The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 Read online

  It is not surprising, that in a retired town, where half the people were without employment, and all were thorough-bred gossips, and lovers of wonders, that the inroads of the Wehr-Wolves formed too important an epoch in their history, to be passed over without a due discussion. Under pretence, therefore, of being a protection to each other, many of the people of St. Yrieux, and especially the worthy conclave mentioned at the beginning of this history, were, almost eternally, convened at the Chevalier Bayard’s Arms; talking over their nightly terrors, and filling each other with such affright, by the repetition of many a lying old tale upon the same subject, that, too much alarmed to part, they often agreed to pass the night over Nicole Bonvarlet’s wine-flask and blazing fagots. Upon a theme so intimately connected with magical lore as is the history of Wehr-Wolves, Dr. Antoine Du Pilon discoursed like a Solomon; citing, to the great edification and wonder of his hearers, such hosts of authors, both sacred and profane, that he who should but have hinted, that the Wehr-Wolves of St. Yrieux were simply like other Wolves, would have found as little gentleness in his hearers, as he would have experienced from the animals themselves.

  “Well, my masters!” began Bonvarlet, one evening when they were met, “I would not, for a tun of malmsey wine now, be in the Limousin forest to-night; for do ye hear how it blusters and pours? By the Ship of St. Mildred! in a wild night like this, there’s no place in the world like your hearth-side in a goodly auberge, with a merry host and good liquor; both of which, neighbours, ye have to admiration.”

  “Aye, Nicole,” replied Cuirbouilli, “it’s a foul night, truly, either for man or cattle; and yet I’ll warrant ye that the Wehr-Wolves will be out in’t, for their skin is said to be the same as that the Fiend himself wears! and that would shut you out water, and storm, and wind, like a castle-wall. Mass, now! but it would be simply the making of my fortune, an’ I could but get one of their hides!”

  “Truly, for a churl,” began Dr. Du Pilon, “an unlettered artizan, thy wish sheweth a pretty wit; for a cloak made from the skin of a Wehr-Wolf, would for ever defend it’s wearer from all other Wolves, and all animals that your Wolves feed upon: even, as Pythagoras writeth, that one holding the eye of a Wolf in his hand, shall scare away from him all weaker creatures; for like as the sight of a Wolf doth terrify—”

  “Hark, neighbours! did ye hear that cry? it is a Wehr-Wolf’s bark!” exclaimed Jerome Malbois, starting from his settle.

  “Aye, by the Bull of St. Luke! did I, friend Jerome,” returned Bonvarlet, “surely the great Fiend himself can make no worser a howling; I even thought ‘twould split the very rafters last night, though I deem that they’re of good seasoned fir.”

  “There thou errest again,” said the Doctor in a pompous tone to the last speaker, “Oh! ye rustics, whom I live with as Orpheus did with the savages of Thracia, whence is it that ye possess such boundless stupidity? Thou sayest, Jerome Malbois, that they bark, and, could I imagine, that shooting in the dark, thou had’st hit on the Greekish phrase which calls them Dogs of the Night, I could say thou had said wisely: but now I declare that thou hast spoken full ignorantly, right woodenly, Jerome Malbois; thou art beyond thy square, friend joiner; thou hast overstepped thy rule, good Carpenter. Doth not the great Albertus bear testimony, Oh, most illiterate! that Wolves bark not, when he saith,—

  ‘Ast Lupus ipse vlulat, frendit agrestis aper,’

  which for thine edification is, in the vulgar tongue,—

  But the Wolf doth loudly howl, and the boar his teeth doth grind.

  Where the wildest plains are spread before, and forests rise behind.

  Et idem Auctor, and the same Author also saith, which maketh yet more against thee, O mentis inops!

  ‘Per noctem resonare Lupus, vlulantibus urbes.’

  which in the common is

  The Wolf by night through silent cities prowls, And makes the streets resound with hideous howls.

  And doth not Servius say the like in a verse wherein I opine he hints at Wehr-Wolves? ‘Vlulare, canum est furiare’—to howl is the voice of dogs and furies:—thus findest thou, Faber sciolus! that here we have an agreement touching the voice of wolves, which is low and mournful, and therefore the word Vlulatus is fitly applied as an imitation thereof. Your Almaine says Heulen; the Frenchman saith Hurler; and the Englishman, with a conglomeration of sounds as bad as the Wolf’s own, calleth it howling.”

