WERWOLVES IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA
THE CASE OF THE FAMILY OF KLOSKA AND THE LYCANTHROPOUS FLOWER
In the mountainous regions of Austria-Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula
are certain flowers credited with the property of converting into
werwolves whoever plucks and wears them. Needless to say, these flowers
are very rare, but I have heard of their having been found,
comparatively recently, both in the Transylvanian Alps and the Balkans.
A story _a propos_ of one of these discoveries was told me last summer.
Ivan and Olga were the children of Otto and Vera Kloska--the former a
storekeeper of Kerovitch, a village on the Roumanian side of the
Transylvanian Alps. One morning they were out with their mother,
watching her wash clothes in a brook at the back of their house, when,
getting tired of their occupation, they wandered into a thicket.
"Let's make a chaplet of flowers," Olga said, plucking a daisy. "You
gather the flowers and I'll weave them together."
"It's not much of a game," Ivan grumbled, "but I can't think of anything
more exciting just now, so I'll play it. But let's both make wreaths and
see which makes the best."
To this Olga agreed, and they were soon busily hunting amidst the grass
and undergrowth, and scrambling into all sorts of possible and
impossible places.
Presently Ivan heard a scream, followed by a heavy thud, and running in
the direction of the noise, narrowly avoided falling into a pit, the
sides of which were partly overgrown with weeds and brambles.
"It's all right," Olga shouted; "I'm not hurt. I landed on soft ground.
It's not very deep, and there's such a queer flower here--I don't know
what it is; I've never seen one like it before."
Ivan's curiosity thus aroused, he carefully examined the sides of the
pit, and, selecting the shallowest spot, lowered himself slowly over and
then dropped. It was nothing of a distance, seven or eight feet at the
most, and he alighted without mishap on a clump of rank, luxuriant
grass. "See! here it is," his sister cried, pointing to a large, very
vivid white flower, shaped something like a sunflower, but soft and
pulpy, and full of a sweet, nauseating odour. "It's too big to put in a
wreath, so I'll wear it in my buttonhole."
"Better not," Ivan said, snatching it from her; "I don't like it. It's a
nasty-looking thing. I believe it's a sort of fungus."
Olga then began to cry, and as Ivan was desirous of keeping the peace,
he gave her back the flower. She was a prepossessing child, with black
hair and large dark eyes, pretty teeth and plump, sunburnt cheeks. Nor
was she altogether unaware of her attractions, for even at so early an
age she had a goodly share of the inordinate vanity common to her sex,
and liked nothing better than appearing out-of-doors in a new frock
plentifully besprinkled with rosettes and ribbons. The flower, she told
herself, would look well on her scarlet bodice, and would be a good
set-off to her black hair and olive complexion. All this was, of course,
beyond the comprehension of Ivan, who regarded his sister's weakness
with the most supreme contempt, and for his own part was never so happy
as when skylarking with other boys and getting into every conceivable
kind of mischief. Yet for all that he was in the main sensible, almost
beyond his years, and extremely fond, and--though he would not admit
it--proud of Olga.
She fixed the flower in her dress, and imitating to the best of her
knowledge the carriage of royalty, strutted up and down, saying "Am I
not grand? Don't I look nice? Ivan--salute me!"
And Ivan was preparing to salute her in the proper military style,
taught him by a great friend of his in the village, a soldier in the
carabineers for whom he had an intense admiration, when his jaw suddenly
fell and his eyes bulged.
"Whatever is the matter with you?" Olga asked.
"There's nothing the matter with me," Ivan cried, shrinking away from
her; "but there is with you. Don't! don't make such faces--they frighten
me," and turning round, he ran to the place where he had made his
descent and tried to climb up.
Some minutes later the mother of the children, hearing piercing shrieks
for help, flew to the pit, and, missing her footing, slipped over the
brink, and falling some ten or more feet, broke one of her legs and
otherwise bruised herself. For some seconds she was unconscious, and the
first sight that met her eyes on coming to was Ivan kneeling on the
ground, feebly endeavouring to hold at bay a gaunt grey wolf that had
already bitten him about the legs and thigh, and was now trying hard to
fix its wicked white fangs into his throat.
