricks wrought by the magicians before Pharaoh, and the infliction of
all manner of plagues upon the Egyptians, one is rather inclined to
attribute to White Magic Daniel's safety among the lions; Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego's preservation from the flames; Elijah's
miraculous spinning out of the barrel of meal and cruse of oil, in the
days of famine, and his raising of the widow's son. Also, to the account
of White Magic--and should anyone dispute this point let me remind him
that it is merely a difference in the point of view--I would add
Elisha's calling up of the bears that made such short work of the
naughty children who tormented him. There are, too, many examples of
divination recorded in the Bible. In Genesis, chapter xxx., verses
27-43, a description is given of a divining rod and its influence over
sheep and other animals; in Exodus, chapter xvii., verse 15, Moses with
the aid of a rod discovers water in the rock at Rephidim, and for
similar instances one has only to refer to Exodus, chapter xiv., verse
16, and chapter xvii., verses 9-11. The calling up of the phantasm of
Samuel at Endor more than suggests a biblical precedent for the modern
practice of spiritualism; and it was, undoubtedly, the abuse of such
power as that possessed by the witch of Endor, and the prevalence of
sorcery, such as she practised, that finally led to the decree delivered
by Moses to the Children of Israel, that on no account were they to
suffer a witch to live. Reference to yet another property of the
occult--namely, Etherical Projection--which is clearly exemplified in
the Scriptures, may be found in Numbers, chapter xii., verse 6; in Job,
chapter xxxiii., verse 15; in the First Book of Kings, chapter iii.,
verse 5; in Genesis, chapter xx., verses 3 and 6, and chapter xxxi.,
verse 24; in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, and Zechariah; and more
particularly in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Revelation of St.
John. Lastly, in this history of the Jews, which is surely neither more
nor less authenticated than any other well established history,
testimony as to the existence of one species of Elemental of much the
same order as the werwolf is recorded by Isaiah. In chapter xiii., verse
21, we read: "And their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and
owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there." Satyrs! we
repeat; are not satyrs every whit as grotesque and outrageous as
werwolves? Why, then, should those who, regarding the Scriptures as
infallible, confess to a belief in the satyr, reject the possibility of
a werwolf? And for those who are more logically sceptical--who question
the veracity of the Bible and are dubious as to its authenticity--there
are the chronicles of Herodotus, Petronius Arbiter, Baronius, Dole,
Olaus Magnus, Marie de France, Thomas Aquinas, Richard Verstegan, and
many other recognized historians and classics, covering a large area in
the history of man, all of whom specially testify to the existence--in
their own respective periods--of werwolves.
And if any further evidence of this once near relationship with the
Other World is required, one has only to turn to Aristotle, who wrote so
voluminously on psychic dreams (most of which I am inclined to think
were due to projection); to the teachings of Pythagoras and his
followers, Empedocles and Apollonius; to Cicero and Tacitus; to Virgil,
who frequently talks of ghosts and seers of Tyana; to Plato, the
exponent of magic; and to Plutarch, whose works swarm with allusions to
Occultism of all kinds--phantasms of the dead, satyrs, and numerous
other species of Elementals.
I say, then, that in ages past, before any of the artificialities
appertaining to our present mode of living were introduced; when the
world was but thinly populated and there were vast regions of wild
wastes and silent forests, the Known and Unknown walked hand in hand. It
was seclusion of this kind, the seclusion of nature, that spirits loved,
and it was in this seclusion they were always to be found whenever man
wanted to hold communication with them. To such silent spots--to the
woods and wildernesses--Buddha, Mohammed, the Hebrew Patriarchs and
Prophets, all, in their turn, resorted, to solicit the companionship of
benevolently disposed spirits, to be tutored by them, and, in all
probability, to receive from them additional powers. To these wastes and
forests, too, went all those who wished to do ill. There they communed
with the spirits of darkness, _i.e._, demons, or what are also termed
Vice Elementals; and from the latter they acquired--possibly in exchange
for some of their own vitality, for spirits of this order are said to
have envied man his material body--tuition in sorcery, and such
properties as second sight, invisibility, and lycanthropy.
