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                              WERWOLVES


                          BY THE SAME AUTHOR

               SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES

                     THE HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON

                         SCOTTISH GHOST TALES

                         BYEWAYS OF GHOSTLAND

                          GHOSTLY PHENOMENA

                 THE REMINISCENCES OF MRS. E. M. WARD




                              WERWOLVES


                                  BY

                          ELLIOTT O'DONNELL


                          METHUEN & CO. LTD.
                         36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
                                LONDON


                      _First Published in 1912_




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                                        PAGE
     I. WHAT IS A WERWOLF?                                        1

    II. WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS COMPARED WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF
          LYCANTHROPY                                            20

   III. THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES                                 44

    IV. HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF                                  55

     V. WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM                                   71

    VI. THE WERWOLF IN THE BRITISH ISLES                         92

   VII. THE WERWOLF IN FRANCE                                   110

  VIII. WERWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND GHOULS                       126

    IX. WERWOLVES IN GERMANY                                    143

     X. A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK IN THE HARZ MOUNTAINS; OR, THE
          CASE OF THE COUNTESS HILDA VON BREBER                 161

    XI. WERWOLVES IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA   174

   XII. THE WERWOLF IN SPAIN                                    194

  XIII. THE WERWOLF IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS              212

   XIV. THE WERWOLVES AND MARAS OF DENMARK                      225

    XV. WERWOLVES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN                          236

   XVI. WERWOLVES IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, AND FINLAND              256

  XVII. THE WERWOLF IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA                       270




WERWOLVES




CHAPTER I

WHAT IS A WERWOLF?


What is a werwolf? To this there is no one very satisfactory reply.
There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature
and classification of werwolves, their existence is so keenly disputed,
and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints,
that any attempt at definition in a restricted sense would be well-nigh
impossible.

The word werwolf (or werewolf) is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _wer_,
man, and _wulf_, wolf, and has its equivalents in the German _Waehrwolf_
and French _loup-garou_, whilst it is also to be found in the languages,
respectively, of Scandinavia, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan
Peninsula, and of certain of the countries of Asia and Africa; from
which it may be concluded that its range is pretty well universal.

Indeed, there is scarcely a country in the world in which belief in a
werwolf, or in some other form of lycanthropy, has not once existed,
though it may have ceased to exist now. But whereas in some countries
the werwolf is considered wholly physical, in others it is looked upon
as partly, if not entirely, superphysical. And whilst in some countries
it is restricted to the male sex, in others it is confined to the
female; and, again, in others it is to be met with in both sexes.

Hence, when asked to describe a werwolf, or what is generally
believed to be a werwolf, one can only say that a werwolf is an
anomaly--sometimes man, sometimes woman (or in the guise of man or
woman); sometimes adult, sometimes child (or in the guise of
such)--that, under certain conditions, possesses the property of
metamorphosing into a wolf, the change being either temporary or
permanent.

This, perhaps, expresses most of what is general concerning werwolves.
For more particular features, upon which I will touch later, one must
look to locality and time.

Those who are sceptical with regard to the existence of the werwolf, and
refuse to accept, as proof of such existence, the accumulated testimony
of centuries, attribute the origin of the belief in the phenomenon
merely to an insane delusion, which, by reason of its novelty, gained a
footing and attracted followers.

Humanity, they say, has ever been the same; and any fresh idea--no
matter how bizarre or monstrous, so long as it is monstrous enough--has
always met with support and won credence.

In favour of this argument it is pointed out that in many of the cases
of persons accused of werwolfery, tried in France, and elsewhere, in the
middle of the sixteenth century, when belief in this species of
lycanthropy was at its zenith, there was an extraordinary readiness
among the accused to confess, and even to give circumstantial evidence
of their own metamorphosis; and that this particular form of
self-accusation at length became so popular among the leading people in
the land, that the judicial court, having its suspicions awakened, and,
doubtless, fearful of sentencing so many important personages, acquitted
the majority of the accused, announcing them to be the victims of
delusion and hysteria.

Now, if it were admitted, argue these sceptics, that the bulk of
so-called werwolves were impostors, is it not reasonable to suppose that
all so-called werwolves were either voluntary or involuntary
impostors?--the latter, _i.e._, those who were not self-accused, being
falsely accused by persons whose motive for so doing was revenge. For
parallel cases one has only to refer to the trials for sorcery and
witchcraft in England. And with regard to false accusations of
lycanthropy--accusations founded entirely on hatred of the accused
person--how easy it was to trump up testimony and get the accused
convicted. The witnesses were rarely, if ever, subjected to a searching
examination; the court was always biased, and a confession of guilt,
when not voluntary--as in the case of the prominent citizen, when it was
invariably pronounced due to hysteria or delusion--could always be
obtained by means of torture, though a confession thus obtained,
needless to say, is completely nullified. Moreover, we have no record of
metamorphosis taking place in court, or before witnesses chosen for
their impartiality. On the contrary, the alleged transmutations always
occurred in obscure places, and in the presence of people who, one has
reason to believe, were both hysterical and imaginative, and therefore
predisposed to see wonders. So says this order of sceptic, and, to my
mind, he says a great deal more than his facts justify; for although
contemporary writers generally are agreed that a large percentage of
those people who voluntarily confessed they were werwolves were mere
dissemblers, there is no recorded conclusive testimony to show that all
such self-accused persons were shams and delusionaries. Besides, even
if such testimony were forthcoming, it would in nowise preclude the
existence of the werwolf.

Nor does the fact that all the accused persons submitted to the rack, or
other modes of torture, confessed themselves werwolves prove that all
such confessions were false.

Granted also that some of the charges of lycanthropy were groundless,
being based on malice--which, by the by, is no argument for the
non-existence of lycanthropy, since it is acknowledged that accusations
of all sorts, having been based on malice, have been equally
groundless--there is nothing in the nature of written evidence that
would justify one in assuming that all such charges were traceable to
the same cause, _i.e._, a malicious agency. Neither can one dismiss the
testimony of those who swore they were actual eye-witnesses of
metamorphoses, on the mere assumption that all such witnesses were
liable to hallucination or hysteria, or were hyper-imaginative.

Testimony to an event having taken place must be regarded as positive
evidence of such an occurrence, until it can be satisfactorily proved to