"Help me, mother!" Ivan gasped; "I'm getting exhausted. It's Olga."
"Olga!" the mother screamed, making frantic efforts to come to his
assistance. "Olga! what do you mean?"
"It's all owing to a flower--a white flower," Ivan panted; "Olga would
pluck it, and no sooner had she fixed it on her dress than she turned
into a wolf! Quick, quick! I can't hold it off any longer."
Thus adjured the wretched woman made a terrific effort to rise, and
failing in this, clenched her teeth, and, lying down, rolled over and
over till she arrived at the spot where the struggle was taking place.
By this time, however, the wolf had broken through Ivan's guard, and he
was now on his back with his right arm in the grip of his ferocious
enemy.
The mother had not a knife, but she had a long steel skewer she used for
sticking into a tree as a means of fastening one end of her washing
line. She wore it hanging to her girdle, and it was quite by a miracle
it had not run into her when she fell.
"Take care, mother," Ivan cried, as she raised it ready to strike;
"remember, it is Olga."
This indeed was an ugly fact that the woman in her anxiety to save the
boy had forgotten. What should she do? To merely wound the animal would
be to make it ten times more savage, in which case it would almost
inevitably destroy them both. To kill it would mean killing Olga. Which
did she love the most, the boy or the girl? Never was a mother placed in
such a dilemma. And she had no time to deliberate, not even a second.
God help her, she chose. And like ninety-nine out of a hundred mothers
would have done, she chose the boy; he--he at all costs must be saved.
She struck, struck with all the pent-up energy of despair, and in her
blind, mad zeal she struck again.
The first blow, penetrating the werwolf's eye, sank deep into its brain,
but the second blow missed--missed, and falling aslant, alighted on the
form beneath.
An hour later a villager on his way home, hearing extraordinary sounds
of mirth, went to the side of the pit and peeped over.
"Vera Kloska!" he screamed; "Heaven have mercy on us, what have you
there?"
"He! he! he!" came the answer. "He! he! he! My children! Don't they look
funny? Olga has such a pretty white flower in her buttonhole, and Ivan a
red stain on his forehead. They are deaf--they won't reply when I speak
to them. See if you can make them hear."
But the villager shook his head. "They'll never hear again in this
world, mad soul," he muttered. "You've murdered them."
* * * * *
Besides this white flower there is a yellow one, of the same shape and
size as a snapdragon; and a red one, something similar to an ox-eyed
daisy, both of which have the power of metamorphosing the plucker and
wearer into a werwolf. Both have the same peculiar vividness of colour,
the same thick, sticky sap, and the same sickly, faint odour. They are
both natives of Austria-Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula, and are
occasionally to be met with in damp, marshy places.
Certain flowers (lilies-of-the-valley, marigolds, and azaleas), as also
diamonds, are said to attract werwolves, thus proving a source of danger
to those who wear them. And _a propos_ of this magnetic property of
diamonds the following anecdote comes to me from the Tyrol:--
A WERWOLF IN INNSBRUCK
Madame Mildau was one of the prettiest women in Innsbruck. She had
golden hair, large violet eyes, a smile that would melt a Loyola, and
diamonds that set every woman's mouth watering. With such inducements to
seduction, how could Madame Mildau help delighting in balls and fetes,
and in promenading constantly before the public? She revelled in a
universal admiration--she aimed at a monopoly--and she lived wholly and
solely to exact homage. To be deprived of any single opportunity of
displaying her charms and consequent triumphs would indeed have been a
hardship, and to nothing short of a very serious indisposition would
Madame Mildau have sacrificed her pleasure.
Now it so happened that three of the most brilliant entertainments of
the season fell on the same night, and Madame Mildau, with all the
unreason of her sex, desired to attend each one of them.
"I have accepted these three invitations," she informed her husband,
"and to these three balls I mean to go. I shall apportion the time
equally between them. You forget," she added, "that the success of these
entertainments really depends on me. Crowds go only to see me, and I
should never forgive myself if I disappointed them."
