The Book of Were-Wolves Part 3

Then said Thorsteinn, 'Now will I make a vow to Him who created the sun, for I ween that he is most able to take the ban of you, and I will undertake for His sake, in return, to rescue the babe and to bring it up for him, till He who created man shall take it to Himself-for this I reckon He will do!' After this they left their horses and sought the child, and a thrall of Thorir had found it near the Marram river. They saw that a kerchief had been spread over its face, but it had rumpled it up over its nose; the little thing was all but dead, but they took it up and flitted it home to Thorir's house, and he brought the lad up, and called him Thorkell Rumple; as for the berserkr fits, they came on him no more." (c. 37)

But the most remarkable pa.s.sages bearing on our subject will be found in the _Aigla_.

There was a man, Ulf (the wolf) by name, son of Bjalfi and Hallbera.

Ulf was a man so tall and strong that the like of him was not to be seen in the land at that time. And when he was young he was out viking expeditions and harrying . . . He was a great landed proprietor. It was his wont to rise early, and to go about the men's work, or to the smithies, and inspect all his goods and his acres; and sometimes he talked with those men who wanted his advice; for he was a good adviser, he was so clear-headed; however, every day, when it drew towards dusk, he became so savage that few dared exchange a word with him, for he was given to dozing in the afternoon.

"People said that he was much given to changing form (_hamrammr_), so he was called the evening-wolf, _kveldulfr_."--(c. 1.) In this and the following pa.s.sages, I do not consider _hamrammr_ to have its primary signification of actual transformation, but simply to mean subject to fits of diabolical possession, under the influence of which the bodily powers were greatly exaggerated. I shall translate pretty freely from this most interesting Saga, as I consider that the description given in it of Kveldulf in his fits greatly elucidates our subject.

"Kveldulf and Skallagrim got news during summer of an expedition.

Skallagrim. was the keenest-sighted of men, and he caught sight of the vessel of Hallvard and his brother, and recognized it at once. He followed their course and marked the haven into which they entered at even. Then he returned to his company, and told Kveldulf of what he had seen . . . . Then they busked them and got ready both their boats; in each they put twenty men, Kveldulf steering one and Skallagrim the other, and they rowed in quest of the s.h.i.+p. Now when they came to the place where it was, they lay to. Hallvard and his men had spread an awning over the deck, and were asleep. Now when Kveldulf and his party came upon them, the watchers who were seated at the end of the bridge sprang up and called to the people on board to wake up, for there was danger in the wind. So Hallvard and his men sprang to arms. Then came Kveldulf over the bridge and Skallagrim with him into the s.h.i.+p.

Kveldulf had in his hand a cleaver, and he bade his men go through the vessel and hack away the awning. But he pressed on to the quarter-deck. It is said the were-wolf fit came over him and many of his companions. They slow all the men who were before them. Skallagrim did the same as he went round the vessel. He and his father paused not till they had cleared it. Now when Kveldulf came upon the quarter-deck he raised his cleaver, and smote Hallvard through helm and head, so that the haft was buried in the flesh; but he dragged it to him so violently that he whisked Hallvard into the air., and flung him overboard. Skallagrim cleared the forecastle and slew Sigtrygg. Many men flung themselves overboard, but Skallagrim's men took to the boat and rowed about, killing all they found. Thus perished Hallvard with fifty men. Skallagrim and his party took the s.h.i.+p and all the goods which had belonged to Hallvard . . . and flitted it and the wares to their own vessel, and then exchanged s.h.i.+ps, lading their capture, but quitting their own. After which they filled their old s.h.i.+p with stones, brake it up and sank it. A good breeze sprang up, and they stood out to sea.

It is said of these men in the engagement who were were-wolves, or those on whom came the berserkr rage, that as long as the fit was on them no one could oppose them, they were so strong; but when it had pa.s.sed off they were feebler than usual. It was the same with Kveldulf when the were-wolf fit went off him--he then felt the exhaustion consequent on the fight, and he was so completely 'done up,' that he was obliged to take to his bed."

In like manner Skallagrim had his fits of frenzy, taking after his amiable father.

