WERE-WOLVES AND THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
Thou almost makes me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men; thy currish spirit
Governed a wolf, who, hanged for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.
_Shakspere._
There may still be traced in Europe, and even in England, some remains
of the Eastern belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls.
The superstitious reverence for the robin, the wren, and other birds of
the Aryan lightning class, points to the belief that the bodies of birds
and animals were supposed to be sometimes tenanted by the souls of men,
and even by the gods themselves; or at least, that the latter did
frequently assume their forms for some special purpose or other. Several
nursery stories, such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The White Cat,"
"Little Red Riding Hood," etc., yet very popular amongst others than the
juvenile section of the population, point in a similar direction. These
stories are no mere modern inventions. Mr. Cox regards "Beauty and the
Beast" but as one form of the Greek myth "Erôs and Psychê." One of the
favourite feats of the celebrated British magician, Merlin, was the
conversion of men into beasts. Cæsar says: "It is especially the object
of the Druids to inculcate this--that souls do not perish, but, after
death, pass into other bodies; and they consider that, by this belief
more than anything else, men may be led to cast away the fear of death,
and to become courageous." Shakspere has several remarkable references
to this superstition, one of which is quoted at the head of this
chapter. Another instance occurs in _Hamlet_, in the scene where
Ophelia, in her mental aberration, quotes snatches of old ballads. She
says, "They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we
are, but we know not what we may be. God be at your table."
Caliban, when remonstrating with the drunken Stephano and Trinculo, on
their dallying with the fine clothes at the mouth of the cave of
Prospero, instead of taking the magician's life at once, says:--
I will have none on't; we shall lose our time,
And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villainous low.
The elfin sprite Puck, after placing the ass's head on to Bottom, and
terrifying Peter Quince's celebrated amateur _corps dramatique_,
exclaims:--
I'll follow you, I lead you about a round
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through briar;
Sometimes a horse I'll be, sometimes a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire;
And neigh, and bark, and grunt and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Another instance will be found in "The Twelfth Night," where the clown,
under the pretence of his being "Sir Topas, the Curate," questions
Malvolio, when confined in a dark room, as a presumed lunatic:--
_Mal._--I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it in any
constant question.
_Clown._--What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
_Mal._--That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
_Clown._--What thinkest thou of his opinion?
_Mal._--I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
_Clown._--Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits, and
fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
grandam. Fare thee well.
At an early age, Walter Savage Landor transmitted to Dr. Samuel Parr an
essay on the origin of the religion of the Druids. His biographer, John
Forster, thus summarises its argument:--"It appeared to Landor that
Pythagoras, who settled in Italy, and had many followers in the Greek
colony of the Phocæans at Marseilles, had engrafted on a barbarous and
bloodthirsty religion the human doctrine of the metempsychosis; for that
finding it was vain to say, 'Do not murder,' as none ever minded that
doctrine, he frightened the savages by saying, 'If you are cruel even to
beasts and insects, the cruelty will fall upon yourselves; you will be
the same.' He explained also the 'beans' of the old philosopher in the
exact way that Coleridge took credit for afterwards originating; though
in this both moderns had been anticipated by sundry other discoverers,
beginning with Plutarch himself." The answer of the "kindly old scholar"
is both learned and characteristic. He says, "I thank you for your very
acute and masterly reasoning about Pythagoras, but I am no convert to
his being in Gaul; for the doctrine of transmigration is much older, and
prevailed among the Celts and Scythians long before Pythagoras. It is
believed, even now, in the north of Europe, and would naturally suggest
itself to any reflecting barbarian. However, you have done very well in
your hypothesis."
According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were the first who believed in the
immortality of the soul. After the demise of the body the soul was
supposed to pass from one of the lower animals to another, until it had
been duly located in the forms of all, terrestrial, aquatic, and winged.
After this had been accomplished, the human form was again assumed.
Three thousand years were considered necessary to the effecting of this
complete metempsychosis.
The Pythagorean doctrine appears to have been originally regarded in the
light of a purification. One commentator thus summarises it:--"The
souls, previous to their entering into human bodies, floated in the air,
from whence they were inhaled by the process of breathing at the moment
of birth. At the moment of death, they descended into the lower world,
where they were probably supposed to dwell a certain number of years,
after which they again rose into the upper world, and floated in the
air, until they entered into new bodies. When by this process their
purification had become complete, the souls were raised to higher
regions, where they continued to exist, and to enjoy the presence and
company of the gods."
It is a general opinion that the history of no ancient sage or
philosopher has been so much obscured as that of Pythagoras. The fables
and miracles interwoven into the biographies of Porphyrius, Diogenes
Laertius, and Iamblicus, have largely contributed to this result.
