W HAT 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 Wäh

T HE wolf is not the only animal whose shape, it is stated, man may possess the power of assuming; and it may be of some interest to inquire briefly into the varying branches of lycanthropy, comparing them with the one already under discussion. In Orissa, the power of metamorphosing into a tiger is asserted by the Kandhs to be hereditary, and also to be acquired through the practice of magic; many who have travelled in this country have assured me that there is a very great amount of truth in th

I T seems that there is a disposition in certain minds to associate lycanthropy with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. A brief examination of the latter will, however, suffice to show there is very little analogy between the two. Transmigration of souls, a metempsychosis, deals solely with the passing of the soul after death into another mortal form. Lycanthropy confines itself to the metamorphosis of physical man to animal form only during man's physical lifetime. Metempsychosis is a

A S I have already stated, in some people lycanthropy is hereditary; and when it is not hereditary it may be acquired through the performance of certain of the rites ordained by Black Magic. For the present I can only deal with the more general features of these rites (which vary according to locality) and the conditions of mind essential to those who would successfully practise these rites. In the first place, it is necessary that the person desirous of acquiring the property of lycanthropy sho

I N the preceding chapter I touched on one or two modes of evoking the spirits that have it in their power to confer the property of lycanthropy; I now pass on to the question of exorcism in relation to werwolves. Is it possible to exorcize the evil power of metamorphosis possessed by the werwolf, or, as those would say who see in the werwolf, not the possession of a property, but a spirit, "to exorcize the evil spirit"? For my own part, and basing my opinion on my own experiences with other for

I T is commonly known that there were once wolves in Great Britain and Scotland. Whilst history tells us of a king who tried to get rid of them by offering so much for every wolf's head that was brought to him, we read in romance how Llewellyn slew Gelert, the faithful hound that, having slain the wolf, saved his infant's life; and tradition has handed down to us many other stories of them. But the news that werwolves, too, once flourished in these climes will come as a surprise to many. Yet Hal

I N no country has the werwolf flourished as in France, where it is known as the loup garou ; where it has existed in all parts, in every age, and where it is even yet to be found in the more remote districts. Hence one could fill a dozen volumes with the stories, many of them well authenticated, of French werwolves. As far back as the sixth century we hear of them infesting the woods and valleys of Brittany and Burgundy, the Landes, and the mountainous regions of the Côte d'Or and the Cevennes.

T HROUGHOUT the Middle Ages, and even in the seventeenth century, trials for lycanthropy were of common occurrence in France. Among the most famous were those of the Grandillon family in the Jura, in 1598; that of the tailor of Châlons; of Roulet, in Angers; of Gilles Garnier, in Dôle, in 1573; and of Jean Garnier, at Bordeaux, in 1603. The last case was, perhaps, the most remarkable of all. Garnier, who was only fourteen years of age, was employed in looking after cattle. He was a handsome lad,

N O country in the world is richer in stories of everything appertaining to the supernatural than Germany. The Rhine is the favourite river of nymphs and sirens, to whose irresistible and fatal fascinations so many men have fallen victims. Along its shores are countless haunted castles, in its woods innumerable terrifying phantoms. The werwolf, however, seems to have confined itself almost entirely to the Harz Mountains, where it was formerly most common and more dreaded than any other visitant

A NOTHER case of lycanthropy in Germany, connected with the Harz Mountains, occurred somewhere about the beginning of the last century. Count Von Breber, chief of the police of Magdeburg, whilst away from home on a holiday with his young and beautiful wife, the Countess Hilda, happened to pass a night in the village of Grautz, in the centre of the Harz Mountains. In the course of a conversation with the innkeeper, the Countess remarked: "On our way here this morning we crossed a brook, and exper

The Case of the Family of Kloska and the Lycanthropous Flower I N the mountainous regions of Austria-Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula are certain flowers credited with the property of converting into werwolves whoever plucks and wears them. Needless to say, these flowers are very rare, but I have heard of their having been found, comparatively recently, both in the Transylvanian Alps and the Balkans. A story à propos of one of these discoveries was told me last summer. Ivan and Olga were the chi

W ERWOLVES are, perhaps, rather less common in Spain than in any other part of Europe. They are there almost entirely confined to the mountainous regions (more particularly to the Sierra de Guadarrama, the Cantabrian, and the Pyrenees), and are usually of the male species. Generally speaking the property of lycanthropy in Spain appears to be hereditary; and, as one would naturally expect in a country so pronouncedly Roman Catholic, to rid the lycanthropist of his unenviable property it is the cu

B ELGIUM abounds in stories of werwolves, all more or less of the same type. As in France, the werwolf, in Belgium, is not restricted to one sex, but is, in an equal proportion, common to both. By far the greater number of werwolfery cases in this country are to be met with amongst the sand-dunes on the sea coast. They also occur in the district of the Sambre; but I have never heard of any lycanthropous streams or pools in Belgium, nor yet of any wolf-producing flowers, such as are, at times, fo

S INCE so much has already been written upon the subject of werwolves in Denmark, it is my intention only to touch upon it briefly. It is, I believe, generally acknowledged that, at one time, werwolves were to be met with almost daily in Denmark, and that they were almost always of the male sex; but I can find no records of any particular form of exorcism practised by the Danes with the object of getting rid of the werwolf, nor of any spell used by them for the same purpose; neither does there a

A S in Denmark, werwolves were once so numerous in Norway and Sweden, that these countries naturally came to be regarded as the true home of lycanthropy. With the advent of the tourist, however, and the consequent springing up of fresh villages, together with the gradual increase of native population, Norway and Sweden have slowly undergone a metamorphosis, with the result that it is now only in the most remote districts, such as the northern portion of the Kiolen Mountains and the borders of La

T HE Bersekir of Iceland are credited with the rare property of dual metamorphosis—that is to say, they are credited with the power of being able to adopt the individual forms of two animals—the bear and the wolf. For substantiation as to the bona-fide existence of this rare property of dual metamorphosis one has only to refer to the historical literature of the country (the authenticity of which is beyond dispute), wherein many cases of it are recorded. The following story, illustrative of dual

T HE ideal home of all things weird and uncanny—is cold, grey, gaunt, and giant Russia. Nowhere is the werwolf so much in evidence to-day as in the land of the Czar, where all the primitive conditions favourable to such anomalies, still exist, and where they have undergone but little change in the last ten thousand years. A thinly-populated country—vast stretches of wild uncultivated land, full of dense forests, rich in trees most favourable to Elementals, and watered by deep, silent tarns, and

THE BIG FISH By H. B. Marriott Watson , Author of 'Alise of Astra.' Crown 8vo, 6s. [ July This strange tale of adventure in the mountains of Peru has a certain basis in fact. 'The Big Fish' is the name by which the lost treasure of the Incas is known, and the story describes the search for it, which opens in a London auction room and, after many tragic adventures, ends in the lonely mountains in a manner which neither of the seekers had anticipated, but with which both are satisfied. HER SERENE

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