  “By the holy Dog of Tobias!” ejaculated Bonvarlet, “and I think our Doctor speaketh all languages, as he had had his head broken with a brick from the Tower of Babel, and all the tongues had got in at once. But where think ye Monsieur, that these cursed Loups Garoux came from? Are they like unto other Wolves, or what breed be they?”

  “Nicole Bonvarlet,” again began the untired Doctor, after taking a long draught of the flask, “Nicole Bonvarlet, I perceive thou hast more of good literature than thy fellows; for not only dost thou mark erudition when it is set before thee, but thou also wisely distrustest thine own knowledge, and questionest of those who are more learned than thou. Touching thy demand of what breed are the Wehr-Wolves, be this mine answer. Thou knowest, that if ye ask of a shepherd how he can distinguish one sheep from another, he tells you that even in their faces he seeth a distinctio secretio, the which to a common observer is not visible; and thus, when the vulgar see a wolf, they can but say it is a wolf, and there endeth their cunning. But, by the Lion of St. Mark! if ye ask one skilled in the knowledge of four-footed animals, he shall presently discourse to you of the genus and species thereof; make known it’s haunts and history, display it’s occult properties, and give you a lection upon all that your ancient and modern authors have said concerning it.”

  “By the Mass now!” interrupted La Jaquette, “and I would fain know the habit in which your Loup Garoux vests him when he is not in his wolfish shape; whether he have slashed cuishes, and—.”

  “Peace, I pray you peace, good Tailleur,” said Doctor Antoine; “it is but rarely that I speak, and even then my discourse is brief, and therefore I beseech you not to mar the words of wisdom which are seldom heard, with thy folly which men may listen to hourly. Touching your Wolves, honest friends, as I was saying, there are five kinds, as Oppianus noteth in his Admonition to Shepherds; of the which, two sorts that rove in the countries of Swecia and the Visigoths, are called Acmonœ, but of these I will not now speak, but turn me unto those of whose species is the Wehr-Wolf. The first is named the Shooter, for that he runneth fast, is very bold, howleth fearfully—”

  “There is the cry again!” exclaimed Malbois, and as the sounds drew nearer, the Doctor’s audience evinced symptoms of alarm, which were rapidly increasing, when a still louder shriek was heard close to the house.

  “What, ho! within there!” cried a voice, evidently of one in an agony of terror, “an’ ye be men, open the door!” and the next moment it was burst from it’s fastenings by the force of a human body falling against it, which dropped without motion upon the floor!

  The confusion which this accident created may well be imagined; the Doctor, greatly alarmed, retreated into the fire-place, whence he cried out to the equally scared rustics, “It’s a Wehr-Wolf in a human shape, don’t touch him, I tell you, but strike him with a fire-fork between the eyes, and he’ll turn to a Wolf, and run away! You, Cuirbouilli, out with thy knife, and flay me a piece of his neck, and you’ll see the thick wolf-hide under it. For the love of the Saints, neighbours, take care of yourselves, and—”

  “Peace, Master Doctor,” said Bonvarlet, the only one of the party that had ventured near the stranger, “he breathes yet, for he’s a Christian man, like as we are.”

  “Don’t you be too sure of that,” replied Du Pilon; “ask him to say his Creed, and his Pater-Noster in Latin.”

  “Nay, good my master,” returned the humane host, pouring some wine down the stranger’s throat, and bearing his reviving body to the hearth, “he can scarce speak his mother-tongue, and therefore he’s no stomach for Latin, so come, thou
prince of all Chirurgeons, and bleed me him; and when he comes too, why e’en school him yourself.”

  Doctor Antoine Du Pilon advanced from his retreat, with considerable reluctance, to attend upon his patient, who was richly habited in the luxuriant fashion of the Court of Francis, and appeared to be a middle-aged man, of handsome features, and commanding presence. As the Doctor, somewhat reassured, began to remove the short cloak to find out the stranger’s arm, he started back with affright, and actually roared with pain at receiving a deep scratch from the huge paw of a Wolf, which apparently grew out from his shoulder! “Avaunt thee, Sathanas!’’ ejaculated Du Pilon, “I told ye how it would be, my masters, that this cursed Wehr-Wolf would bleed us first. By the Porker of St. Anthony! Blessed beast! and he hath clawed me from the Biceps Flexor Cubiti, down to the Os Lunare, even as a Peasant would plough up a furrow!”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Bonvarlet, holding up the dreaded Wolf’s paw, which was yet bleeding, as if it had been recently separated from the animal,—“Here’s no Wehr-Wolf, but a brave Hunter, who hath cut off this goodly fore-hand in the forest, with his couteau-de-chasse; but soft,” he added, throwing it aside, “he recovers!”