The Indoo doctrine, although differing slightly in detail, presents
sufficient resemblance both to that of Pythagoras and that of the
Egyptians to suggest their common origin. All agree in averring that the
souls of men, after death, pass into other bodies. A most religious
life, however, amongst the Indoos, exempted the individual from the
penalty of the metempsychosis, the soul, on its departure, being
immediately absorbed into the divine essence. Mr. Colebrooke, in the
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, published a translation of
some extracts from the _Brahma-sútras_, or aphorisms on the Vedenta
doctrine by Bâdarâyana, amongst which is the following, bearing on this
subject:--
"The soul passes from one state to another invested with a subtle frame,
consisting of elementary particles, the seed or rudiment of a grosser
body. Departing from that which it occupied, it ascends to the moon,
where, clothed with an aqueous form, it experiences the recompence of
its works; and whence it returns to occupy a new body with resulting
influence of its former deeds. But he who has attained the true
knowledge of God does not pass through the same stages of retreat, but
proceeds directly to reunion with the Supreme Being, with which he is
identified, as a river at its confluence with the sea merges therein
altogether. His vital faculties and the elements of which his body
consists are absorbed completely and absolutely; both name and form
cease; and he becomes immortal without parts or members."
In the Welsh romance, "The History of Taliesin," composed not earlier
than the thirteenth century, though often attributed to the sixth (the
era of the poet) is a curious story of successive transformations.
Caridwen, the wife of Tegid Voel, had an ugly son she desired to make
learned as a set-off to his deformity. She procured a cauldron, and
proceeded to boil a charmed mixture in order to procure "the three
blessed drops of the grace of inspiration." During her absence, the
three charmed drops flew from the cauldron on to the finger of one of
her watchers, and he, sucking his finger, to relieve himself of the
pain, imbibed the inspiration. In fear, he took to his heels, and she
ran after him. What followed is thus given in Professor Morley's summary
of the romance in English:--
"And he saw her and changed himself into a hare. But she changed herself
into a grey-hound and turned him. And he ran towards a river and became
a fish. But she, in form of an otter, chased him until he was fain to
become a bird. Then she, as a hawk, followed him, and gave him no rest
in the sky. Just as he was in fear of death, he saw a heap of winnowed
wheat on the floor of a barn, and dropped among the wheat and turned
himself into one of the grains. Then she transformed herself into a
high-crested black hen, and scratched among the wheat with her feet, and
found him out and swallowed him."
From this germ the woman, in due course, was delivered of a son, who,
after some romantic adventures, was named Taliesin, "the shining
forehead." The three drops had done their work effectually, it seems,
for he became a perfect prodigy.
Nash, in his "Christ's Teares over Jerusalem," published in 1613,
records a curious instance of faith in this transformation superstition
in England. He says, "They talk of an oxe that told the bell at
Wolwitch, and howe from an oxe he transformed himself to an old man, and
from an old man to an infant, and from an infant to a young man."
In an old work, entitled a "Help to Discourse," published in 1633, is
the following passage:--"Q. Wherefore hath it anciently been accounted
good luck if a _wolfe crosse our way_, but ill lucke if a hare crosse
it?--A. Our ancestors, in times past, as they were merry conceited, so
were they witty; and thence it grew that they held it good lucke if a
wolf crost the way and was gone without any more danger and trouble; but
ill lucke if a hare crost and escaped them, that they had not taken
her." Lupton, in "Notable Things," published in 1660, refers to Pliny as
reporting "that men in ancient times did fasten upon the gates of their
towns the heads of _wolves_, whereby to put away witchery, sorcery, or
enchantment, which many hunters observe or do to this day, but to what
use they know not." Werenfels informs us that when a "superstitious
person goes abroad he is not so much afraid of the teeth as the
unexpected sight of a wolf, lest he should deprive him of his speech."
Brand, referring to the superstition which asserts that if a wolf first
sees a man, the latter is suddenly struck dumb, says, "To the relators
of this Icaligar wishes as many blows as at different times he had seen
wolves without losing his voice. This is well answered." He further
notices the belief "_that men are sometimes transformed into wolves, and
again from wolves into men_," and adds, "Of this vulgar error, which is
as old as Pliny's time, that author exposes the falsehoods."
Many other authorities refer to this superstition. Giraldus Cambrensis
relates a story of a priest being addressed one evening, on his way from
Ulster to Meath, by a wolf, who informed him that he belonged to a
certain sept or clan in Ulster, "two of whom, male and female, were
every seven years compelled, through a curse laid on them by St.
