The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould (free ebook novel .TXT) 📖
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prisoner to fall in with his wishes: eventually, however, he
succeeded. Next morning the cow was found in its stall frightfully
mangled, but the prisoner had not left his cell: for the watch, who
had been placed to observe him, declared that he had spent the night
in profound sleep, and that he had only at one time made a slight
motion with his head and hands and feet.
Wierius and Forestus quote Gulielmus Brabantinus as an authority for
the fact, that a man of high position had been so possessed by the
evil one, that often during the year he fell into a condition in which
he believed himself to be turned into a wolf, and at that time he
roved in the woods and tried to seize and devour little children, but
that at last, by God’s mercy, he recovered his senses.
Certainly the famous Pierre Vidal, the Don Quixote of Provençal
troubadours, must have had a touch of this madness, when, after having
fallen in love with a lady of Carcassone, named Loba, or the Wolfess,
the excess of his passion drove him over the country, howling like a
wolf, and demeaning himself more like an irrational beast than a
rational man.
He commemorates his lupine madness in the poem A tal Donna:—
[1]
[1. BRUCE WHYTE: Histoire des Langues Romaines, tom. ii. p. 248.]
Crowned with immortal joys I mount
The proudest emperors above,
For I am honoured with the love
Of the fair daughter of a count.
A lace from Na Raymbauda’s hand
I value more than all the land
Of Richard, with his Poïctou,
His rich Touraine and famed Anjou.
When loup-garou the rabble call me,
When vagrant shepherds hoot,
Pursue, and buffet me to boot,
It doth not for a moment gall me;
I seek not palaces or halls,
Or refuge when the winter falls;
Exposed to winds and frosts at night,
My soul is ravished with delight.
Me claims my she-wolf (_Loba_) so divine:
And justly she that claim prefers,
For, by my troth, my life is hers
More than another’s, more than mine.
Job Fincelius [1] relates the sad story of a farmer of Pavia, who,
as a wolf, fell upon many men in the open country and tore them to
pieces. After much trouble the maniac was caught, and he then assured
his captors that the only difference which existed between himself and
a natural wolf, was that in a true wolf the hair grew outward, whilst
in him it struck inward. In order to put this assertion to the proof,
the magistrates, themselves most certainly cruel and bloodthirsty
wolves, cut off his arms and legs; the poor wretch died of the
mutilation. This took place in 1541. The idea of the skin being
reversed is a very ancient one: versipellis occurs as a name of
reproach in Petronius, Lucilius, and Plautus, and resembles the Norse
hamrammr.
[1. FINCELIUS de Mirabilibus, lib. xi.]
Fincelius relates also that, in 1542, there was such a multitude of
werewolves about Constantinople that the Emperor, accompanied by his
guard, left the city to give them a severe correction, and slew one
hundred and fifty of them.
Spranger speaks of three young ladies who attacked a labourer, under
the form of cats, and were wounded by him. They were found bleeding in
their beds next morning.
Majolus relates that a man afflicted with lycanthropy was brought to
Pomponatius. The poor fellow had been found buried in hay, and when
people approached, he called to them to flee, as he was a were wolf,
and would rend them. The country-folk wanted to flay him, to discover
whether the hair grew inwards, but Pomponatius rescued the man and
cured him.
Bodin tells some werewolf stories on good authority; it is a pity
that the good authorities of Bodin were such liars, but that, by the
way. He says that the Royal Procurator-General Bourdin had assured him
that he had shot a wolf, and that the arrow had stuck in the beast’s
thigh. A few hours after, the arrow was found in the thigh of a man in
bed. In Vernon, about the year 1566, the witches and warlocks gathered
in great multitudes, under the shape of cats. Four or five men were
attacked in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood
their ground with the utmost heroism, succeeded in slaying one puss,
and in wounding many others. Next day a number of wounded women were
found in the town, and they gave the judge an accurate account of all
the circumstances connected with their wounding.
Bodin quotes Pierre Marner, the author of a treatise on sorcerers, as
having witnessed in Savoy the transformation of men into wolves.
Nynauld [1] relates that in a village of Switzerland, near
Lucerne, a peasant was attacked by a wolf, whilst he was hewing
timber; he defended himself, and smote off a fore-leg of the beast.
The moment that the blood began to flow the wolf’s form changed, and
he recognized a woman without her arm. She was burnt alive.
[1. NYNAULD, De la Lycanthropie. Paris, 1615, p. 52.]
An evidence that beasts are transformed witches is to be found in
their having no tails. When the devil takes human form, however, he
keeps his club-foot of the Satyr, as a token by which he may be
recognized. So animals deficient in caudal appendages are to be
avoided, as they are witches in disguise. The Thingwald should
consider the case of the Manx cats in its next session.
