CONSTANTINE C

CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY

[ FRAGMENT ON LYCANTHROPY ]

[…] Be made clearer when we consider the abundance of wolves in the northern parts of Europe. In England alone we are told[1] they were so numerous that King Edgar, 959-975 A.D., in order to extirpate them exacted from the Welsh a yearly tribute of three hundred wolves’ heads. The villages, and even the towns, were little protected against their raids; and, indeed, when we read of wolves entering inn great numbers in Paris about the XVth century A.D., forcing the citizens to shut themselves up in their houses for shelter, and at last departing carrying away with them as a booty many children of tender age much of the mystery encircling the origin of the «loups-garous» is dispelled. I cannot help quoting on this head Lord Tennyson:

And ever and anon the wolf would steal

The children and devour, but now and then,

Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat

To human sucklings: and the children, housed

In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,

And mock their foster-mother on four feet,

Till, straighten’d, they grew up to wolf-like men,

Worse than the wolves.[2]

as well as a clever letter addressed by a resident in India to an anonymous gentleman of Broughton-in-Furness:[3] «When in Oude in India, twenty-six years ago, we heard of several instances of native babies carried off by she-wolves, and placed with their whelps and brought up wild there; there was one about when we were there, partially reclaimed, but retaining much of the savage nature imbibed with the wolf’s milk, and having been accustomed to go on all fours – i.e. knees and elbows; but these I concluded were not affected with ‘lycanthropy’». Far from arriving at the same conclusion I believe this of all phases of lycanthropy to be the most sure.

M. Charles Richet, in an article entitled «The Demoniaes of Old Time», contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes for February1880, dwells somewhat at length on lycanthropy. To begin with the XVth century down to the «middle of the XVIth there is little witchcraft» he observes «in France but on the contrary there is much lycanthropy. We must identify the men-wolves with the sorcerers for they are very much alike. At times the man-wolf is the devil, at times a real wold under Satan’s influence, but the oftenest it is a magician who transforms himself into a beast, and runs about the fields in that shape as better calculated to harm the faithful. The old French writers speak with terror of the men-wolves or garwalls who devour young children:

Many men became garwalls.

Garwalls is a fierce beast

Which in the height of fury

Devours men, works many evils.

And hurries on traversing large forests.[4]

A name has been given to this sort of madness, they have called lycanthropes (men-wolves) the miserable creatures who fancy they are changed into beasts. In those centuries of misery and ignorance lycanthropy was epidemical. Many imagined that they were covered with hair, that they were armed with talons and formidable teeth, that they had torn to pieces in their nightly excursions men, animals, and above all children. Some lycanthropes were surprised in the open country with blood and filth, and carrying fragments of corpses».

Esquirol, a trustworthy French writer, furnishes in his book on «Mental Maladies»[5] a similar description of men-wolves, or lycanthropes:

«This terrible affliction began to manifest itself in France in the XVth century, and the name of ‘loups-garous’ has been given to the sufferers. These unhappy beings fly from society of mankind, and live in the woods, the cemeteries, or old ruins, prowling about the open country only by night, howling as they go. They let their beards and nails grow, and then seeing themselves armed with claws and covered with shaggy hair they become confirmed in the belief that they are wolves. Impelled by ferocity or want they throw themselves upon young children and tear, kill, and devour them».

Whenever there was a suspicion – says my first authority, M. Richet[6] – of a man-wolf’s being near a village the peasantry formed themselves into a body in order to capture and slay him; and there remains an act of the parliament of Dôle which «desiring to prevent greater inconveniency» authorised the inhabitants of the spots about which the man-wolf was seen to prowl to assemble and attack him making use of offensive weapons:

«Icelle Cour, désirant obvier à plus grand inconvénient, a permis et permet aux manants et habitants desdits lieux, et autres, de, nonobstant les édits concernant la chasse, eux pouvoir assembler, et avec épieux, hallebardes, piques, arquebuses, bâtons, chasser et poursuivre ledit loup-garou par tous lieux où le pourront trouver et prendre, lier et occire, sans pouvoir encourir aucune peine et amende».

The natural ending of these chases was the capture of the man-wolf and his death on the stake.