Natalis, to depart both from their natural form and from their native
soil." They therefore took the form of wolves. If alive at the end of
seven years, two others of the sept "took their places under like
conditions, and the first pair returned to their pristine nature and
country." Camden expresses his disbelief of a story he heard in
Tipperary, that there were men who every year were turned into wolves.
Gervase, of Tilbury, speaks of were-wolves being common in England in
his time (the thirteenth century); and reference is made to a wolf-woman
in the Mabinogion, or fairy tales of the Welsh, of about the same
period. King John, of England, was suspected of being a were-wolf. It is
asserted in an old chronicle that, in some such capacity, he uttered
such frightful noises, after he was laid in his grave, in Worcester
Cathedral, that the pious monks dug up his body, and removed it from the
consecrated ground. One of the mediæval metrical romances, by an unknown
English author, refers to this superstition. It is a translation of the
"_Roman de Guillaume de Palerne_," and is entitled the "Romance of
William the Werwolf."
Herodotus says the Greeks and Scythians settled on the shores of the
Black Sea regarded the Neurians as wizards, and asserted that each
individual was for a few days in the year transformed into a wolf. He
speaks of a race of men who slept for six months at a time, and of
others who could change themselves at will into the shape of wolves, and
as easily resume their original form when desirable. He talks likewise
of the Troglodytes, or cave dwellers, a race of men, who having no human
language, screeched like bats, and fed upon reptiles. They were likewise
remarkable for their swiftness of foot.
Some of the Greek traditions represent the transformation of a man into
a were-wolf as a punishment for having sacrificed a human victim unto a
god. The offender was taken to the edge of a lake; he swam over, and, on
reaching the other side, was changed into a wolf. In this condition he
remained, roaming abroad with others of the species, for a period of
nine years. If during this time he had abstained from eating human
flesh, he resumed his original form, which, however, had not been exempt
from the influence of increased age. There is remarkable coincidence in
some respects between this myth and that related by Giraldus Cambrensis
previously referred to, the significance of which Kelly justly regards
as "worthy of note."
The Romans believed in the existence of the man-wolf, but attributed the
phenomenon to magical arts. Petronius has recorded an incident which
presents this superstition in a very graphic form. One Niceros, at a
banquet given by Trimalchio, relates the following story:--
"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 grim water-drinking Pluto. About cock-crow, when the moon was
shining as bright as mid-day, 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 down 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 was 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 died with fear but I? Yet
I drew my sword, and went cutting the air right and left, till I reached
the villa of my sweetheart. I entered the court-yard. I almost breathed
my last, the sweat ran down my neck, my eyes were dim, and I thought I
should never recover myself. My Melissa wondered why I was out so late,
and said to me, 'Had you come sooner you might at least have helped us,
for a wolf has entered the farm and worried all our cattle; but he had
not the best of the joke, for all he escaped, for our slave ran a lance
through his neck.' When I heard this I could not doubt how it was, and,
as it was clear daylight, 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 that he was a turnskin; nor would I ever have
broke bread with him again, no not if you had killed me."
In Germany many strange stories are told respecting these
transformations. The result of wounding a were-wolf generally appears to
be that the human shape is speedily resumed, but the injury inflicted
remains notwithstanding. One of these stories is to the following
effect:--A farmer and his wife were haymaking together, when suddenly
the wife requested her husband to throw his hat at any wild beast that
might come in his way. She then immediately disappeared. Soon afterwards
a wolf was perceived to be swimming across a neighbouring river in the
direction of the party of haymakers. The farmer, remembering his wife's
injunction, threw his hat at the wolf, which the ravenous beast seized
and tore to pieces. One of the men, however, stabbed the wolf with a
pitchfork. This dissolved the spell; the wolf-form disappeared, but the
dead body of the farmer's wife lay on the ground before the eyes of the
astonished spectators!
These transformations are believed, in some instances, to be effected by
a mere change of the external covering, like that of the cloud-maidens
referred to in chapter I. of the present work. These mythical ladies
were said to possess "shirts of swan plumage," by means of which they
"transformed themselves into water foul, especially swans." The
"frost-giants," Thiassi and Suttungr, had each an "eagle-shirt," in
which disguise they warred against the gods. The possession of these
feathery garments was essential to their retention of the power of
transformation. A variety of myths, fairy stories, etc., have sprung
from the supposed capture and marriage of these maidens by men who have
discovered them bathing, and stealthily appropriated their magic
raiment. These swan-shirts, in the more modern myths, become the
supernatural garments of the fairies, mermaids, etc., married to
mortals, and without which they find it impossible to leave their
husbands and resume their elfic nature.
On the west coast of Ireland the fishermen are loth to kill the seals,
which once abounded in some localities, owing to a popular superstition
that they enshrined "the souls of thim that were drowned at the flood."