"Thord and his companion were opposed to Skallagrim in the game, and they were too much for him, he wearied, and the game went better with them. But at dusk, after sunset, it went worse with Egill and Thord, for Skallagrim became so strong that he caught up Thord and cast him down, so that he broke his bones, and that was the death of him. Then he caught at Egill. Thorgerd Brak was the name of a servant of Skallagrim, who had been foster-mother to Egill. She was a woman of great stature, strong as a man and a bit of a witch. Brak exclaimed,--'Skallagrim! are you now falling upon your son?' (hamaz u at syni inum). Then Skallagrim let go his hold of Egill and clutched at her. She started aside and fled. Skallagrim. followed. They ran out upon Digraness, and she sprang off the headland into the water.

Skallagrim cast after her a huge stone which struck her between the shoulders, and she never rose after it. The place is now called Brak's Sound."--(c. 40.)

Let it be observed that in these pa.s.sages from the _Aigla_, the words a hamaz, hamrammr, &c. are used without any intention of conveying the idea of a change of bodily shape, though the words taken literally a.s.sert it. For they are derived from _hamr_, a skin or habit; a word which has its representatives in other Aryan languages, and is therefore a primitive word expressive of the skin of a beast.

The Sanskrit ### _carmma_; the Hindustanee ### _cam_, hide or skin; and ### _camra_, leather; the Persian ### _game_, clothing, disguise; the Gothic _ham_ or _hams_, skin; and even the Italian _camicia_, and the French _chemise_, are cognate words. [1]

[1. I shall have more to say on this subject in the chapter on the Mythology of Lycanthropy.]

It seems probable accordingly that the verb _a hamaz_ was first applied to those who wore the skins of savage animals, and went about the country as freebooters; but that popular superst.i.tion soon invested them with supernatural powers, and they were supposed to a.s.sume the forms of the beasts in whose skins they were disguised. The verb then acquired the significance "to become a were-wolf, to change shape." It did not stop there, but went through another change of meaning, and was finally applied to those who were afflicted with paroxysms of madness or demoniacal possession.

This was not the only word connected with were-wolves which helped on the superst.i.tion. The word _vargr_, a wolf, had a double significance, which would be the means of originating many a were-wolf story.

_Vargr_ is the same as _u-argr_, restless; _argr_ being the same as the Anglo-Saxon _earg_. _Vargr_ had its double signification in Norse.

It signified a wolf, and also a G.o.dless man. This _vargr_ is the English _were_, in the word were-wolf, and the _garou_ or _varou_ in French. The Danish word for were-wolf is _var-ulf_, the Gothic _vaira-ulf_. In the _Romans de Garin_, it is "Leu warou, sanglante beste." In the _Vie de S. Hildefons_ by Gauthier de Coinsi,--

Cil lon desve, cil lou garol, Ce sunt deable, que saul Ne puent estre de nos mordre.

Here the loup-garou is a devil. The Anglo-Saxons regarded him as an evil man: _wearg_, a scoundrel; Gothic _varys_, a fiend. But very often the word meant no more than an outlaw. Pluquet in his _Contes Populaires_ tells us that the ancient Norman laws said of the criminals condemned to outlawry for certain offences, _Wargus esto_: be an outlaw!

In like manner the Lex Ripuaria, t.i.t. 87, "Wargus sit, hoe est expulsus." In the laws of Canute, he is called verevulf. (_Leges Canuti_, Schmid, i. 148.) And the Salic Law (t.i.t. 57) orders: "Si quis corpus jam sepultum effoderit, aut expoliaverit, _wargus_ sit." "If any one shall have dug up or despoiled an already buried corpse, let him be a varg."

Sidonius Apollinaris. says, "Unam feminam quam forte _vargorum_, hoc enim nomine indigenas latrunculos nuncupant," as though the common name by which those who lived a freebooter life were designated, was varg.

In like manner Palgrave a.s.sures us in his _Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth_, that among the Anglo, Saxons an _utlagh_, or out-law, was said to have the head of a wolf. If then the term _vargr_ was applied at one time to a wolf, at another to an outlaw who lived the life of a wild beast, away from the haunts of men "he shall be driven away as a wolf, and chased so far as men chase wolves farthest," was the legal form of sentence--it is certainly no matter of wonder that stories of out-laws should have become surrounded with mythical accounts of their transformation into wolves.

But the very idiom of the Norse was calculated to foster this superst.i.tion. The Icelanders had curious expressions which are sufficiently likely to have produced misconceptions.

[1. SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS: Opera, lib. vi. ep. 4.]