But her husband, with the perversity characteristic of gout and middle
age, combined, no doubt, with a not unnatural modicum of jealousy,
maintained that one such fete should be sufficient amusement for one
night. She might take her choice of one; he would on no account permit
her to attend all three. Much to his surprise and delight Madame Mildau
made no scene, but graciously submitted after a few mild protestations.
A little later her husband remarked encouragingly:--
"I congratulate you, Julia, on your philosophy and self-restraint. In
yielding to my wishes you have pleased me immeasurably, and I should
like to show my gratification in some substantial manner. As it is some
months since I gave you a present, I have resolved to make you one now.
You may choose what you like."
"I have chosen," Madame Mildau replied calmly.
"What, already!" her husband cried. "You sly creature. You have been
keeping this up your sleeve. What is it?"
"A diamond tiara," was the cool reply. "The one you said you could not
afford last Christmas."
"Mon Dieu!" her husband gasped. "I shall be ruined."
"You will be ruined if you do not give it to me," Madame Mildau replied,
"for in that case I should leave you. I couldn't live with a liar."
Her husband wrung his hands. He implored her to choose something else,
but it was of no avail, and within two hours Madame Mildau had visited
the jeweller and the tiara was hers.
The eventful day came at last, and Madame Mildau, escorted by her
husband, attended one of the most popular balls of the season. She did
not wear her tiara. There had been several highway jewellery robberies
in the neighbourhood of late, and she pleased her husband immensely by
leaving her diamonds carefully locked up at home.
"You are prudence itself," he said, gazing at her in admiration. "And as
a reward you shall dance all the evening whilst I look on and admire
you."
But soon Madame Mildau could dance no longer. She had a very bad
headache, and begged her husband to take her home. M. Mildau was very
sympathetic. He was very sorry for his wife, and suggested that she
should take some brandy. She readily agreed that a little brandy might
do her good, and they took some together in their bedroom, after which
madame's husband remembered little more. He had a vague notion that his
wife was rolling his neck-handkerchief round his forehead in the form of
a Turkish turban, and patting him on the cheeks and smilingly wishing
him a thousand pleasant dreams, and then--all was a blank. He might as
well have been dead. With madame it was otherwise. The headache was, of
course, a ruse. The brandy she had given her husband had been well
drugged, and no sooner had she made sure it had taken effect than she
snapped her daintily manicured finger-tips in the air, and retiring to
her dressing-room, changed the dress she was wearing for one ten times
more costly and beautiful--a dress of rose-coloured gauze, upon which a
drapery of lace was suspended by agraffes of diamonds. A wreath of pale
roses, that seemed to have been bathed in the dew of the morning, the
better to harmonize with the delicate complexion of her lovely face,
nestled in her hair, and above it, more magnificent than anything yet
seen in Innsbruck, and setting off to perfection the dazzling lustre of
her yellow curls, the tiara of diamonds.
After a final survey of herself in the glass, she slipped on her cloak,
and stole softly out to join her intimate friend, the Countess Linitz,
who was also going to the ball. All things so far had worked wonderfully
well; not even a servant suspected her. In order to avoid trusting her
secret to anyone in the house, she had employed a stranger to hire an
elegant carriage, which was in waiting for her at a discreet distance
from the front door. The ball at which Madame Mildau soon arrived with
her friend was much more to her liking than the one to which she had
been previously escorted by her husband. The music was more harmonious,
the conversation more amiable, the dresses more elaborate, and, what
was more important than all, Madame Mildau's success was even more
instantaneous and complete. The whole room--host, guests, musicians,
even waiters--one and all were literally dumbfounded at the
extraordinary beauty of her face and costume, to say nothing of her
jewels. Such an entrancing spectacle was without parallel in a ballroom
in Innsbruck; and when she left, before the entertainment was over, all
the life, the light, the gaiety went with her.