They were supposed to possess the power of casting aside their external
skins, and disporting themselves in human form on the sea-shore. If a
mortal contrived to become possessed of one of these outer coverings
belonging to a female, he might claim her and keep her as his bride.
This seems to point to the origin of the stories about "mermaids" and
some similar sea monsters.
Dr. Hertz gives many examples of the prevalence of the were-wolf
superstition in Germany. In some instances the bear occupies the place
of the wolf. A girdle made of wolf or bear skin is supposed yet to
possess the power of transforming a man into one or other of these
animals. The skin of a man who has been hanged is considered equally
potent. The girdle must have a buckle which possesses seven tags or
tongues, and it is powerless when not affixed to the body. One were-wolf
could carry a cow in his mouth. He devoured human beings, too, as well
as cattle. He had, however, taught his wife how to treat him when in his
lupine form. "She used to unbuckle his belt, and he became a rational
man again." The wolf and the murderer were frequently hung on the same
gallows, hence the old Saxon name for this structure, _varagtreo_, or
wolf-tree. The mere certain recognition of a were-wolf is generally
sufficient to dissolve the spell. In cases of doubt, steel or iron is
thrown over the suspected animal. If this be done to a genuine
were-wolf, "the skin splits crosswise on the forehead, and the naked man
comes out through the opening." Kelly adds, "It frequently happens that
the were-wolf is frozen, that is to say, invulnerable by ordinary
weapons or missiles. In that case he must be shot with elder-pith, or
with balls made of inherited silver." The were-wolf of the eastern
portion of the continent of Europe appears to be confounded with the
vampire superstition, as in the Sclavonic tongues the same word is used
to designate both these mythic monsters.
Baron Langon, in his "Evenings with Prince Cambacérès," relates a story
of a vampire, or blood-sucker, named Rafin, on the authority of the
celebrated Fouché. The astute chief of the police, if not absolutely
imposed upon, was, certainly, much perplexed with the case. He says,--"I
gave orders to have Rafin arrested, and he was placed in confinement. I
paid him a visit. He was strongly bound, and in spite of his cries,
supplications, and resistance, I resolutely plunged into his flesh a
surgical instrument, which, without producing any injury, would cause an
effusion of blood. When he perceived my object he became furiously
irritated, and made inconceivable efforts to attack me. He threatened me
with his future revenge; but, heedless of his violence, I thrust the
instrument into him. No sooner did the first drop of blood appear than
the six old wounds opened afresh. All efforts to stop the bleeding
proved fruitless--and Rafin died." Some of the witnesses regarded the
affair as a police trick, Fouché says,--"As to myself, I have sifted the
matter deeply, and I am perplexed to the last degree. I cannot admit the
reality of vampires; yet it is certain that I witnessed the facts I have
stated." Two women were said to have pined away and died, owing to their
intercourse with this man.
As recently as the year 1718, a solemn judicial enquiry took place at
Caithness respecting the sufferings of one William Montgomery, who was
reduced to a most miserable condition owing to the "gambols of a legion
of cats." In Kirkpatrick Sharpe's introduction to Law's "Memorials," we
read that the said Montgomery's man servant averred that the feline
disturbers of his master's peace "spoke among themselves." The
hypochondriac, at length, driven to desperation, attacked the enemy with
"broadsword and axe," and utterly routed the caterwauling conclave,
killing some and wounding others. The said cats turned out to be
veritable witches, as was proved by the fact that two neighbouring "old
women died immediately, and a third lost a leg, which, having been
broken by a stroke of the hatchet, withered and dropped off."
It was customary, as recently as the sixteenth century, to punish
alleged were-wolves as remorselessly as supposed witches. Many suffered
at the stake. Kelly says, on the authority of Boquet (_Discours des
Sorciers_), that "a gentleman, looking out one evening from a window of
his château, saw a hunter whom he knew, and asked the man to bring him
something on his return from the chase. The hunter was attacked in the
plain by a great wolf, and, after a sharp conflict, cut off one of the
fore paws with his hunting knife. On his way back he called at the
château, and putting his hand into his game bag, to show the gentleman
the wolf's paw, he drew out a human hand with a gold ring, which the
gentleman at once recognised as his wife's. He looked for her, and found
her in the kitchen with one arm concealed under her apron, and, on
uncovering it, saw that the hand was gone. The lady was brought to
trial, confessed(!), and was burnt at Ryon. Boquet says he had this
story from a trustworthy person who had been on the spot a fortnight
after the event."
