The Book of Were-Wolves - Sabine Baring-Gould (red queen free ebook TXT) 📗
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the mountains whence they have fallen. It will not be difficult for us
to arrive at the origin of the Northern belief in werewolves, and the
data thus obtained will be useful in assisting us to elucidate much
that would otherwise prove obscure in mediæval tradition.
Among the old Norse, it was the custom for certain warriors to dress
in the skins of the beasts they had slain, and thus to give themselves
an air of ferocity, calculated to strike terror into the hearts of
their foes.
Such dresses are mentioned in some Sagas, without there being any
supernatural qualities attached to them. For instance, in the Njála
there is mention of a man i geitheðni, in goatskin dress. Much in
the same way do we hear of Harold Harfagr having in his company a band
of berserkir, who were all dressed in wolfskins, ulfheðnir, and
this expression, wolfskin coated, is met with as a man’s name. Thus
in the Holmverja Saga, there is mention of a Björn, “son of
Ulfheðin, wolfskin coat, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, son of
Ulf, wolf, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, who could change forms.”
But the most conclusive passage is in the Vatnsdæla Saga, and is as
follows:—“Those berserkir who were called ulfheðnir, had got
wolfskins over their mail coats” (c. xvi.) In like manner the word
berserkr, used of a man possessed of superhuman powers, and subject.
to accesses of diabolical fury, was originally applied to one of those
doughty champions who went about in bear-sarks, or habits made of
bearskin over their armour. I am well aware that Björn Halldorson’s
derivation of berserkr, bare of sark, or destitute of clothing, has
been hitherto generally received, but Sveibjörn Egilsson, an
indisputable authority, rejects this derivation as untenable, and
substitutes for it that which I have adopted.
It may be well imagined that a wolf or a bearskin would make a warm
and comfortable great-coat to a man, whose manner of living required
him to defy all weathers, and that the dress would not only give him
an appearance of grimness and ferocity, likely to produce an
unpleasant emotion in the breast of a foe, but also that the thick fur
might prove effectual in deadening the blows rained on him in
conflict.
The berserkr was an object of aversion and terror to the peaceful
inhabitants of the land, his avocation being to challenge quiet
country farmers to single combat. As the law of the land stood in
Norway, a man who declined to accept a challenge, forfeited all his
possessions, even to the wife of his bosom, as a poltroon unworthy of
the protection of the law, and every item of his property passed into
the hands of his challenger. The berserkr accordingly had the unhappy
man at his mercy. If he slew him, the farmer’s possessions became his,
and if the poor fellow declined to fight, he lost all legal right to
his inheritance. A berserkr would invite himself to any feast, and
contribute his quota to the hilarity of the entertainment, by snapping
the backbone, or cleaving the skull, of some merrymaker who incurred
his displeasure, or whom he might single out to murder, for no other
reason than a desire to keep his hand in practice.
It may well be imagined that popular superstition went along with the
popular dread of these wolf-and-bear-skinned rovers, and that they
were believed to be endued with the force, as they certainly were with
the ferocity, of the beasts whose skins they wore.
Nor would superstition stop there, but the imagination of the
trembling peasants would speedily invest these unscrupulous disturbers
of the public peace with the attributes hitherto appropriated to
trolls and jötuns.
The incident mentioned in the Völsung Saga, of the sleeping men being
found with their wolfskins hanging to the wall above their heads, is
divested of its improbability, if we regard these skins as worn over
their armour, and the marvellous in the whole story is reduced to a
minimum, when we suppose that Sigmund and Sinfjötli stole these for
the purpose of disguising themselves, whilst they lived a life of
violence and robbery.
In a similar manner the story of the northern “Beauty and Beast,” in
Hrolf’s Saga Kraka, is rendered less improbable, on the supposition
that Björn was living as an outlaw among the mountain fastnesses in a
bearskin dress, which would effectually disguise him—_all but his
eyes_—which would gleam out of the sockets in his hideous visor,
unmistakably human. His very name, Björn, signifies a bear; and these
two circumstances may well have invested a kernel of historic fact
with all the romance of fable; and if divested of these supernatural
embellishments, the story would resolve itself into the very simple
fact of there having been a King Hring of the Updales, who was at
variance with his son, and whose son took to the woods, and lived a
berserkr life, in company with his mistress, till he was captured and
slain by his father.
I think that the circumstance insisted on by the Saga-writers, of the
eyes of the person remaining unchanged, is very significant, and
points to the fact that the skin was merely drawn over the body as a
disguise.
But there was other ground for superstition to fasten on the
berserkir, and invest them with supernatural attributes.