This property of lycanthropy, or metamorphosing into a beast, probably
dates back to man's creation. It was, I am inclined to believe,
conferred on man at his creation by Malevolent Forces that were
antagonistic to man's progress; and that these Malevolent Forces had a
large share in the creation of this universe is, to my mind, extremely
probable. But, however that may be, I cannot believe that the creation
of man and the universe were due entirely to one Creator--there are
assuredly too many inconsistencies in all we see around us to justify
belief in only one Creative Force. The Creator who inspired man with
love--love for his fellow beings and love of the beautiful--could not be
the same Creator who framed that irredeemably cruel principle observable
throughout nature, _i.e._, the survival of the fittest; the preying of
the stronger on the weaker--of the tiger on the feebler beasts of the
jungle; the eagle on the smaller birds of the air; the wolf on the
sheep; the shark on the poor, defenceless fish, and so on; neither could
He be the Creator that deals in diseases--foul and filthy diseases,
common, not only to all divisions of the human species, but to
quadrupeds, birds, fish, and even flora; that brings into existence
cripples and idiots, the blind, the deaf and dumb; and watches with
passive inertness the most acute sufferings, not only of adults, but of
sinless children and all manner of helpless animals. No! It is
impossible to conceive that such incompatibilities can be the work of
one Creator. But, supposing, for the sake of argument, we may admit the
possibility of only one Creator, we cannot concede that this Creator is
at the same time both omnipotent and merciful. My own belief, which is
merely based on common sense and observation, is that this earth was
created by many Forces--that everything that makes for man's welfare is
due to Benevolent Forces; and that everything that tends to his
detriment is due to antagonistic Malevolent Forces; and that the
Malevolent Forces exist for the very simple reason that the Benevolent
Forces are not sufficiently powerful to destroy them.
These Malevolent Forces, then--the originators of all evil--created
werwolves; and the property of lycanthropy becoming in many cases
hereditary, there were families that could look back upon countless
generations possessed of it. But lycanthropy did not remain in the
exclusive possession of a few families; the bestowal of it continued
long after its original creation, and I doubt if this bestowal has, even
now, become entirely a thing of the past. There are still a few
regions--desolate and isolated regions in Europe (in Russia,
Scandinavia, and even France), to say nothing of Asia, Africa and
America, Australasia and Polynesia--which are unquestionably the haunts
of Vagrarians, Barrowvians, and other kinds of undesirable Elementals,
and it is quite possible that, through the agency of these spirits, the
property of lycanthropy might be acquired by those who have learned in
solitude how to commune with them.
I have already referred to the werwolf as an anomaly, and for its
designation I do not think I could have chosen a more suitable term.
Though its movements and actions are physical--for what could be more
material than the act of devouring flesh and blood?--the actual process
of the metamorphosis savours of the superphysical; whilst to still
further strengthen its relationship with the latter, its appearance is
sometimes half man and half wolf, which is certainly more than
suggestive of the semi-human and by no means uncommon type of Elemental.
Its inconsistency, too, which is a striking characteristic of all
psychic phenomena, is also suggestive of the superphysical; and
there is certainly neither consistency as to the nature of the
metamorphosis--which is sometimes brought about at will and sometimes
entirely controlled by the hour of day, or by the seasons--nor as to the
outward form of the werwolf, which is sometimes merely that of a wolf,
and sometimes partly wolf and partly human; nor as to its shape at the
moment of death, when in some cases there is metamorphosis, whilst in
other cases there is no metamorphosis. Nor is this inconsistency only
characteristic of the movements, actions, and shape of the werwolf. It
is also characteristic of it psychologically. When the metamorphosis is
involuntary, and is enforced by agencies over which the subject has no
control, the werwolf, though filled with all the passions characteristic
of a beast of prey, when a wolf, is not of necessity cruel and savage
when a human being, that is to say, before the transmutations take
place. There are many instances of such werwolves being, as people,
affectionate and kindly disposed. On the other hand, in some cases of
involuntary metamorphosis, and in the majority of cases of voluntary
metamorphosis--that is to say, when the transmutation is compassed by
means of magic--the werwolf, as a person, is evilly disposed, and as a
wolf shows a distinct blending of the beast with the passions, subtle
ingenuity, and reasoning powers of the human being. From this it is
obvious, then, that the werwolf is a hybrid of the material and
immaterial--of man and Elemental, known and Unknown. The latter term
does not, of course, meet with acceptance at the hands of the
Rationalists, who profess to believe that all phenomena can be explained
by perfectly natural causes. They suggest that belief in the werwolf (as
indeed in all other forms of lycanthropy) is traceable to the craving
for blood which is innate in certain natures and is sometimes
accompanied by hallucination, the subject genuinely believing himself to
be a wolf (or whatever beast of prey is most common in the district),
and, in imitation of that animal's habits, committing acts of
devastation at night, selecting his victims principally from among women
and children--those, in fact, who are too feeble to resist him.