In Denmark, Iceland, Germany, and the North of England, there exist many
similar stories, but they are more or less connected with witchcraft,
with which, indeed, they seem to have much in common. The chief feature
is the transformation of a man into a horse, by a woman throwing a magic
halter over his head while he is lying in bed. The woman, who is a
disguised witch, then mounts the horse and gallops to the trysting
place, where her compeers meet to revel. If the man-horse can contrive
to slip the magic bridle from his head, and throw it over that of the
woman, she is suddenly transformed into a mare, and in turn is ridden
almost to death by her previous victim. One witch-mare, at Yarrowfoot, a
few years ago, according to Mr. Henderson, was found afterwards to be
shod in the usual manner, and sold to her own husband, who, on removing
the bridle, saw standing before him his wife, with a horseshoe nailed
to each hand and foot! Glanvil, in his "Saducismus Triumphatus," relates
an instance in which a "great army of witches" was charged with
performing this horse transformation feat on a large scale, at Blocula,
in Sweden, in 1669.
There is a German story of a joiner at Bühl, who, being troubled with
the nightmare, saw the elf enter his room, through a hole, in the shape
of a cat. He caught the animal and nailed one of its paws to the floor.
In the morning he was surprised to find his feline prisoner transformed
into a handsome young woman perfectly naked. He married her, however;
but, after they had had three children, she disappeared suddenly, in the
form of a cat, through the hole by which she had entered, her husband
having inadvertently removed the material with which he had blocked it
up.
In East Prussia, they have a story of a girl, who, without her
knowledge, was every evening transformed into a cat, and awoke much
fatigued. One night her lover caught a cat, which had regularly
tormented and scratched him at night, and secured it in a sack. The next
morning he found the cat transformed into his naked sweetheart. The
story adds she was cured by the parson of the parish.
In 1633, a "second batch" of Lancashire witches was tried, found guilty,
and sentenced to death, at Lancaster; but after more elaborate
investigation into the circumstances, first at Chester, under the
presidency of the bishop, and afterwards at London, by the physicians
and surgeons to the king, and again by the king himself, Charles I.,
fully convinced of their innocence, extended to them his royal pardon.
The deposition of the principal witness, "Edward Robinson, sonne of
Edmond Robinson, of Pendle Forest, mason, taken at Padiham, before
Richard Shuttleworth and John Starkey, Esquires, two of his Majestie's
Justices of Peace," affords curious evidence of the strength of this
superstition little more than two centuries ago. The deponent sayeth
that at the time he was occupied in "gettinge Bullas hee sawe two grey
hounds, vizt., a blacke and a browne one, come runninge over the next
field towards him. He verilie thinketh the one to be Mr. Butters and the
other to be Mr. Robinsons, the said Mr. Butter and Mr. Robinson then
havinge such like. And the said Grey Hounds came and fawned on him, they
having about their necks either of them a Coller, to either of which
Collers was tyed a strynge, which Collers, as this Informer affirmeth,
did shine like gold, and he thinkinge that some either of Mr. Butters or
Mr. Robinsons familie should have followed them, but seeinge noe bodie
to followe them, hee tooke the said Grey-hounds thinkinge to hunte with
them, and presentlie a hare did rise verie neere before him, at the
sight whereof he cried 'Loo, loo, loo,' but the doggs would not runn,
wherevpon hee beinge verie angrie tooke them, and with the string that
were at their Collers tyed either of them to a little bush at the next
hedge, and with a rodd that he had in his hand hee beate them, and
instead of the blacke grey-hound one Dickensons wife stud vpp, a
neighbour whom this Informer knoweth, and instead of the browne
Greyhound a little Boy, whom this Informer knoweth not, at which sight
this Informer being afrayd, endeavoured to runn awaie, but beinge stayed
by the woeman, vizt., Dickensons wife, shee put her hand into her
pocket, and pulled forth a piece of silver much like to a fayre
shillinge, and offered to give it him to hold his tongue, and not to
tell, which hee refused, sayinge, 'nay, thou art a witch,' wherevpon
shee put her hand into her pocket againe, and pulled out a thing like
unto a bridle that gingled, which shee put on the little Boyes head
which stood vpp in the browne greyhounds stead, wherevpon the said Boye
stood vpp a white horse. Then ymmediatlie the said Dickensons wife tooke
this Informer before her vpon the said horse." As in the case previously
referred to, the party galloped off to a feast of witches. It is true
Dr. Webster, who carefully examined the witness, informs us, in his
"Display of Witchcraft," that "the boy Robinson, in more mature years,
acknowledged that he had been instructed and suborned to make these
accusations by his father and others, and that, of course, the whole was
a fraud." Nevertheless, the belief in the probability of such
transformations must have been very general and deeply rooted, otherwise
such impostors could not have practised their villainy with the impunity
they did. Witches, we have previously seen, were often transformed into
hares. Margery Grant, the recently deceased Scotch witch, referred to in
a previous chapter, "believed herself to be transmutable, and avers that
she was, at times, actually changed by evil-disposed persons into a pony
or a hare, and rode for great distances, or hunted by dogs, as the case
might be."
