"Away, away, shoo, shoo, shoo!
Do you think we care a jot for you?
We'll whip thee again, with a crack, crack, crack!
Scourge thee and beat thee till thou art black;
Fool of a greywolf, we have thee at last,
Back to thy hell home, out of him fast—
Fast, fast, fast!
Our patience won't last.
We'll scratch thee, we'll prick thee,
We'll prod thee, we'll scald thee.
Fast, fast, out of him, fast!"
They keep on shouting these words over and over again till the liquid has given out and the clock strikes one; when, with a final blow or kick at the prostrate werwolf, they run away.
The evil spirit is then said to leave the man, who quickly recovers his proper shape, and with a loud cry of joy rushes after his friends and relations.
When the Spaniards invaded Holland they resorted to a surer, if a somewhat more drastic, mode of getting rid of lycanthropy—they burned the subject possessed of it.
One of the best known cases of a werwolf in the Netherlands is as follows:—
A young man, whilst on his way to a shooting match at Rousse, was suddenly startled by hearing loud screams for help proceeding from a field a few yards distant. To jump a dike and scramble over a low wall was but the work of a few seconds, and in less time than it takes to tell, the young man, whose name was Van Renner, found himself face to face with a huge grey wolf. Quick as thought, he fitted an arrow to his bow, and shot. The missile struck the wolf in the side, and with a howl of pain the wounded creature turned tail and fled for his life.
All might now have ended like some delightful romance, for the rescued one proved to be an exceedingly attractive maiden, with bright yellow hair and big blue eyes; but unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, who knows?—the girl had a husband, and Van Renner a wife; and so, instead of the incident being the prelude to a love affair, it was merely an occasion for grateful acknowledgment—and—farewell. On his return home that evening Van Renner was met with an urgent request to visit his friend, the Burgomaster. He hastened to obey the summons, and found the Burgomaster in bed, suffering agonies of pain from a wound which he had received in his side some hours previously.
"I can't die without telling you," he whispered, clutching Van Renner by the hand. "God help me, I'm a werwolf! I've always been one. It's in my family—it's hereditary. It was your arrow that has wounded me fatally."
Van Renner was too aghast to speak. He was really fond of the Burgomaster, and to think of him a werwolf—well! it was too dreadful to contemplate. The dying man gazed eagerly, hungrily, piteously into his friend's face.
"Don't say you hate me," he cried. "There is little hope for me, if any, in the next world; and in all probability I shall either go direct to hell or remain earthbound; but, for God's sake, let me die in the knowledge that I leave behind me at least one friend!"