Gradually the wolf became more and more the animal whose form the witches and wizards particularly affected. «Boguet» observes M. Richet[7] «relates seriously the story of a hunter who having struck off with a blow of his gun the paw of a she-wolf, lost his way subsequently and sought the hospitality of a neighbouring castle. Questioned as to whether he had been successful in his sport he is about to produce the she-wolf’s paw when, to his great surprise, he discovers it to be the hand of a woman. The lord of the castle recognising on it his marriage rings runs to his wife whom he finds hiding one of her arms covered with blood. After this, no more doubt was possible; she was a witch and ran about the forest under the form of a she-wolf». He would be tempted to consider the whole story a fable had not the poor woman been burned.

The most extravagant reports touching the men-wolves were received with credence. The physical differences, it was averred, between them and the wolves consisted in the formers’ hair growing interiorly between hide and flesh. Their skin being proof against all bullets the hunters took care before attacking them to have their guns blessed in the church of St. Hubert, patron of the chase. The lycanthropes ran as swiftly as, and sometimes more swiftly than, the wolves. They left behind them footprints similar to the wolves’. Their eyes were fearful and bright. They strangled bid dogs with facility and struck off the heads of little children with their teeth. Last of all they had the daring and the ability to execute these abominable deeds in the very face of men.

De Lanere’s description[8] of a man-wolf condemned by the parliament of Bordeaux is in the same time more simple and more trustworthy. He found that he was a young man twenty or twenty-one years old, of middling height – rather short than tall for his age. His eyes were haggard, sunk, and black, and he dared not raise them to the face of any one present. He had by no means an intelligent look, his trade having been that of a keeper of cattle. His teeth were clear, long, and uncommonly large; his nails black, sunken in, and worn. What proved plainly that he had been a man-wolf was the manner he used his hands in order to run and catch the little children and dogs by the neck: he had a wonderful aptitude for walking on all fours and for leaping over ditches as a quadruped. «He moreover avowed to me» De Lanere tells us «that he inclined to eating the flesh of young children among whom he gave his preference to young girls as they were more tender».

I could go on multiplying these descriptions and quotations ad eternum were it not unnecessary. What I have said is sufficient to give the reader an idea of lycanthropy and set him at considering whether the theory broached in the beginning of this article be possible or probable.

I may state en passant that the wolf – possessed of so remarkable a prominence in the superstitions of the Middle-Ages – did not pass unnoticed or without incense among the people of Antiquity. It was an object of adoration in three of the countries that have been distinguished the most for their early civilization – in India, Egypt, and Italy. In Egypt a town was raised to its honour called Lycopolis (the wolf’s city) in which it was specially venerated.

In Teuton mythology a wolf styled Fenris is said, with the great sea-serpent Irminsul, to have alone escaped Odin when, like another Theseus, he purged the earth of the various monsters that afflicted it. Unable to kill Fenris Odin at least captured and confined him in Hell along with two other wolves who were punished for attempting to devour the sun. The victory of Odin however over the wolves and the protection accorded by him to the solar sphere were, according to Teuton prophecy, but temporary, for eventually we are assured Fenris destined to break through his bonds and slay his victor. As a necessary consequence too would the sun fall a prey to his brother-wolves.–[9]

The word «loup-garou»,[10] according to M. Littré, is composed of the French loup, wolf, and garou derived – as well as «garwall» and «gerulphus» – from the German «werewolf» i.e. man-wolf, so that «loup-garou» translated with exactitude offers the meaning of wolf-man-wolf.

Buffon’s etymology of the word is singularly incorrect:

«On a vu des loups accoutumés à la chair humaine se jeter sur les hommes, attaquer le berger plutôt que le troupeau, dévorer des femmes, emporter des enfants, &c.; on a appelé ces mauvais loups loups-garou: c’est-à-dire loups dont il faut se garer».

[1] See Mannder’s Treasury of Science, Milner’s England & other works.

[3] See Preface to Man-Wolf (a translation of Erek.-Chatian’s Hugnes-le-Loup)

[4] Hommes plusieurs garwalls devinrent.

Garwall, si est beste sauvage ;

Tant comme il est en belle rage,

Hommes devore, grand mal fait,

Es grands forêts traverse et vait.

[10] This is the term generally used in France and elsewhere in connexion with lycanthropy.