Mr. A. Russel Wallace, in his "Malay Archipelago," says that it is yet
"universally believed in Lombock that some men have the power to turn
themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the sake of devouring
their enemies, and many strange tales are told of such transformations."
He adds that the islands of Bali and Lombock, situated to the east of
Java, "are the only islands in the whole Archipelago in which the Hindoo
religion still maintains itself--and they form the extreme point of the
two great zoological divisions of the Eastern hemisphere."
The owl and the eagle, both lightning birds of the Aryan mythology,
received divine honours from the Greeks. The eagle was Jove's emblem,
the owl that of Pallas, or Athenê. The latter was sometimes called
Glaucopis, or "owl-eyed," significant of the supernatural light which
was presumed to radiate from her lightning orbs.
The owl is not the only bird that is believed to have been transformed
into a human being skilled in the art of baking bread. The cuckoo and
the woodpecker have been subjected to a similar metamorphosis. The
legend of the owl and the baker's daughter appears to be still popular
in Gloucestershire. The story is generally told with a view to prevent
children and others from indulging in harsh conduct towards the poor.
Douce relates the legend in the following terms:--
"Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked
for some bread to eat: the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece
of dough into the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her
daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced
it to a very small size; the dough, however, immediately began to swell,
and presently became a most enormous size, whereupon the baker's
daughter cried out, 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which owl-like noise probably
induced our Saviour to transform her into that bird for her wickedness."
Dasent, in his "Popular Tales from the Norse," gives a very minute
version of this tradition, in which the purely heathen superstition is
related with the nomenclature modernised. The names, however, are its
only Christian attributes. It markedly exhibits the tendency of the
vulgar to confound one mystery or tradition with another, to which I
have previously referred. Dasent gives the story as follows:--
"In those days, when our Lord and St. Peter wandered upon earth, they
came once to an old wife's house, who sat baking. Her name was Gertrude,
and she had a red mutch on her head. They had walked a long way, and
were both hungry, and our Lord begged hard for a bannock to stay their
hunger. Yes, they should have it. So she took a little tiny piece of
dough and rolled it out, but as she rolled it, it grew until it covered
the whole griddle.
"Nay, that was too big; they couldn't have that. So she took a tinier
bit still; but when that was rolled out it covered the whole griddle
just the same, and that bannock was too big, she said; they couldn't
have that either.
"The third time she took a still tinier bit--so tiny that you could
scarce see it; but it was the same story over again--the bannock was too
big.
"'Well,' said Gertrude, 'I can't give you anything; you must just go
without, for all these bannocks are too big.'
"Then our Lord waxeth wroth, and said. 'Since you loved me so little as
to grudge me a morsel of food, you shall have this punishment--you shall
become a bird and seek your food between bark and bole, and never get a
drop to drink save when it rains.'
"He had scarce said the last word before she was turned into a great
black woodpecker, or Gertrude's bird, and flew from her kneading trough
right up the chimney; and till this very day you may see her flying
about, with her red mutch on her head, and her body all black, because
of the soot in the chimney; and so she hacks and taps away at the trees
for her food, and whistles when rain is coming, for she is ever athirst,
and then she looks for a drop to cool her tongue."
Brand informs us that "the woodpecker's cry denotes wet."
Grimm tells a German version of the story, in which the hard-hearted
baker is a man, but whose wife and six daughters were made of more
charitable materials. They privately bestowed what he had publicly
refused, and were rewarded by being converted into the "seven stars"
(the Pleiades), while the baker was transformed into a cuckoo. The
cuckoo is believed to continue his spring cry only so long as the "seven
stars" are visible in the heavens. Another version says the cuckoo was a
baker's or miller's man. He cheated the poor, and "when the dough
swelled by God's blessing in the oven, he drew it out and nipped off a
portion of it, crying each time 'gukuk,' which signifies 'look! look!'
For this crime he was converted into a cuckoo, and condemned to the
perpetual repetition of the monotonous cry."
A Lancashire superstition exists referred to in Chapter IX., in which
the plover is identified as the transmuted soul of a Jew. At least, when
seven of them are seen together, they are called the "seven whistlers,"
and their musical chorus bodes ill or harm to those who hear it. The
tradition represents them as the "souls of those Jews who assisted at
the crucifixion, and in consequence were doomed to float in the air for
ever."
Wordsworth, in his beautiful poem, "The White Doe of Rylstone," has
preserved the memory of a Yorkshire tradition which asserts that the
soul of the lady founder of Bolton Abbey revisited the ruins of the
venerable pile, in the form of a spotless white doe.