But it was at the third ball, to which the same equipage surreptitiously
bore her, that Madame Mildau's enjoyment and triumphs reached their
zenith; and it was only towards the close of that entertainment--when
she felt, by that revelation of instinct which never deceives women on
similar occasions, that it was time to depart; that the brilliancy of
her eyes, no less than the beauty of her dress, was fading; that her
lips, parched with fatigue, had lost that humid red which rendered them
so pretty and inviting, and that the dust had taken the beautiful gloss
off her hair--that she experienced, for the first time, a sentiment of
uneasiness in reviewing the rashness of her conduct. How was it
possible, she asked herself, to prevent a casual acquaintance--her
friends she could warn--letting out in conversation before her husband
that she had been to these balls. And supposing he thus got to know of
her deceit, what then?
This idea--the idea of being found out--with all its consequences, rose
before her. Her exhausted imagination could find nothing to oppose it,
nothing to relieve the feeling of depression which took possession of
her, and she almost felt remorse when she threw herself into her
carriage. It was a very dark night, cold and windy, and she was only too
thankful to nestle close into the soft cushions at her back, and bury
her face in the warm fur of her costly wrap. For some minutes she
remained absorbed in thought; but it was not long before the monotonous
rumble, rumble of the carriage produced a sensation of drowsiness, from
which she was rudely awakened by the sound of a cough. Glancing in the
direction from whence it came, to her utmost dismay and astonishment she
saw, seated in the opposite corner of the vehicle, a young man of good,
if somewhat peculiar appearance, and extremely well dressed. Madame
Mildau instantly took in all the disadvantages of her situation, and,
overwhelmed by the imprudence of her conduct, exclaimed in a tone in
which dignity and terror struggled for mastery, "Sir, what audacity!"
"Yes, indeed, what audacity!" the stranger replied, affecting to be
shocked. "What pride! What a love of display!" and he rolled his big
eyes at her and bared his teeth.
"But, sir," Madame Mildau cried in horror, concluding that the unknown
was a madman, "this is _my_ carriage. I beg you will depart--I beseech
you--I command you. I will summon my servants."
"That will be a vain waste of valuable breath," replied the young man
coolly. "You may call your servants--but there is only one, and he is
mine. He will not answer you."
"Where am I, then? How infamous!" exclaimed Madame Mildau, and she burst
into tears. "Oh, how cruelly punished I am!"
"It is true, madame, you will be punished for having been agreeable,
gay, and brilliant to-night without the consent of your husband; but at
present he knows nothing about it, for at this moment he reposes in the
sleep of the just, confident that you are enjoying the same repose close
to him. As to yourself, madame, why this fear? You will have nothing to
dread, I assure you, from my indiscretion; but, as you may be aware,
there is no fault, however small, that has not its expiation. Nay, do
not weep. Am I so ugly? Why should you dread me so, madame? I am a great
admirer of your charms, desirous to know you better. Nay, have no
suspicions as to my morality--I am no profligate. I came to the ball
to-night for quite another purpose."
"Sir, I understand you. You are employed by my husband. A spy!
Detestable!"
"Stop, madame," the stranger said, laying his hand gently on hers.
"Debase not the dignity of man by imagining for one instant that there
is anyone who would lend himself so readily to act the odious part you
impute to me. I am no spy."
"In Heaven's name, then," Madame Mildau exclaimed, "what brings you
here? What do you want? Who are you?"
"One at a time, madame," the young man ejaculated. "To begin with, it
was those diamonds of yours--those rings on your soft and delicate
fingers, those bracelets on your slender rounded wrists, that necklace
and pendant on your snowy breast, and over and above all that splendid
tiara on your matchless hair. It was the sight of all those bright and
gleaming stars that attracted me, just as the light of a candle attracts
a moth. I could not resist them."
"Then you--you are a robber!" stammered the lady, ready to faint with
terror.
"Wrong again!" the young man said; "I admire your jewels, it is true,
but I am no thief."
"Then, in mercy's name, what are you?" demanded the lady.
"Well!" the stranger replied, speaking with a slight snarl, "I am a man
now, but I shall soon change."
"A man and will soon change?" Madame Mildau cried; "oh, you're mad,
mad--and I'm shut up in here with a lunatic! Help! help!"