Forestus, in his chapter on maladies of the brain, relates a
circumstance which came under his own observation, in the middle of
the sixteenth century, at Alcmaar in the Netherlands. A peasant there
was attacked every spring with a fit of insanity; under the influence
of this he rushed about the churchyard, ran into the church, jumped
over the benches, danced, was filled with fury, climbed up, descended,
and never remained quiet. He carried a long staff in his hand, with
which he drove away the dogs, which flew at him and wounded him, so
that his thighs were covered with scars. His face was pale, his eyes
deep sunk in their sockets. Forestus pronounces the man to be a
lycanthropist, but he does not say that the poor fellow believed
himself to be transformed into a wolf. In reference to this case,
however, he mentions that of a Spanish nobleman who believed himself
to be changed into a bear, and who wandered filled with fury among the
woods.
Donatus of Altomare [1] affirms that he saw a man in the streets
of Naples, surrounded by a ring of people, who in his werewolf frenzy
had dug up a corpse and was carrying off the leg upon his shoulders.
This was in the middle of the sixteenth century.
[1. De Medend. Human. Corp. lib. i. cap. 9.]
CHAPTER VI.
A CHAMBER OF HORRORS.
Pierre Bourgot and Michel Verdung—‘Me Hermit of S. Bonnot—The
Gandillon Family—Thievenne Paget—The Tailor of Châlons—Roulet.
IN December, 1521, the Inquisitor-General for the diocese of Besançon,
Boin by name, heard a case of a sufficiently terrible nature to
produce a profound sensation of alarm in the neighbourhood. Two men
were under accusation of witchcraft and cannibalism. Their names were
Pierre Bourgot, or Peter the Great, as the people had nicknamed him
from his stature, and Michel Verdung. Peter had not been long under
trial, before he volunteered a full confession of his crimes. It
amounted to this:—
About nineteen years before, on the occasion of a New Year’s market at
Poligny, a terrible storm had broken over the country, and among other
mischiefs done by it, was the scattering of Pierre’s flock. “In vain,”
said the prisoner, “did I labour, in company with other peasants, to
find the sheep and bring them together. I went everywhere in search of
them.
“Then there rode up three black horsemen, and the last said to me:
‘Whither away? you seem to be in trouble?’
“I related to him my misfortune with my flock. He bade me pluck up my
spirits, and promised that his master would henceforth take charge of
and protect my flock., if I would only rely upon him. He told me, as
well, that I should find my strayed sheep very shortly, and he
promised to provide me with money. We agreed to meet again in four or
five days. My flock I soon found collected together. At my second
meeting I learned of the stranger that he was a servant of the devil.
I forswore God and our Lady and all saints and dwellers in Paradise. I
renounced Christianity, kissed his left hand, which was black and
ice-cold as that of a corpse. Then I fell on my knees and gave in my
allegiance to Satan. I remained in the service of the devil for two
years, and never entered a church before the end of mass, or at all
events till the holy water had been sprinkled, according to the desire
of my master, whose name I afterwards learned was Moyset.
“All anxiety about my flock was removed, for the devil had undertaken
to protect it and to keep off the wolves.
“This freedom from care, however, made me begin to tire of the devil’s
service, and I recommenced my attendance at church, till I was brought
back into obedience to the evil one by Michel Verdung, when I renewed
my compact on the understanding that I should be supplied with money.
“In a wood near Chastel Charnon we met with many others whom I did not
recognize; we danced, and each had in his or her hand a green taper
with a blue flame. Still under the delusion that I should obtain
money, Michel persuaded me to move with the greatest celerity, and in
order to do this, after I had stripped myself, he smeared me with a
salve, and I believed myself then to be transformed into a wolf. I was
at first somewhat horrified at my four wolf’s feet, and the fur with
which I was covered all at once, but I found that I could now travel
with the speed of the wind. This could not have taken place without
the help of our powerful master, who was present during our excursion,
though I did not perceive him till I had recovered my human form.
Michel did the same as myself.
“When we had been one or two hours in this condition of metamorphosis,
Michel smeared us again, and quick as thought we resumed our human
forms. The salve was given us by our masters; to me it was given by
Moyset, to Michel by his own master, Guillemin.”
Pierre declared that he felt no exhaustion after his excursions,
though the judge inquired particularly whether he felt that
prostration after his unusual exertion, of which witches usually
complained. Indeed the exhaustion consequent on a werewolf raid was
so great that the lycanthropist was often confined to his bed for
days, and could hardly move hand or foot, much in the same way as the
berserkir and ham rammir in the North were utterly prostrated after
their fit had left them.
In one of his werewolf runs, Pierre fell upon a boy of six or seven
years old, with his teeth, intending to rend and devour him, but the
lad screamed so loud that he was obliged to beat a retreat to his
clothes, and smear himself again, in order to recover his form and
escape detection. He and Michel, however, one day tore to pieces a
woman as she was gathering peas; and a
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