When Lady Aäliza mourned
Her son, and felt in her despair,
The pang of unavailing prayer;
Her son in Wharf's abysses drowned,
The noble boy of Egremound,
From which affliction, when God's grace
At length had in her heart found place,
A pious structure fair to see,
Rose up this stately Priory!
The lady's work,--but now laid low;
To the grief of her soul that doth come and go,
In the beautiful form of this innocent doe:
Which, though seemingly doomed in its breast to sustain
A softened remembrance of sorrow and pain,
Is spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright,--
And glides o'er the earth like an angel of light.
The Manx wren, the robin, and the stork are supposed to be inhabited by
the souls of human beings. MacTaggart, speaking of the wren,
says,--"Manx herring fishers dare not go to sea without one of these
birds taken dead with them, for fear of disasters and storms. Their
tradition is of a _sea spirit_ that hunted the _herring track_, attended
always by storms, and at last it assumed the figure of a wren and flew
away. So they think that when they have a dead wren with them all is
snug. The poor bird had a sad life of it in that singular island. When
one is seen at any time, scores of Manxmen start and hunt it down." The
stork in Prussia, on the contrary, is protected from injury, owing to
the belief that "he is elsewhere a man." Gervase of Tilbury informs us
that in England it was regarded as both bird and man. It was a very
wide-spread belief that the human soul left its earthly tabernacle in
the form of a bird. The "Milky-way" is, in Finland and Lithuania, the
"Birds' way," or the "Way of Souls." Grimm tells us that every member of
a certain Polish noble family are turned into eagles at death. He adds
the eldest daughter of the Pileck line, if they die unmarried, are
transformed into doves, but, if married, into owls. Kelly relates an
anecdote of a gentleman in Soho, London, who believed that the departing
soul of his brother-in-law, in the form of a bird, tapped at his window
at the time of his death. The mother and sister, in Grimm's story of
"The White and the Black Bride," push the true bride into the stream. At
the same or the following moment a snow-white swan is discovered
swimming gracefully down the river.
M. Paul B. Du Chaillu, in his recent work, "A Journey to Ashango-land;
and further penetration into Equatorial Africa," gives two curious
illustrations of the existence of a belief in men being sometimes
transformed into beasts. He says,--
"I cannot avoid relating in this place a very curious instance of a
strange and horrid form of monomania which is sometimes displayed by
these primitive negroes. It was related to me so circumstantially by
Akondogo, and so well confirmed by others, that I cannot help fully
believing in all the principal facts of the case. Poor Akondogo said
that he had had plenty of trouble in his day, that a leopard had killed
two of his men, and that he had a great many palavers to settle on
account of these deaths. Not knowing exactly what he meant, I said to
him, 'Why did you not make a trap to catch the leopard?' To my
astonishment, he replied, 'The leopard was not of the kind you mean. It
was a man who had changed himself into a leopard, and then became a man
again.' I said, 'Akondogo, I will never believe your story. How can a
man be turned into a leopard?' He again asserted that it was true, and
gave me the following history:--'Whilst he was in the woods with his
people, gathering india-rubber, one of his men disappeared, and,
notwithstanding all their endeavours, nothing could be found of him but
a quantity of blood. The next day another man disappeared, and in
searching for him more blood was found. All the people got alarmed, and
Akondogo sent for a great doctor to drink the mboundou, and solve the
mystery of these two deaths. To the horror and astonishment of the old
chief, the doctor declared it was Akondogo's own child (his nephew and
heir), Akosho, who had killed the two men. Akosho was sent for, and,
when asked by the chief, answered that it was truly he who had committed
the murders; that he could not help it, for he had been turned into a
leopard, and his heart longed for blood; and that after each deed he had
turned into a man again. Akondogo loved his boy so much that he would
not believe his own confession, until the boy took him to a place in the
forest where lay the two bodies, one with the head cut off, and the
other with the belly torn open. Upon this, Akondogo gave orders to seize
the lad. He was bound with ropes, taken to the village, and then tied in
a horizontal position to a post, and burnt slowly to death, all the
people standing by until he expired.'
"I must say the end of the story seemed to me too horrible to listen to.
I shuddered, and was ready to curse the race that was capable of
committing such acts. But on careful enquiry, I found it was a case of
monomania with the boy Akosho, and that he really was the murderer of
the two men. It is probable that the superstitious belief of these
morbidly imaginative Africans in the transformation of men into
leopards, being early instilled into the minds of their children, is the
direct cause of murders being committed under the influence of it. The
boy himself, as well as Akondogo and all the people, believed he had
really turned into a leopard, and the cruel punishment was partly in
vengeance for witchcraft, and partly to prevent the committal of more
crimes by the boy in a similar way, for, say they, the man has a spirit
of witchcraft."