"Calmly, calmly," the stranger exclaimed, lifting her hands to his lips
and kissing them. "I'm perfectly sane, and at present perfectly
harmless. Now tell me, madame--and mind, be candid with me--why don't
you love your husband?"
"How do you know I don't?" Madame Mildau faltered.
"Tut, tut!" the young man said. "Anyone could see that with half an eye.
Besides, consider your conduct to-night! Answer my questions."
"Well, you see!" Madame Mildau stammered, having come to the conclusion
that even if the man were not mad it would be highly impolitic to
provoke him, "I'm so much younger than he is. I'm only twenty-three,
whereas he is forty-five. Besides, he detests all amusements, and I love
them--especially dances. He is too fat to----"
"Are you sure he is fat? Will you swear he is fat?" the stranger asked,
grasping her hands so tightly that she screamed.
"I swear it!" she said, "he is quite the fattest man I know."
"And tender! But no, he can't be very tender!"
"What questions to ask!" Madame Mildau said. "How do I know whether he
is tender! Besides, what does it concern you?"
"It concerns me much," the young man retorted; "and you, too, madame.
You asked me just now a question concerning myself. Your curiosity shall
be satisfied. I am a werwolf. My servant on the box who took the place
of your employe is a werwolf. In an hour the metamorphosis will take
place. You are out here in the Wood of Arlan alone with us."
"In the Wood of Arlan!"
"Yes, madame, in the Wood of Arlan, which is, as you know, one of the
wildest and least frequented spots in this part of the Tyrol. We are
both ravenously hungry, and--well, you can judge the rest!"
Madame Mildau, who regarded werwolves in the same category as satyrs and
mermaids, was once more convinced that she had to deal with a lunatic,
but thinking it wisest to humour him, she said, "I shouldn't advise you
to eat me. I'm not at all nice. I'm dreadfully tough."
"You're not that," the young man said, "but I'm not at all sure that
the paint and powder on your cheeks might not prove injurious. Anyhow, I
have decided to spare you on one condition!"
"Yes! and that is?" Madame Mildau exclaimed, clapping her hands
joyfully.
"That you let me have your husband instead. Give me the keys of your
house, and my man and I will fetch him. Did you leave him sound asleep?"
"Yes!" Madame Mildau faltered.
"In other words you drugged him! I knew it! I can read it in your eyes.
Well--so much the better. Your foresight has proved quite providential.
We will bind you securely and leave you here whilst we are gone, and
when we return with your husband you shall be freed, and my man shall
drive you home. The key?"
Madame Mildau gave it him. With the aid of his servant--a huge man, well
over six feet and with the chest and limbs of a Hercules--the stranger
then proceeded to gag and bind Madame Mildau hand and foot, and lifting
her gently on to the road, fastened her securely to the trunk of a tree.
"Au revoir!" he exclaimed, kissing her lightly on the forehead. "We
shan't be long! These horses go like the wind."
The next moment he was gone. For some seconds Madame Mildau struggled
desperately to free herself; then, recognizing the futility of her
efforts, resigned herself to her fate. At last she heard the clatter of
horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels, and in a few minutes she was
once again free.
"Quick!" the stranger said, leading her by the arm, "there's not a
moment to lose. The transmutation has already begun. In a few seconds we
shall both be wolves and your fate will be sealed. We've got your
husband, and, fortunately for you, he is as you described him, nice and
plump. If you want to take a final peep at him, do so at once; it's your
last chance."
But Madame Mildau had no such desire. She moved aside as her husband,
clad in his pyjamas and still sleeping soundly, was lifted out of the
vehicle and placed on the ground, and then, hurriedly brushing past him,
was about to enter the carriage, when the young man interposed.
"On the box, madame. We could not find you a coachman--you must drive
yourself; and as you value your life, drive like the----"
But madame did not wait for further instructions. Springing lightly on
the box, she picked up the reins, and with a crack of the whip the
horses were off. A minute later, and the wild howl of wolves, followed
by a piercing human scream, rang out in the still morning air.
"That's my husband! I recognize his voice," Madame Mildau sighed. "Ah,
well! thank God, the man wasn't a robber. My diamonds are safe."