  “Pierre!—Henri!” said the stranger, recovering, “where are ye? How far is the King behind us?—Ha! what place is this? and who are ye?” he continued, looking round.

  “This, your good worship, is the Chevalier Bayard’s Arms, in the Town of St. Yrieux, where your Honour fell, through loss of blood, as I guess by this wound. We were fain to keep the door barred, for fear of the Wehr-Wolves; and we half deemed your Lordship to be one, at first sight of the great paw you carried, but now, I judge you brought it from the forest.”

  “Aye! yes, thou art in the right on’t,” said the stranger, recollecting himself, “‘twas in the forest! I tell thee, Host, that I have this night looked upon the Arch-Demon himself!”

  “Apage, Lucifer!” ejaculated Du Pilon, devoutly crossing his breast, “and have I received a claw from his fore-foot! I feel the enchantment of Lycanthropy coming over me; I shall be a Wehr-Wolf myself shortly, for what saith Hornhoofius, in his Treatise De Diabolis, lib. xiv. cap. 23,—they who are torn by a Wehr-Wolf—Oh me! Oh me! Libera nos Domine! Look to yourselves, neighbours, or I shall raven upon ye all.”

  “I pray you, Master Doctor,” said Bonvarlet, “to let his Lordship tell us his story first, and then we’ll hear your’s. How was it, fair sir? but take another cup of wine first.”

  “My tale is brief,” answered the stranger; “The King is passing to-night through the Limousin, and, with two of my attendants, I rode forward to prepare for his coming; when, in the darkness of the wood, we were separated, and as I galloped on alone, an enormous Wolf, with fiery flashing eyes, leaped out of a brake before me, with the most fearful howlings, and rushed on me with the speed of lightning.”

  “Aye,” interrupted Du Pilon, “as I told ye, they are called, in the Greekish phrase, K-----, Dogs of the Night, because of their howlings, and T--------, for that they shoot along.”

  “Now I pray your honour to proceed, and heed not the Doctor,” said Bonvarlet.

  “As the Wolf leaped upon my horse,” continued the stranger, “I drew my couteau-de-chasse, and severed that huge paw which you found upon me; but as the violence of the blow made the weapon fall, I caught up a large forked branch of a tree, and struck the animal upon the forehead; upon which my horse began to rear and plunge, for where the Wolf stood, I saw, by a momentary glimpse of moonlight, the form of an ancient enemy, who had long since been banished from France, and whom I believe to have died of Famine in the Harz Forest!”

  “Lo you there now!” cried Du Pilon, “a blow between the eyes with a forked stick;—said I not so from Philo-Daimones, lib. xcii? Oh! I’m condemned to be a Wehr-Wolf of a verity, and I shall eat those of my most intimate acquaintance the first.—Masters look to yourselves;—Oh dies infelix! Oh unhappy man that I am!” and with these words he rushed out of the cottage.

  “I think the very Fiend’s in Monsieur the Doctor to-night,” cried the Host, “for here he’s gone off without dressing his honour’s wound.”

  “Heed not that, friend, but do thou provide torches, and assistance, to meet the King; my hurt is but small; but when my horse saw the apparition I told you of, he bounded forward like a wild Russian colt, dragging me through all the briars of the forest, for there seemed a troop of a thousand wolves howling behind us; and at the verge of it he dropped lifeless, and left me, still pursued, to gain the town, weak and wounded as I was!’’

  “St. Denis be praised now!” said Bonvarlet, “you shewed a good heart, my Lord; but we’ll at once set out to meet the King, so neighbours, take each of ye a good pine fagot off the hearth, and call up more help as you go; and Nicolette and Madelene will prepare for our return.”

  “But,” asked the stranger, “where’s the Wolf’s paw that I brought from the forest?”

  “I cast it aside, my Lord,” answered Bonvarlet, “till you had recovered, but I would fain beg it of you as a gift, for I will hang it over my fireplace, and have it’s story made into a song by Rowland the Minstrel, and—Mother of God! what is this?” continued he, putting into his guest’s hand a human arm, cut off at the elbow, vested in the worn-out sleeve of a hunter’s coat, and bleeding freshly at the part where it was dissevered!