Snorri not only relates that Odin changed himself into another form, but he adds that by his spells he turned his enemies into boars. In precisely the same manner does a hag, Ljot, in the Vatnsdaela Saga, say that she could have turned Thorsteinn and Jokull into boars to run about with the wild beasts (c. xxvi.); and the expression _vera at gjalti_, or at _gjoltum_, to become a boar, is frequently met with in the Sagas.

"Thereupon came Thorarinn and his men upon them, and Nagli led the way; but when he saw weapons drawn he was frightened, and ran away up the mountain, and became a boar. . . . And Thorarinn and his men took to run, so as to help Nagli, lest he should tumble off the cliffs into the sea" (Eyrbyggja Saga, c. xviii.) A similar expression occurs in the Gisla Saga Surssonar, p. 50. In the Hrolfs Saga Kraka, we meet with a troll in boar's shape, to whom divine honours are paid; and in the Kjalnessinga Saga, c. xv., men are likened to boars--"Then it began to fare with them as it fares with boars when they fight each other, for in the same manner dropped their foam." The true signification of _vera at gjalti_ is to be in such a state of fear as to lose the senses; but it is sufficiently peculiar to have given rise to superst.i.tious stories.

I have dwelt at some length on the Northern myths relative to were-wolves and animal transformations, because I have considered the investigation of these all-important towards the elucidation of the truth which lies at the bottom of mediaeval superst.i.tion, and which is nowhere so obtainable as through the Norse literature. As may be seen from the pa.s.sages quoted above at length, and from an examination of those merely referred to, the result arrived at is pretty conclusive, and may be summed up in very few words.

The whole superstructure of fable and romance relative to transformation into wild beasts, reposes simply on this basis of truth--that among the Scandinavian nations there existed a form of madness or possession, under the influence of which men acted as though they were changed into wild and savage brutes, howling, foaming at the mouth, ravening for blood and slaughter, ready to commit any act of atrocity, and as irresponsible for their actions as the wolves and bears, in whose skins they often equipped themselves.

The manner in which this fact became invested with supernatural adjuncts I have also pointed out, to wit, the change in the significance of the word designating the madness, the double meaning of the word _vargr_, and above all, the habits and appearance of the maniacs. We shall see instances of berserkr rage reappearing in the middle ages, and late down into our own times, not exclusively in the North, but throughout France, Germany, and England, and instead of rejecting the accounts given by chroniclers as fabulous, because there is much connected with them which seems to be fabulous, we shall be able to refer them to their true origin.

It may be accepted as an axiom, that no superst.i.tion of general acceptance is dest.i.tute of a foundation of truth; and if we discover the myth of the were-wolf to be widely spread, not only throughout Europe, but through the whole world, we may rest a.s.sured that there is a solid core of fact, round which popular superst.i.tion has crystallized; and that fact is the existence of a species of madness, during the accesses of which the person afflicted believes himself to be a wild beast, and acts like a wild beast.

In some cases this madness amounts apparently to positive possession, and the diabolical acts into which the possessed is impelled are so horrible, that the blood curdles in reading them, and it is impossible to recall them without a shudder.

CHAPTER V.

THE WERE-WOLF IN THE MIDDLE-AGES.

Olaus Magnus relates that--"In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.

"On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a mult.i.tude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above another in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves. . . . Between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland are the walls of a certain old ruined castle. At this spot congregate thousands, on a fixed occasion, and try their agility in jumping. Those who are unable to bound over the wall, as; is often the case with the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain." [1] Olaus relates also in c. xlvii. the story of a certain n.o.bleman who was travelling through a large forest with some peasants in his retinue who dabbled in the black art. They found no house where they could lodge for the night, and were well-nigh famished. Then one of the peasants offered, if all the rest would hold their tongues as to what he should do, that he would bring them a lamb from a distant flock.

[1. OLAUS MAGNUS: _Historia de Vent. Septent_. Basil. 15, lib. xviii.

cap. 45.]

He thereupon retired into the depths of the forest and changed his form into that of a wolf, fell upon the flock, and brought a lamb to his companions in his mouth. They received it with grat.i.tude. Then he retired once more into the thicket, and transformed himself back again into his human shape.

The wife of a n.o.bleman in Livonia expressed her doubts to one of her slaves whether it were possible for man or woman thus to change shape.

The servant at once volunteered to give her evidence of the possibility. He left the room, and in another moment a wolf was observed running over the country. The dogs followed him, and notwithstanding his resistance, tore out one of his eyes. Next day the slave appeared before his mistress blind of an eye.

