The Book of Were-Wolves | Page 3

firs, looking like black splashes against the
grey sky; not a sign of habitation anywhere; the only trace of men
being the white, straight road extending for miles across the fen.
That this district harboured wolves is not improbable, and I confess that
I armed myself with a strong stick at the first clump of trees through
which the road dived.
This was my first introduction to were-wolves, and the circumstance of
finding the superstition still so prevalent, first gave me the idea of
investigating the history and the habits of these mythical creatures.
I must acknowledge that I have been quite unsuccessful in obtaining a
specimen of the animal, but I have found its traces in all directions.
And just as the palæontologist has constructed the labyrinthodon out of
its foot-prints in marl, and one splinter of bone, so may this monograph
be complete and accurate, although I have no chained were-wolf before
me which I may sketch and describe from the life.
The traces left are indeed numerous enough, and though perhaps like
the dodo or the dinormis, the werewolf may have become extinct in our
age, yet he has left his stamp on classic antiquity, he has trodden deep
in Northern snows. has ridden rough-shod over the mediævals, and has
howled amongst Oriental sepulchres. He belonged to a bad breed, and
we are quite content to be freed from him and his kindred, the vampire
and the ghoul. Yet who knows! We may be a little too hasty in
concluding that he is extinct. He may still prowl in Abyssinian forests,
range still over Asiatic steppes, and be found howling dismally in some
padded room of a Hanwell or a Bedlam.

In the following pages I design to investigate the notices of
were-wolves to be found in the ancient writers of classic antiquity,
those contained in the Northern Sagas, and, lastly, the numerous details
afforded by the mediæval authors. In connection with this I shall give a
sketch of modern folklore relating to Lycanthropy.
It will then be seen that under the veil of mythology lies a solid reality,
that a floating superstition holds in solution a positive truth.
This I shall show to be an innate craving for blood implanted in certain
natures, restrained under ordinary circumstances, but breaking forth
occasionally, accompanied with hallucination, leading in most cases to
cannibalism. I shall then give instances of persons thus afflicted, who
were believed by others, and who believed themselves, to be
transformed into beasts, and who, in the paroxysms of their madness,
committed numerous murders, and devoured their victims.
I shall next give instances of persons suffering from the same passion
for blood, who murdered for the mere gratification of their natural
cruelty, but who were not subject to hallucinations, nor were addicted
to cannibalism.
I shall also give instances of persons filled with the same propensities
who murdered and ate their victims, but who were perfectly free from
hallucination.
CHAPTER II.
LYCANTHROPY AMONG THE ANCIENTS.
What is Lycanthropy? The change of manor woman into the form of a
wolf, either through magical means, so as to enable him or her to
gratify the taste for human flesh, or through judgment of the gods in
punishment for some great offence.
This is the popular definition. Truly it consists in a form of madness,
such as may be found in most asylums.

Among the ancients this kind of insanity went by the names of
Lycanthropy, Kuanthropy, or Boanthropy, because those afflicted with
it believed themselves to be turned into wolves, dogs, or cows. But in
the North of Europe, as we shall see, the shape of a bear, and in
Africa that of a hyæna, were often selected in preference. A mere
matter of taste! According to Marcellus Sidetes, of whose poem {Greek
perì lukanðrw'pou} a fragment exists, men are attacked with this
madness chiefly in the beginning of the year, and become most furious
in February; retiring for the night to lone cemeteries, and living
precisely in the manner of dogs and wolves.
Virgil writes in his eighth Eclogue:--
Has herbas, atque hæc Ponto mihi lecta venena Ipse dedit Mris;
nascuntur plurima Ponto. His ego sæpe lupum fieri et se conducere
sylvis Mrim, sæpe animas imis excire sepulchris, Atque satas alio, vidi
traducere messes.
And Herodotus:--"It seems that the Neuri are sorcerers, if one is to
believe the Scythians and the Greeks established in Scythia; for each
Neurian changes himself, once in the year, into the form of a wolf, and
he continues in that form for several days, after which he resumes his
former shape."--(Lib. iv. c. 105.)
See also Pomponius Mela (lib. ii. c. 1) "There is a fixed time for each
Neurian, at which they change, if they like, into wolves, and back again
into their