  “Holy St. Mary!” exclaimed the stranger, regarding the hand attentively, “this is the arm of Gaspar de Marcanville, yet bearing the executioner’s brand burnt in the flesh! and he is a Wehr-Wolf!”

  “Why,” said Bonvarlet, “that’s the habit worn by the melancholy Hunter, whose daughter lives at the ruined Chateau yonder. He rarely comes to St. Yrieux, but when he does, he brings more game than any ten of your gentlemen-huntsmen ever did. Come, we’ll go seek the daughter of this Man-Wolf, and then on to the forest, for this fellow deserves a stake, and a bundle of fagots, as well as ever Jeanne d’Arc did, in my simple thinking.”

  They then proceeded to Adéle, at the dilapidated Chateau, and her distress at the foregoing story may better be conceived than described; yet she offered not the slightest assistance to accompanying them to the forest; though when one of the party mentioned their expected meeting with the King, her eyes became suddenly lighted up, and, retiring for a moment, she expressed herself in readiness to attend them.

  At the skirts of the forest they found an elderly man, of a strange quaint appearance, couching in the fern like a hare; who called out to them in a squeaking voice, that was at once familiar to all, “Take care of yourselves, good people, for I am a Wehr-Wolf, and shall speedily spring upon some of ye.”

  “Why that’s our Doctor, as I am a sinful man,” cried Bonvarlet, “let’s try his own cure upon him. Neighbour Malbois, give me a tough forked branch, and I’ll disenchant him, I warrant; and you, Cuirbouilli, out with your knife, as though you would skin him:”—and then he continued aloud,—“Oh! honest friend, you’re a Wehr-Wolf, are you? why then I’ll dispossess the Devil that’s in you.—You shall be flayed, and then burned for a wizard.”

  With that the rustics of St. Yrieux, who enjoyed the jest, fell upon the unhappy Doctor, and, by a sound beating, and other rough usage, so convinced him that he was, not a Wehr-Wolf, that he cried out,—“Praised be St. Gregory, I am a whole man again! Lo I am healed! but my bones feel wondrous sore. Who is he that hath cured me?—by the Mass I am grievously bruised!—thanks to the seraphical Father Francis, the Devil hath gone out of me!”

  Whilst the peasants were engaged in searching for the King’s party, and the mutilated Wolf, the stranger, who was left with Adele de Marcanville, fainted through loss of blood; and, as she bent over him, and staunched his wounds with her scarf, he said, with a faint voice,—“Fair one! who is it thinkest thou whom thou art so blessedly attending?’’

  “I wot not,” answered she, “but that thou art a man.”

  “Hear me then, and throw aside these bandages for my dagger, for I am thy father’s ancient
enemy, the Count de Saintefleur!”

  “Heaven forgive you, then!” returned Adele, “for the time of vengeance belongs to it only.”

  “And it is come,” cried a load hoarse voice, as a large Wolf, wounded by the loss of a fore-paw, leaped upon the Count, and put an end to his existence. At the same moment, the royal train, which the peasants had discovered, rode up with flambeaux, and a Knight with a large partizan made a blow at the Wolf, whom Adele vainly endeavoured to preserve, since the stroke was of sufficient power to destroy both. The Wolf gave one terrific howl, and fell backwards in the form of a tall gaunt man, in a hunter’s dress; whilst Adele, drawing a packet from her bosom, and offering it to the King, sank lifeless upon the body of her father, Gaspar de Marcanville, the Wehr-Wolf of Limousin.

  Captain Frederick Marryat

  (1792-1848)

  Introduction

  The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains

  Captain Frederick Marryat, author of the venerable horror short stories: “The Story Of The Greek Slave” and “The Legend of the Bell Rock,” has given us one of the finest stories in this genre to come out of the half century in question. In the technical sense we cannot, however, call this a “werewolf” story.

  This is due to the male origins of the name. In the French the wolf-man is called the loup-garou, in German the wehr-wolf, in Old English the wär-wolf and in Portuguese the lupus-homo. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine when it began in 1817) was the leading publisher of horror tales for the half century in question. The December issue of 1841 gives a fine summary regarding the male origins of the werewolf moniker.