POLISH WEREWOLVES.

265

together, laid it on the threshold, and poured on the floor a drink brewed from linden wood. After this, when the new-married couple and their friends stepped over the threshold, they were turned into wolves on the spot, and in that form they prowled for three years about the witch's house with hideous howlings. On the day when the enchantment expired, the witch came out with a fur cloak, wrapped it, with the hairy side out, round one werewolf after another, and thereby restored them to their natural shape; but the bridegroom's tail, which she had left uncovered by the cloak, stuck to him for the rest of his days. This happened in the year 1821 or 1822.

Of another wedding party of Poles it is related that they became werewolves through a spell laid on them by a soldier upon whom the bridegroom had set his dogs. Some years afterwards three werewolves were killed in a great hunt, and under the skin of one of them was found a fiddle, under those of the other two were the wedding dresses of the bride and bridegroom.*

* The examples of the werewolf tradition in this chapter are taken for the most part from Dr. Hertz's treatise.

CHAPTER X.

THE WILD HUNT-THE TWILIGHT OF THE Gods.

WHEN the Romans and the Germans became acquainted with each other's gods, both sides agreed in identifying the Odin, Woden, or Wuotan of the one with the Mercury of the other. Tacitus, in his work on the Germans, written in the first century of our era, says that above all the immortals they worshipped Mercury, and propitiated him with human sacrifices. We are told also in the legendary history of our own country that when Hengist and Horsa arrived with their Saxons in Britain, and were asked by King Vortigern what gods they adored, "We sacrifice,” said they, "chiefly to Woden, whom you call Mercury, and to his wife Frea." Hence, when the planetary week of seven days was adopted by the Germans in the fourth century, the Roman dies Mercurii (French Mercredi) became their Woden's-day, in English, Wednesday.

There were two principal reasons for this agreement between the two races: one was that both gods

were givers of wealth and good fortune; the other, that whereas it was Mercury's office to conduct the shades to Hades, so Woden rode with the wild host of the dead and led them to Walhalla.

The name of Woden or Wuotan denotes the stormy or furious goer, being derived from a verb which is closely related to the Lowland Scotch word wud, mad or furious.* The verb itself survives in English, but greatly tamed down and restricted in meaning, for it now signifies nothing more violent than to walk through shallow water, to wade. Originally it meant to go like one that is "wud," to go as the winds go when they rend the forests in their furious course. So went Woden or Odin, whose original nature was that of a storm-god;† and that is the character he sustains at this day in the popular legends of Germany. They picture him as sweeping through the air in the roaring winds, either alone or with a great retinue consisting of the souls of the dead, which have become winds, and have, like the Maruts, taken the shape of men, dogs, boars, &c. In some parts of Germany the hunt is called Heljagd or dead hunt, in others the English hunt (die engelske

*"The women are a' gane wud."-Jacobite song of the '45. "Dinna put a knife in a wud man's hand."-Proverb.

Wâta, the Sanscrit name of the wind, is radically the same as Wuotan.

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THE WILD HUNT.

jagd), which means the same thing (p. 123), England being another name for the nether world.* The apparition is known under two forms and by corresponding names, as the Wild Hunt and as the Furious Host. The former occurs chiefly in North and the latter in South Germany.

Mounted on his white or dappled-grey steed, the wild huntsman may always be recognized by his broad-brimmed hat and his wide mantle, from which he is surnamed Hakelbärend or Hakelberg, an old word signifying mantle-wearer. The hooting owl Tutursel flies before him, and ravens, birds peculiarly sacred to Woden, accompany the chase. Whoever sees it approach must fall flat on the ground, or shelter himself under an odd number of boards, nine or eleven, otherwise he will be borne away through the air and set down hundreds of miles away from home, among people who speak a strange tongue. It is still more dangerous to look out of the window when Odin is sweeping by. The rash man is struck dead, or at least he gets a box on the ear that makes his head swell as big as a bucket and leaves a fiery mark on his cheek. In some instances the offender has been struck blind or mad. There are certain places where Woden is accustomed to feed his horse

* Kuhn, Westf. ii. 13.

THE WILD HUNTSMAN'S HOUNDS. 269

or let it graze, and in those places the wind is always blowing. He has also a preference for certain tracks, over which he hunts again and again at fixed seasons, from which circumstance districts and villages in the old Saxon land received the name of Woden's Way. Houses and barns in which there are two or three doors opposite each other are very liable to be made thoroughfares by the wild hunt.

The wild huntsman's hounds can talk like men. A peasant caught one of them, a little one, and hid it in his sack. Up came the wild huntsman and missed it. "Where are you, Waldmann?" he cried. "In Heineguggeli's sack," was the answer. When the hounds are running aloft their hair drops rain ; when they light upon the earth they sniff about the people they meet, and greedily devour whatever comes in their way. It is recommended, as a means of safety, to give them a bag of meal, that they may eat the contents as they fly through the air. When Woden rides through a house he often leaves one of his hounds behind him. It lies down on the hearth, and there it remains for a whole year, howling and whining and living upon nothing but ashes, until the god returns, when it jumps up, wags its tail, and joins the pack again. There is only one way of ridding the house sooner of the unwelcome guest, and