The Book of Were-Wolves - Sabine Baring-Gould (red queen free ebook TXT) 📗

CHAPTER XVI

A SERMON ON WEREWOLVES

 

The Discourses of Dr. Johann—The Sermon—Remarks

 

THE BOOK OF WEREWOLVES.

 

CHAPTER I.

 

INTRODUCTORY.

 

I shall never forget the walk I took one night in Vienne, after having

accomplished the examination of an unknown Druidical relic, the Pierre

labie, at La Rondelle, near Champigni. I had learned of the existence

of this cromlech only on my arrival at Champigni in the afternoon, and

I had started to visit the curiosity without calculating the time it

would take me to reach it and to return. Suffice it to say that I

discovered the venerable pile of grey stones as the sun set, and that

I expended the last lights of evening in planning and sketching. I

then turned my face homeward. My walk of about ten miles had wearied

me, coming at the end of a long day’s posting, and I had lamed myself

in scrambling over some stones to the Gaulish relic.

 

A small hamlet was at no great distance, and I betook myself thither,

in the hopes of hiring a trap to convey me to the posthouse, but I was

disappointed. Few in the place could speak French, and the priest,

when I applied to him, assured me that he believed there was no better

conveyance in the place than a common charrue with its solid wooden

wheels; nor was a riding horse to be procured. The good man offered to

house me for the night; but I was obliged to decline, as my family

intended starting early on the following morning.

 

Out spake then the mayor—“Monsieur can never go back tonight across

the flats, because of the—the—” and his voice dropped; “the

loups-garoux.”

 

“He says that he must return!” replied the priest in patois. “But who

will go with him?”

 

“Ah, ha,! M. le Curé. It is all very well for one of us to accompany

him, but think of the coming back alone!”

 

“Then two must go with him,” said the priest, and you can take care of

each other as you return.”

 

“Picou tells me that he saw the werewolf only this day se’nnight,”

said a peasant; “he was down by the hedge of his buckwheat field, and

the sun had set, and he was thinking of coming home, when he heard a

rustle on the far side of the hedge. He looked over, and there stood

the wolf as big as a calf against the horizon, its tongue out, and its

eyes glaring like marsh-fires. Mon Dieu! catch me going over the

marais tonight. Why, what could two men do if they were attacked by

that wolf-fiend?”

 

“It is tempting Providence,” said one of the elders of the village;”

no man must expect the help of God if he throws himself wilfully in

the way of danger. Is it not so, M. le Curé? I heard you say as much

from the pulpit on the first Sunday in Lent, preaching from the

Gospel.”

 

“That is true,” observed several, shaking their heads.

 

“His tongue hanging out, and his eyes glaring like marsh-fires!” said

the confidant of Picou.

 

“Mon Dieu! if I met the monster, I should run,” quoth another.

 

“I quite believe you, Cortrez; I can answer for it that you would,”

said the mayor.

 

“As big as a calf,” threw in Picou’s friend.

 

“If the loup-garou were only a natural wolf, why then, you see”—the

mayor cleared his throat—“you see we should think nothing of it; but,

M. le Curé, it is a fiend, a worse than fiend, a man-fiend,—a worse

than man-fiend, a man-wolf-fiend.”

 

“But what is the young monsieur to do?” asked the priest, looking from

one to another.

 

“Never mind,” said I, who had been quietly listening to their patois,

which I understood. “Never mind; I will walk back by myself, and if I

meet the loup-garou I will crop his ears and tail, and send them to M.

le Maire with my compliments.”

 

A sigh of relief from the assembly, as they found themselves clear of

the difficulty.

 

“Il est Anglais,” said the mayor, shaking his head, as though he meant

that an Englishman might face the devil with impunity.

 

A melancholy flat was the marais, looking desolate enough by day, but

now, in the gloaming, tenfold as desolate. The sky was perfectly

clear, and of a soft, blue-grey tinge; illumined by the new moon, a

curve of light approaching its western bed. To the horizon reached a

fen, blacked with pools of stagnant water, from which the frogs kept

up an incessant trill through the summer night. Heath and fern covered

the ground, but near the water grew dense masses of flag and bulrush,

amongst which the light wind sighed wearily. Here and there stood a

sandy knoll, capped with 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 werewolves, 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 footprints in marl, and one splinter of bone, so may this

monograph be complete and accurate, although I have no chained

werewolf 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