No fact in connection with the history of the Northmen is more firmly
established, on reliable evidence, than that of the berserkr rage
being a species of diabolical possession. The berserkir were said to
work themselves up into a state of frenzy, in which a demoniacal power
came over them, impelling them to acts from which in their sober
senses they would have recoiled. They acquired superhuman force, and
were as invulnerable and as insensible to pain as the Jansenist
convulsionists of S. Medard. No sword would wound them, no fire would
barn them, a club alone could destroy them, by breaking their bones,
or crushing in their skulls. Their eyes glared as though a flame
burned in the sockets, they ground their teeth, and frothed at the
mouth; they gnawed at their shield rims, and are said to have
sometimes bitten them through, and as they rushed into conflict they
yelped as dogs or howled as wolves. [1]
[1. Hic (Syraldus) septem filios habebat, tanto veneficiorum usu
callentes, ut sæpe subitis furoris viribus instincti solerent ore
torvum infremere, scuta morsibus attrectare, torridas fauce prunas
absumere, extructa quævis incendia penetrare, nec posset conceptis
dementiæ motus alio remedii genere quam aut vinculorum injuriis aut
cædis humanæ piaculo temperari. Tantam illis rabiem site sævitia
ingenii sive furiaram ferocitas inspirabat.—_Saxo Gramm_. VII.]
According to the unanimous testimony of the old Norse historians, the
berserkr rage was extinguished by baptism, and as Christianity
advanced, the number of these berserkir decreased.
But it must not be supposed that this madness or possession came only
on those persons who predisposed themselves to be attacked by it;
others were afflicted with it, who vainly struggled against its
influence, and who deeply lamented their own liability to be seized
with these terrible accesses of frenzy. Such was Thorir Ingimund’s
son, of whom it is said, in the Vatnsdæla Saga, that “at times there
came over Thorir berserkr fits, and it was considered a sad misfortune
to such a man, as they were quite beyond control.”
The manner in which he was cured is remarkable; pointing as it does to
the craving in the heathen mind for a better and more merciful
creed:—
“Thorgrim of Kornsá had a child by his concubine Vereydr, and, by
order of his wife, the child was carried out to perish.
“The brothers (Thorsteinn and Thorir) often met, and it was now the
turn of Thorsteinn to visit Thorir, and Thorir accompanied him
homeward. On their way Thorsteinn asked Thorir which he thought was
the first among the brethren; Thorir answered that the reply was easy,
for ‘you are above us all in discretion and talent; Jökull is the best
in all perilous adventures, but I,’ he added, ‘I am the least worth of
us brothers, because the berserkr fits come over me, quite against my
will, and I wish that you, my brother, with your shrewdness, would
devise some help for me.’
“Thorsteinn said,—‘I have heard that our kinsman, Thorgrim, has just
suffered his little babe to be carried out, at the instigation of his
wife. That is ill done. I think also that it is a grievous matter for
you to be different in nature from other men.’
“Thorir asked how he could obtain release from his affliction … .
Then said Thorsteinn, ‘Now will I make a vow to Him who created the
sun, for I ween that he is most able to take the ban of you, and I
will undertake for His sake, in return, to rescue the babe and to
bring it up for him, till He who created man shall take it to
Himself-for this I reckon He will do!’ After this they left their
horses and sought the child, and a thrall of Thorir had found it near
the Marram river. They saw that a kerchief had been spread over its
face, but it had rumpled it up over its nose; the little thing was all
but dead, but they took it up and flitted it home to Thorir’s house,
and he brought the lad up, and called him Thorkell Rumple; as for the
berserkr fits, they came on him no more.” (c. 37)
But the most remarkable passages bearing on our subject will be found
in the Aigla.
There was a man, Ulf (the wolf) by name, son of Bjálfi and Hallbera.
Ulf was a man so tall and strong that the like of him was not to be
seen in the land at that time. And when he was young he was out viking
expeditions and harrying … He was a great landed proprietor. It
was his wont to rise early, and to go about the men’s work, or to the
smithies, and inspect all his goods and his acres; and sometimes he
talked with those men who wanted his advice; for he was a good
adviser, he was so clear-headed; however, every day, when it drew
towards dusk, he became so savage that few dared exchange a word with
him, for he was given to dozing in the afternoon.
“People said that he was much given to changing form (hamrammr), so
he was called the evening-wolf, kveldúlfr.”—(c. 1.) In this and the
following passages, I do not consider hamrammr to have its primary
signification of actual transformation, but simply to mean subject to
fits of diabolical possession, under the influence of which the bodily
powers were greatly exaggerated. I shall translate pretty freely from
this most interesting Saga, as I consider that the description given
in it of Kveldulf in his fits greatly elucidates our subject.
“Kveldulf and Skallagrim got news during summer of an expedition.
Skallagrim. was the keenest-sighted of men, and he caught sight of the
vessel of Hallvard and his brother, and recognized it at once. He
followed their course and marked the haven into which they entered at
even. Then he returned to his company, and told Kveldulf of what he
had seen … . Then they busked them and got ready both their boats;
in each they put twenty men, Kveldulf steering one and Skallagrim the
other, and they rowed in quest of the ship. Now when they came to the
place where it was, they lay to. Hallvard and his men had spread an
awning over the deck, and were asleep. Now when Kveldulf and his party
came upon them, the watchers
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