Page images
PDF
EPUB

260

VAMPYRE WEREWOLF.

The change of a werewolf back again to human form does not always take place so quickly as to prevent the pursuers from descrying in the man some vestige of the bestial shape. A villager of Elmenhorst had from his birth the gift of changing himself into a wolf. In that form he was once chased into his bedroom by two Hamburg butchers armed with great whips. They found him in bed with his wife, but not yet completely retransformed, for the wolf's tail still hung out from under the quilt.

Distinct from the ordinary werewolf which we have hitherto been considering is another kind which is near akin to the vampyre, for it is not a transformed living man, but a corpse that has risen from the grave in the form of a wolf. The belief in this kind of werewolf still prevails in Prussia, as it did formerly in Normandy. In that province, down to the close of the last century, a change of this nature not uncommonly befell the remains of one who had died in mortal sin. First, the corpse began to gnaw and tear the cloth that covered its face. Then fearful sounds of wailing were heard issuing out of the ground; the coffin was burst open; the earth that lay upon it was rent, and flames of hell broke forth. Whenever the watchful priest of the parish became aware of those well-known tokens, he

KING JOHN A WEREWOLF.

261

had the corpse dug up, and then cutting off its head with the sexton's spade, and bidding defiance to the hell-hounds that strove against him, he carried the head to the nearest stream and cast it in. It sank at once; but this was not all; for, weighted with its doom, it pierced the bottom of the river, and pressed slowly downwards through the earth to the place of its everlasting torments.*

King John of England is said to have gone about as a werewolf after his death. An old Norman chronicle avers that the monks of Worcester were compelled by the frightful noises proceeding from his grave, to dig up his body and cast it out of consecrated ground. "Thus the ill presage of his surname Lackland was completely realised, for he lost in his lifetime almost all the domains under his suzerainty, and even after death he could not keep peaceful possession of his tomb."

Trials of alleged werewolves (loups-garous) were very numerous in France in the sixteenth century, and many of the accused were condemned to the flames. Boquet, in his Discours des Sorciers, relates the following facts as having occurred in 1588, near Apchon, in the mountains of Auvergne :-A gentleman looking out one evening from a window of

* Mdlle. Bosquet.

262

VAMPYRE WEREWOLF.

his château, saw a hunter whom he knew, and asked the man to bring him something on his return from the chace. The hunter was attacked in the plain by a great wolf, and after a sharp conflict cut off one of its 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 recognized 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 he 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 Eastern Europe the werewolf appears in his most appalling aspect, as a being whose nature is blended with that of the vampyre. The same word is used to designate both in the languages of most branches of the Slave stock; but this appears to be a comparatively modern trait, for there is no sign of it in the ancient tradition of the Neurians, of which we have already spoken. In Poland there are traces of the old belief that werewolves were bound to assume that form at certain periods in every year; in the

POLISH WEREWOLVES.

263

Middle Ages it was twice a year, at Christmas and St. John's Day; but in later legends the wilkolak, or werewolf, is generally the sorceress's vengeance. Once

victim of a spiteful

upon a time, when

some young people were dancing on the banks of the Vistula, a wolf broke in among them and carried off the prettiest girl of the village. The young men pursued, but they were unarmed, and the wolf escaped with his booty to the woods. Fifty years afterwards, whilst the villagers were again making merry on the same spot, there appeared among them a woebegone, ice-grey man, in whom an aged villager recognized his long-lost brother. The latter narrated how he had long ago been turned into a wolf by a wicked witch; how he had carried off the beautiful girl during the harvest feast, and how the poor thing had died of grief a year after in the forest. "From that time forth," he said, "I flung myself with ravenous hunger upon every human being that came in my way;" and he showed his hands, which were still all smeared with blood. "For the last four years," he continued, "I have been going about again in human shape, and I am come to look once more upon my native place, for I must soon become a wolf again." Hardly had he uttered the words ere he sprang to his feet in the form

264

POLISH WEREWOLVES.

of a wolf, and ran off howling, never to be seen again.

It is related of another Pole that he was turned into a wolf by a witch whose love he had despised. In spite of his bestial form he loathed raw flesh, and lived on milk, bread, and other food, which he snatched from the labourers in the field. Living in this way he wandered about for many a long year without sleeping, until a great weariness at last overcame him, and he fell asleep. On awaking, he found himself again a man, and ran naked as he was to his village; but there he found everything changed.

A peasant had been seven years a werewolf, when the witchery suddenly ceased, and he hastened home; but finding that his wife was married to his man, he cried out in his wrath, "Oh, why am I no longer a werewolf, that I might punish this base woman ! No sooner had he uttered the impious words than, again become a wolf, he sprang at his wife, devoured the child she had borne to his man, and wounded herself mortally. The neighbours hastened to the spot and killed him; but when light came, they saw, instead of a dead wolf, the body of the man they had well known.

A witch came to a wedding, rolled her girdle

« PreviousContinue »