Often, however, say these Rationalists, there is no suggestion of
hallucination, the question resolving itself into one of vulgar
trickery. The anthropophagi, unable to suppress their appetite for human
food, taking advantage of the general awe in which the wolf is held by
their neighbours, dress themselves up in the skins of that beast, and
prowling about lonely, isolated spots at night, pounce upon those people
they can most easily overpower. Rumours (most probably started by the
murderers themselves) speedily get in circulation that the mangled and
half-eaten remains of the villagers are attributable to creatures, half
human and half wolf, that have been seen gliding about certain places
after dark. The simple country-folk, among whom superstitions are rife,
are only too ready to give credence to such reports; the existence of
the monsters becomes an established thing, whilst the localities that
harbour them are regarded with horror, and looked upon as the happy
hunting ground of every imaginable occult power of evil.
Now, although such an explanation of werwolves might be applicable in
certain districts of West Africa, where the native population is
excessively bloodthirsty and ignorant, it could not for one moment be
applied to werwolfery in Germany, France, or Scandinavia, where the
peasantry are, generally speaking, kindly and intelligent people, whom
one could certainly accuse neither of being sanguinary nor of possessing
any natural taste for cannibalism.
The rationalist view can therefore only be said to be feasible in
certain limited spheres, outside of which it is grotesque and
ridiculous.
Now a question that has occurred to me, and which, I fancy, may give
rise to some interesting speculation, is, whether some of the werwolves
stated to have been seen may not have been some peculiar type of
phantasm. I make this suggestion because I have seen several sub-human
and sub-animal occult phenomena in England, and have, too, met other
people who have had similar experiences.
With our limited knowledge of the Unknown it is, of course, impossible
to be arbitrary as to the class of spirits to which such phenomena
belong. They may be Vice Elementals, _i.e._, spirits that have never
inhabited any material body, whether human or animal, and which are
wholly inimical to man's progress--such spirits assume an infinite
number of shapes, agreeable and otherwise; or they may be phantasms of
dead human beings--vicious and carnal-minded people, idiots, and
imbecile epileptics. It is an old belief that the souls of cataleptic
and epileptic people, during the body's unconsciousness, adjourned
temporarily to animals, and it is therefore only in keeping with such a
view to suggest that on the deaths of such people their spirits take
permanently the form of animals. This would account for the fact that
places where cataleptics and idiots have died are often haunted by semi
and by wholly animal types of phantasms.
According to Paracelsus Man has in him two spirits--an animal spirit and
a human spirit--and that in after life he appears in the shape of
whichever of these two spirits he has allowed to dominate him. If, for
example, he has obeyed the spirit that prompts him to be sober and
temperate, then his phantasm resembles a man; but on the other hand, if
he has given way to his carnal and bestial cravings, then his phantasm
is earthbound, in the guise of some terrifying and repellent
animal--maybe a wolf, bear, dog, or cat--all of which shapes are far
from uncommon in psychic manifestations.
This view has been held either _in toto_, or with certain reservations,
by many other writers on the subject, and I, too, in a great measure
endorse it--its pronouncement of a limit to man's phantasms being,
perhaps, the only important point to which I cannot accede. My own view
is that so complex a creature as man--complex both physically and
psychologically--may have a representative spirit for each of his
personalities. Hence on man's physical dissolution there may emanate
from him a host of phantasms, each with a shape most fitting the
personality it represents. And what more thoroughly representative of
cruelty, savageness, and treachery than a wolf, or even something partly
lupine! Therefore, as I have suggested elsewhere, in some instances, but
emphatically not in all, what were thought to have been werwolves may
only have been phantasms of the dead, or Elementals.