Bp. Majolus [1] and Caspar Peucer [2] relate the following circ.u.mstances of the Livonians:--

[1. MAJOLI _Episc. Vulturoniensis Dier. Canicul._ Helenopolis, 1612, tom. ii. colloq. 3.]

[2. CASPAR PEUCER: _Comment. de Praecipuis Divin. Generibus_, 1591, p.

169.]

At Christmas a boy lame of a leg goes round the country summoning the devil's followers, who are countless, to a general conclave. Whoever remains behind, or goes reluctantly, is scourged by another with an iron whip till the blood flows, and his traces are left in blood. The human form vanishes, and the whole mult.i.tude become wolves. Many thousands a.s.semble. Foremost goes the leader armed with an iron whip, and the troop follow, "firmly convinced in their imaginations that they are transformed into wolves." They fall upon herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, but they have no power to slay men. When they come to a river, the leader smites the water with his scourge, and it divides, leaving a dry path through the midst, by which the pack may go. The transformation lasts during twelve days, at the expiration of which period the wolf-skin vanishes, and the human form reappears. This superst.i.tion was expressly forbidden by the church. "Credidisti, quod quidam credere solent, ut illae quae a vulgo Parcae vocantur, ipsae, vel sint vel possint hoc facere quod creduntur, id est, dum aliquis h.o.m.o nascitur, et tunc valeant illum designare ad hoc quod velint, ut quandocunque h.o.m.o ille voluerit, in lupum transformari possit, quod vulgaris stult.i.tia, _werwolf_ vocat, aut in aliam aliquam figuram?"--Ap. Burchard. (d. 1024). In like manner did S. Boniface preach against those who believed superst.i.tiously in it strigas et fictos lupos." (_Serm_. apud Mart. et Durand. ix. 217.)

In a dissertation by Muller [1] we learn, on the authority of Cluverius and Dannhaverus (_Acad. Homilet._ p. ii.), that a certain Albertus Pericofcius in Muscovy was wont to tyrannize over and hara.s.s his subjects in the most unscrupulous manner. One night when he was absent from home, his whole herd of cattle, acquired by extortion, perished. On his return he was informed of his loss, and the wicked man broke out into the most horrible blasphemies, exclaiming, "Let him who has slain, eat; if G.o.d chooses, let him devour me as well."

[1. De {Greek _Lukanrwpia_}. Lipsiae, 1736.]

As he spoke, drops of blood fell to earth, and the n.o.bleman, transformed into a wild dog, rushed upon his dead cattle, tore and mangled the carca.s.ses and began to devour them; possibly he may be devouring them still (_ac forsan hodie que pascitur_). His wife, then near her confinement, died of fear. Of these circ.u.mstances there were not only ear but also eye witnesses. (_Non ab auritis tantum, sed et ocidatis accepi, quod narro_). Similarly it is related of a n.o.bleman in the neighbourhood of Prague, that he robbed his subjects of their goods and reduced them to penury through his exactions. He took the last cow from a poor widow with five children, but as a judgment, all his own cattle died. He then broke into fearful oaths, and G.o.d transformed him into a dog: his human head, however, remained.

S. Patrick is said to have changed Vereticus, king of Wales, into a wolf, and S. Natalis, the abbot, to have p.r.o.nounced anathema upon an ill.u.s.trious family in Ireland; in consequence of which, every male and female take the form of wolves for seven years and live in the forests and career over the bogs, howling mournfully, and appeasing their hunger upon the sheep of the peasants. [1] A duke of Prussia, according to Majolus, had a countryman brought for sentence before him, because he had devoured his neighbour's cattle. The fellow was an ill-favoured, deformed man, with great wounds in his face, which he had received from dogs' bites whilst he had been in his wolf's form.

It was believed that he changed shape twice in the year, at Christmas and at Midsummer. He was said to exhibit much uneasiness and discomfort when the wolf-hair began to break out and his bodily shape to change.

[1. PHIL. HARTUNG: _Conciones Tergeminae_, pars ii. p. 367.]

He was kept long in prison and closely watched, lest he should become a were-wolf during his confinement and attempt to escape, but nothing remarkable took place. If this is the same individual as that mentioned by Olaus Magnus, as there seems to be a probability, the poor fellow was burned alive.