"Make me a werwolf! make me a man-eater!
Make me a werwolf! make me a woman-eater!
Make me a werwolf! make me a child-eater!
I pine for blood! human blood!
Give it me! give it me to-night!
Great Wolf Spirit! give it me, and
Heart, body, and soul, I am yours."
The trees then begin to rustle, and the wind to moan, and out of the sudden darkness that envelops everything glows the tall, cylindrical, pillar-like phantom of the Unknown, seven or eight feet in height. It sometimes develops further, and assumes the form of a tall, thin monstrosity, half human and half animal, grey and nude, with very long legs and arms, and the feet and claws of a wolf. Its head is shaped like that of a wolf, but surrounded with the hair of a woman, that falls about its bare shoulders in yellow ringlets. It has wolf's ears and a wolf's mouth. Its aquiline nose and pale eyes are fashioned like those of a human being, but animated with an expression too diabolically malignant to proceed from anything but the superphysical.
It seldom if ever speaks, but either utters some extraordinary noise—a prolonged howl that seems to proceed from the bowels of the earth, a piercing, harrowing whine, or a low laugh full of hellish glee, any of which sounds may be taken to express its assent to the favour asked.
It only remains visible for a minute at the most, and then disappears with startling abruptness. The supplicant is now a werwolf. He undergoes his first metamorphosis into wolf form the following evening at sunset, reassuming his human shape at dawn; and so on, day after day, till his death, when he may once more metamorphose either from man form to wolf form, or vice versa, his corpse retaining whichever form has been assumed at the moment of death. However, with regard to this final metamorphosis there is no consistency: it may or may not take place. In the practice of exorcism, for the purpose of eradicating the evil property of werwolfery, all manner of methods are employed. Sometimes the werwolf is soundly whipped with ash twigs, and saturated with a potion such as I described in a previous chapter; sometimes he is made to lie or sit over, or lie or stand close beside, a vessel containing a fumigation mixture composed of sulphur, asafœtida, and castoreum, or hypericum and vinegar; or sometimes, again, he is well whipped and rubbed all over with the juice of the mistletoe berry. Occasionally a priest is summoned, and then a formal ceremony takes place.
An altar is erected. On it are placed lighted candles, a Bible, a crucifix. The werwolf, in wolf form, bound hand and foot, is then placed on the ground at the foot of the altar, and fumigated with incense and sprinkled with holy water. The sign of the cross is made on his forehead, chest, back, and on the palms of his hands. Various prayers are read, and the affair concludes when the priest in a loud voice adjures the evil influence to depart, in the name of God the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Virgin Mary.
I have never, however, heard of any well-authenticated case testifying to the efficacy of this or of any other mode of exorcism. As far as I know, once a werwolf always a werwolf is an inviolable rule.
Apparently women are more desirous of becoming werwolves than men, more women than men having acquired the property of werwolfery through their own act. In the case of women candidates for this evil property, the inspiring motive is almost always one of revenge, sometimes on a faithless lover, but more often on another woman; and when once women metamorphose thus, their craving for human flesh is simply insatiable—in fact, they are far more cruel and daring, and much more to be dreaded, than male werwolves. The following story seems to bear out the truth of this assertion:—
The Case of Ivan of Shiganska
Shiganska was—for it no longer exists, having been obliterated about fifty years ago by a blizzard—a small village on the left bank of the Petchora, about a hundred miles from its mouth.
Owing chiefly to the character of the adjacent country, Shiganska was wanting in every beauty and variety that charms the eye. It was situated on a stretch of flat land between two mountain ranges, i.e., the Ural on one side and the Taman on the other, and surrounded by a wood so thick that it was with the greatest difficulty anyone could force a way into it, supposing they had been sufficiently fortunate to escape sticking fast in the morasses of soft, rotten mould, that lie hidden in the least suspicious looking places, on its borders. Here were to be found lycanthropous blue and white flowers, which those desirous of becoming werwolves sought from far and wide, some even coming from Siberia, and some from away down South as far as Astrakan. And the woods abounded not only in werwolves, but in all sorts of supernatural horrors—phantoms of the dead, i.e. (of murderers and suicides) Vice Elementals and Vagrarians, vampires and ghouls; no region in Russia boasted so many, and for this reason it was scrupulously avoided by all sensible people after sunset.