Again, after informing us that the Ashango people believed (not knowing
that he was really wounded in his disastrous retreat from their
country), that he, being "Oguisi," or "the spirit," was invulnerable,
and that their poisoned arrows glanced from his body without doing him
any injury, he further adds, that Magouga, one of his native guides,
said "he had heard that at one time I had turned myself into a leopard,
had hid myself in a tree, and had sprung upon the Mouaou people as they
came to make war upon my men; that at other times I turned myself into a
gorilla, or into an elephant, and struck terror and death among the
Mouaou and Mobana. Magouga finished his story by asking me for a 'war
fetich,' for he said I must possess the art of making fetiches, or I and
my men could not have escaped so miraculously."
It is necessary to remind the reader that Du Chaillu and others have
failed to find any remains of ancient civilisation on the western coast
of Equatorial Africa, and that he expressly states his belief in the
native tradition that the ancestors of the present tribes migrated from
the east.
The Rev. G. W. Cox, in his "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," referring
to the origin of Greek "Lykanthropy," says,--"The question to be
answered is, whence came the notions that men were changed into wolves,
bears, and birds, and not into lions, fishes, or reptiles; and to this
question Comparative Mythology seems to me to furnish a complete answer;
nor can I disavow my belief that this loathsome vampire superstition was
in the first instance purely the result of a verbal equivocation which,
as we have seen, has furnished so fruitful a source of myths." Mr. Cox
regards the superstition to have originated in "that confusion between
Leukos bright, as a general epithet, and the same word Lukos as a
special name for the wolf, from which sprung first the myth of the
transformation of Lycaon, and then probably the wide-spread superstition
of Lykanthropy."
Respecting the Eastern origin of this superstition, Kelly says,--"The
were-wolf tradition has not been discovered with certainty amongst the
Hindoos, but there is no European nation of Aryan descent in which it
has not existed from time immemorial. Hence, it is certain that the
tradition itself, or the germs of it more or less developed, must have
been brought by them all from Arya; and if Dr. Schwartz has not actually
proved his case, he seems at least to have conjectured rightly in
assigning, as one of these germs, the Aryan conception of the howling
wind as a wolf. The Maruts and other beings who were busy in the storm
assumed various shapes. The human form was proper to many or all of
them, for they were identical with the Pitris or Fathers, and it would
have been a very natural thought, when a storm broke out suddenly, that
one or more of these people of the air had turned into wolves for the
occasion. It was also a primæval notion that there were dogs and wolves
amongst the dwellers in hell; and Weber, who has shown that this belief
was entertained by the early Hindoos, is of opinion that these infernal
animals were real were-wolves, that is to say, men upon whom such a
transformation had been inflicted as a punishment."
The darkness of night is personified by the wolf in the folk-lore of the
Teutonic nations. It is the Fenris of the Edda. In this sense the mythic
wolf and "Little Red Riding Hood" are transparent enough. The ruddy glow
of the evening sunlight is extinguished in the darkness of night. The
Rev. G. W. Cox says that in one version of the story "Little Red Cap
escapes his malice as Memnon rises again from Hades." This resurrection
typifies the dawn springing from the darkness of the night on the
following morning.
The Greek myth developed into the story that Zeus, when visiting Lycaon,
was fed by his numerous sons with human flesh, and that he, in his anger
at such treatment, turned them all into wolves. Similar transformations
are frequent in the classical myths. Kirke turned the followers of
Odysseus into swine, and Callisto was turned into a bear by the anger of
Artemis.
This were-wolf, or man-wolf, myth, from the Anglo-Saxon _wer_, a man,
has doubtless undergone much change and mutilation in its descent to
modern times. The earlier Apollo of the Greeks, at the time of Homer
even, was not the Sun-god he afterwards became. He was the "god of the
summer storms," and, as such, he himself appeared in the form of a wolf.
His mother, Latona, as Kelly observes, was regarded as "the dark
storm-cloud, escorted at Jove's command by the Northwind," and she "came
as a she-wolf from Lycia to the place where she was delivered of her
twins.... In mythical language, Apollo was the son of Zeus; that is to
say, he was Zeus in another form. The two gods were, in fact, like Indra
and Rudra, only different personifications of the same cycle of natural
phenomena."
The Laureate, in his recent poem, "The Coming of Arthur," has the
following beautiful poetic illustration of that which, no doubt,
underlies much of the were-wolf superstitions:--
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields,
And wallow'd in the gardens of the king.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meal would growl,
And mock their foster-mother on four feet,
Till, straighten'd, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves.