Howl At The Moon

Sinfjotli and his uncle Sigmund came across a house set deep in the Norwegian forest. Inside the hosue slept two enchanted men. Wolfskins hung on the wall above them. The sleeping men had been cursed so that only on every tenth day could they come out of their wolfskin and resume human form. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put the skins on and were instantly transformed into werewolves themselves; that is, they became wolves in physical appearance and spirit, but retained human minds. Together they agreed that they should risk attacking nor more than seven men. If they needed help from each other, they agreed to howl, and each went their separate way looking for flesh. But Sinfjotli, despite, the agreement, took on eleven men alone, and though he defeated them all, Sigmund was furious. In an instant he pounced on his nephew and tore his windpipe open with one slash of his claws. He carried the young werewolf to a hut and kept watch over his hurt body. After seeing two weasels fight outside the hut, and watching the victorious weasel place a leaf over the cut windpipe of his victim, Sigmund decided to do the same. A raven brought him the medicinal leaf, and after Sigmund placed it across the hurt windpipe, Sinfjotli was healed instantly. The two returned to their lair and waited for the time when they could take off their skins. As soon as the moment arrived they tore off the wolfskins and burned them breaking the curse.

An ancient Greek cult that worshipped on Mount Lykaion in Arcadia had a yearly ceremony in which one worshipper would be transformed into a werewolf. In this animal form he was made to roam about for nine years. If during this time he could refrain from eating human flesh he would be changed back into a man. If however, as a werewolf, he consumed human flesh, he could never return to his human self.

In Germany the transformation was made by wearing a wolfskin and a belt with a magic buckle. When the buckle broke the enchantment was broken.

Story From Sweden

A man thought he might be a werewolf. Without sharing his suspicisons about himself he asked his wife if she happened to catch sight of a werwolf please not to stab it but to hit it with a pitchfork. That very night she did encounter a werewolf, and she obeyed her husband's request. The werewolf snagged her dress hem in his mouth as he fell. At breakfast the next morning she happened to notice dress strands in her husband's teeth, and she said to him: "I think you are a werewolf." He replied, "Thank you for telling me for now I am freed!"

Chinese Folklore

A housewife went out nightly in wolf shape and then listened to her family discuss the neighborhood werewolf problem; she promptly left the household and was never seen again.

In France another housewife had less luck. One day a man saw his friend a hunter pass by his chateau, and waving to him, called out to wish him a good chase. Later, the hunter was attacked by a wolf and attempted to kill the animal but was able only to swipe at it with his knife and sever a paw. He escaped narrowly, and shaken stopped by his friend's home to tell him about the attack. When he opened his sack to show his friend the paw, he was shocked to find instead a lady's hand with a ring on one finger. The friend recognized the ring as his own wife's and went to find her. She was hiding her hand in a bloody kerchief when he came into her chamber and she was forced to confess. She was arrested and burned to death.

A bayou werewolf species that originated in France. The name may have come from a shortened form of Loup gardez-vous which means "Wolf watch out!". It is a person transformed either by a spell cast by another or by choice which consists of rubbing the body with a special kind of grease into a creature notable for its fiery red eyes, body hair, large claws, long snout, and mean disposition. They are frequently seen at special dances in bayou country in which cavorting in wolf style and acting wild is the common practice. Each loup garou is said to own a bat the size of an airplane that serves as its transportation. They fly them to other people's homes and drop down the chimney into the bedroom. There they bite the sleeping human victim, who wakes up the next morning as one of them.

Werewolf Symptoms

1. Palms are covered with coarse and stiff hair.

2. Flesh of their palms are rough even a bit scaly from repeated shaving

3. The index finger is a lot longer than the middle finger.

4. The eyebrows grow together and meet in the middle.

Hunters of old believed that a pentagram would be found on a lycanthrope's body on the chest or the hand. It was also believed that the shadow of a pentagram would show up on the palm or forehead of the next victim and would be visible to the monster. When the curse is upon them their eyes glow in the dark usually with a reddish hue.

Dr Werner Bokelman's Test

For determining if your friend or neighbor is a werewolf

Werewolves have extra glands that emit unpleasant odors. Therefore, if your friend or neightbor smells like a mixture of stale hay and horse manure, he or she could be a werewolf. Docotrs in Denmark have declared that a certain mark of the werewolf is evidenced when he or she possesses eyebrows that meet in the middle of the forehead. The arms, legs, and bodies of werwolves are extremely hair, especially the backs of their hands and the tops of their feet. Werewolves reach sexual maturity five years ahead of normal humans, so keep an eye on that neighbor's child who seems unusually attracted to children of the opposite sex at the age of seven or eight. Check the ring finger of both of the suspected werwolf's hands. Experts have determined that a long ring finger is a certain sign of a werwolf. does your neighbor own large pets that are always disappearing only to be replaced with others? Because wolves have demanding appetities that require large amounts of raw flesh, they may be devouring their pets. If you hear strange howling and moaning sounds at night in the neighborhood where there is a full moon but no dogs around, you are quite likely living next to a werewolf. Have you noticed his or her skin slowly changing color? It may take a few hours for a werewolf to transform from human to animal form, and the first sign of the coming metamorphosis is a gradual darkening of the skin. If you spot your neighbor wandering around graveyards and mortuaries and often appearing at the scene of fatal accidents, he or she may be a werewolf scouting for fresh corpses. If you have the courage to be near a werewolf in the daylight, you might follow him into a public restroom to see if his urine is a deep purple color another sure sign of a werewolf.

According to Navajo tradition, one of the ways of knowing that an animal harbors a chindi is that it will walk upright, like a human. Another sure way of identifying an animal that harbors a chindi is that its eyes will appear dead. If your headlights hit the animal's eyes and they do not reflect the light, you will know that a chindi has possessed the creature. How it responds to an innocent person depends upon the person's attitude toward the Mother Earth and whether or not they have a good heart. To stop one draw a medicine circle around you and say or sing a prayer the intent is more important so it doesn't have to be a Navajo chant just one that you know. Say or sing it aloud. If it sees that you have a good heart the evil energy will return to the one who sent the chindi on you.

Navajo Long Salt Family 1825

A man became ill because of nightmares that troubled his sleep. He told his brothers that he was visited by the angry spirit of a man that he had killed. His eldest brother protested that the man had been their family enemy for years and had been killed in a fair fight. According to tribal law the killing had been justified. The tormented man explained that the spirit was restless because he had been struck down before he could sing his death song. They must find a medicine priest to rid him of the troubled spirit or he would surely die. They sought assistance from an old, blind medicine priest from teh Tsegi country. At their request, he held a three day b'jene (sing) a purification ritual over the afflicted brother. After the final day of the ritual the troubled man sighed his relief and his gratitude that the restless spirit had departed and that he could now sleep peacefully. For his pay, the blind priest had asked for five butchered sheep from the Long Salt family's herd. The requested recompense was surely fair, and the powerful Long Salt clan, who at that time numbered over 100 members, possessed many sheep. But since the sheep were grazing at a considerable distance from the old priest's village, the two Long Salt men assigned the task of slaughtering the sheep decided to subsitute five wild antelope in their place. After all, the old man was blind. He wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the animals and they would preserve five vaulable sheep for the family's own use. The Long Salt elder who awared the five carcasses was himself unware that the antelope had been subsituted for the sheep. With the animals heads cutt off and their lower legs removed at the knees, even those at the ceremony rewarding the medicine man were unaware of the deceit that two members of their clan had prepetrated. A few weeks later, an older member of the Long Salt family who had been wealthy and without illness died suddenly. Then a very young and robuse Long Salt male fell dead for no perceptible reason. As his pregnant wife and other family members sang their mourning songs, an ueasy feeling began to grow that something was not right. Every few weeks after the young husband's death, a member of the Long Salt family would become ill, begin to waste away, and then die in suffering. To the wiser members of the family, it was becoming increasingly obvious that a chindi had been set against them. But why? When at last the two men confessed substituting the antelope for the sheep, a council of family leaders agreed that selected delegates would meet with the medicine priest and seek to rectify the situation without further delay. The old priest admitted that he had discovered the deception and had become very angry. He also acknowledged that he had set a chindi against them with the instructions that the entire Long Salt family should be eliminated one by one. The representatives of the Long Salts beseeched him to call off the avenging spirit. They tried to make him understand that they too, had been duped by two deceitful and lazy members of the clan. They did not intent to cheat him. And already many members of their family had been killed by the chindi. The elderly medicine priest carefully evaluated their words and deemed them sincere. He told them that he was not an evil man, but he had been forced to uphold his dignity and reputation. He would remove the curse but he must charge them a price somehow commensurate witht he laws of the spirit world that had required him to set the chindi upon them. The Long Salt delegates answered that they would not question his judgement. They would pay whatever price he asked in order to call off the chindi and to save the lives of their family members. The old priest called his son to his side, complaining that he was now very tired too weary to determine a proper compensation. He bade the Long Salts return in ten days. At that time, both parties would agree to the terms of payment. The Long Salts were dismayed, but they knew better to protest the old man's decision. On the morning of the tenth day, the delegation from the Long Salts was prompt in keeping the appointment at the home of the blind medicine man. But they were greeted by a family in mourning. The elderly priest had passed to the land of the grandfathers three days earlier. The desperate Long Salts asked the man's son if he had called off the chindi before he died. To their horror, he was unable to determine if the curse had been lifted. The priest's son could only tell him that he knew that his father had though much about the problem before he died. By the time the Long Salt delegation returned home, several members of the family lay ill and dying.

The Chronicon of Denys Of Tell-Mahre

Mesopotamia c774

They fled from no man, and indeed, killed many people...They were like wolves, but their faces were small and long...and they had great ears. The skin on their spine resembled that of a pig. These mysterious animals committed great ravages on the people in the Abdin Rock region, near Hoh. In some village they devoured more than 100 people; and in many others, from 20 to 40 or 50. If a man did pursue them, in no way did the monsters become frightened or flee. Instead, they turned on the man. If men loosed their weapons on a monster, it leaped on the men and tore them to bits. These monsters entered houses and yards, and...climbed in the night onto terraces, stole children from their beds and went off without opposition. When they appeared, dogs were afraid to bark. For these reasons, the country suffered a more terrible experience than it had ever known before...When one of these monsters attacked a herd of goats, cattle, or a flock of sheep, they took away several at one time...These monsters finally passed from the land and went into Arzanene and ravaged every village there. They also ravaged in the country of Maipherk and along Mt Cahai and caused great damage...

1640 Greifswald Werewolves

A group of bold students decided that they had had enough of living in fear and staying indoors at night, cowering before their hearths. One night they banded together and led a charge against the monsters. Although the students put up a good fight, they were virtually helpless against the powerful werewolves. But then a clever lad suggested that they gather all their silver buttons, goblets, belt buckles, and so forth, and melt them down into bullets for their muskets and pistols. Thus reinforced, the students once again went to challenge the dominance of the werewolves and this time they slaughtered the creatures and rid Greifswald of the lycanthropes.

Sicily Lupo Mannaro

Ancient Superstitions

The howl is known as ruccula or ruzulu, and a common proverb says: Master Wolf is known by his note, Lupi si conusci a lu rucculu. It is still held that a man seen by a wolf is struck drumb, and the phrase Lu vitti lu lupu can often be heard. A wolf's skin has extraordinary virtues and it is believed that a man who wears one will be full of zes and courage even to audacity. A wolf's foot is a excellent charm for colic and other pains.

According to the Sicilian tradition, a child conceived at the new moon will become a werewolf as will the man who on a certain Wednesday or Friday in summer sleeps in the open with the moon shining full on his face.

In Palmero they say that as the moon waxes to her round the werewolf begins to feel the craving and his eyes sink deep are glazed. He falls to the ground and wallows in the dust or mud and is seized with fearful writhings and pangs after which his limbs quiver and contract horribly.

Some while since, when I was still but a slave we used to ive in Small Street, in the house which now belongs to Gavilla. And there, as luck would have it, I feel head over heels in love with the wife of Terentius the inn-keeper; you all used to know Melissa she came from Tarentum originally and a lovely bussing bit she was too! Not that I care for her just for the sake of mutton mongering and a ride, i'vads; no, no, I like her because she was a good honest wench, frank and free. If one ever asked her for anything one never got No for an answer; if she made a spanker, half of it was mine; and as far as I was concerned too, every penny that came my way she had the handling of, nor even once did she chouse me of a doit. Well her husband good man! died at a little country house they had, and there I was casting about how to get to her by hook or by crook, for I needn't tell you that you learn who are your real friends when you are in a bit of a fix like that. It so happened that just then my master had gone off to Capua to dispatch some business he was concerned in there, and I of course took advantage of such a fine opportunity. I had no difficulty in prevailing upon a young man who was staying in the hosue to bear me company for a good bit of the way. He was a soldier, and as lusty a lad as the very deil. Of we set about cockcrow, and the moon was shining as bright as midday. We were on the high road with the grave stones on either side, when my man turned apart to do his jobs (as I thought) among the monuments, so I sat me down singing away to myself and counting the stars overhead. After a while I looked round to see what my companion was upt to, and ecod! my heart jumped into my very mouth. He had taken off all his clothes and laid them in a heap by the road's edge. I till you I was as dumped as a dead man, for I saw him piss in a circle all around his clothes, and then hey presto! he turned into a wolf. Please don't think I'm joking; I wouldn't tell a lie, no, not for a mint of money. But as I was just saying, in a trice he turned into a wolfe, and thereupon he began to howl horribly and rubbed off full tilt into the woods. I didn't know whether I was standing on my head or my heels, and when I went to gather up his clothes, why they had all been changed into stone! Frightened! phew! I was half dead with fear. None the less I lugged out my porker, and as I made my way along I kept thrusting at the haunted shadows, until at last I came to my pretty leman's house. There I tottered in looking like a ghost; every second I thought I was going to breathe my last; my eyes were set and staring; the sweat was pouring down my fork in streams; it was all I could do to gather my wits. Nobody could be more astonished than Melissa to see me out so late on a night jaunt; and, 'If you had only been a little earlier,' she said, 'your help would have come in very pudding time. A huge wolf has just broken into the place, and made sad havoc among our sheep and kine. You might think a flesher had been at work with his knife from the blood. Master Wolf didn't get off scot free all the same, for our man gave him a good jab across the neck with a pike.' When I heard all this I couldn't so much as close an eye, but no sooner was it broad daylight than I beat the hoof back to my master's, Gauis, and I hurried (I can tell you) as fast as mine host scours after a bliking cheat. When I got to the place where the younker's rigging had been turned into stone I could see nothing but a horrid pool of blood! At last I reached home, and there I found my soldier abed, bleeding like an ox in the shambles, whilst the doctor was busy dressing a deep gash in his neck. Then I knew that he was a werewolf, and after that I could neither bite nor sup with him; no, not if you had killed me for it. Yes; you can all think what you like of my tale but Heaven help me never! if I've told a word of a lie.

In popular folklore a man who is transformed, or who transform himself, into a wolf in nature and appearance under the influence of a full moon. The werewolf is only active at night and during that period, he devours infants and corpses. According to legend, werewolves can be killed by silver objects such as silver arrows and silver bullets. When a werewolf dies he returns to his human form.

The word is a contraction of the old Saxon word wer (which means "man") and wolf, werwolf, manwolf. A lycanthrophe, a term often used to describe werewolves, however, is someone who suffers from a mental disease and only thinks he has changed into a wolf.

The concept of werewolves, or lycanthropes, is possibly based on the myth of Lycanon. He was the king of Arcadia, and in the time of the ancient Greeks notorious for his cruelty. He tried to buy the favor of Zeus by offering him the flesh of a young child. Zeus punished him for this crime and turned him into a wolf. The legends of werewolves have been told since the ancient Greeks and are known all over the world. In areas where the wolf is not so common, the belief in werewolves is replaced by folklore where men can change themselves into tigers, lions, bears and other fierce animals.

In the dark Middle Ages, the Church stigmatized the wolf as the personification of evil and a servant of Satan himself. The Church courts managed to put so much pressure on schizophrenics, epileptics, and the mentally disabled, that they testified to be werewolves and admitted to receive their orders directly from Satan. After 1270 it was even considered heretical not to believe in the existence of werewolves.

The charge of being a werewolf disappeared from European courts around the 17th century, but only for the lack of the evidence. The belief in werewolves, however, did not completely disappear. In Europe after 1600, it was generally believed that if there were no werewolves, then at least the wolf was a creature of evil. This resulted in an unjustified and negative image of the wolf, an image that most people still have today.

In old-Norse sagas, there were warriors who dressed themselves in bear skins, to make use of the fear common people had for wild animals. They whipped themselves up to a sort of battle frenzy, biting their shields and howling like animals. They were ferocious fighters and seemingly insensitive to pain while this madness lasted; berserkers made formidable enemies. In their rage they even attacked the boulders and trees of the forest; it was not uncommon that they killed their own people. The belief in berserks can be compared with the belief in werewolves; both are magical transformations of humans who assume the shape of a kindred animal.

They are also sometimes called Ulfheonar ("Wolf-skin-clad-Ones").

By Aldis Putelis

Vilkacis (to be translated literally as "wolfs eyes"; "werewolf") is usually a malicious creature; a scary being who people can turn into. There are particular ways how the people with this curse turn into the wolves and then get their human appearance back. There are particular places, where this is said to have happened. Although mostly malevolent, on ocassion it would bring treasures. It belongs to the same lower level of mythological beings as Dievini, Ragana, Pukis, and Vadatajs. It is not clear whether Vilkacis is human flesh or just the soul that transforms, as are their accounts of moving an apparently asleep person whose soul is out "running as a werewolf", after which the person turns out to be dead, as the soul couldn't enter the flesh to return.

By Allen G Hefner

A name given to the female vampire or werewolf in Surinam Negro folk belief. She transforms from human to animal at night and travels around drinking human blood. According to belief the best way to stop her is by sprinkling grains or seeds about, when seeing them she has a compulsion to stop to count them and gather them up. Another way of stopping her is by propping up a broom, which she won't cross, against a door.

Hellhounds, Werwolves, and The Germanic World

Alby Stone

There is a curious connection between dogs and travel to the realms of the dead. It can be found particularly in Indo-European mythologies although it occurs in Egypt, Siberia, and North America. According to the Vedic mythology of ancient India for instance, the deceased must pass by the four eyed dogs of Yama, king of the dead and; Greek mythology tells of the dog Kerberos, popularly endowed with three heads, who watches the entrance to Hades. Mention also must be made of the white, red eared hounds of Celtic myth. But the idea of the underground watchdog appears to have reached its fullest, and most complex epression among the Germanic peoples.

In Scandinavia, hounds are associated with Niflheimr the mortuary land ruled by the grim queen Hel. The Eddic poem Baldras draumer (Balder's Dreams) tells how Odin rides to Niflheimr to ascertain the meaning of the dreams that have been troubling his son. On the way,

He met a hound, that came from Hel.

That one had blood upon its breast,

and long did he bark at Baldrs father.

Onward rode Odin the earth way roared

till he came to the high hall of Hel. [1]

Also in the poetic Edda, in the Fjolsvinnsmal section of the poem Svipdagsmal, two dogs guard Lyfjaberg (Mount of Healing) the otherworld dwelling of the maiden Mengloth, which is surrounded by a wall of fire, and a clay wall called Gastropnir. HR Ellis Davidson (2) has convincingly identified Mengloth with the goddess Hel, on the grounds that there are significant parallels between Niflheimr and Lyfjaberg to suggest that the rulers of the two places were also probably meant to be one and the same. The two dogs are worth a closer look:

One is called Gifr, Geri is the other,

if you wish to know

they are strong watchdogs and they keep watch

until the doom of the gods. [3]

Gifr means greedy as does Geri. The latter is also the name of one of Odin's wolve's the other is Freki, whose name has the same meaning. As Bruce Lincoln has shown these names are all derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gher, which is thought to denote the sound made by an animal, in this case the canine variety. In essence, the names all mean Growler. The same source gives rise to the name Gamr, Dog, the dreadful beast that is said to be fettered before Niflheimr; and Kerberos. Lincoln also points out that the same root has given rise to a new class of words that he describes as sub verbal utterances; sounds commonly made by people, none of which constitute actual words. He concludes that the Germanic words so derived refer to greed as that characteristic whereby a human being is reduced to the level of a hungry beast: growling, ravenous, and inarticulate and suggests that the association of dog and underworld may be due in part to the dog's widespread reputation as a devourer of corpses; the growl denotes the greed of none other than all devouring death. [4]

To Lincoln's notation we may add the simple observation that the dog's common role in human communities makes it a natural candidate for the part of guardian of the underworld. But there is much more than that to be said for it. Dogs and wolves are closely related, in traditional mythology as well as in nature. The old English epic poem Beowulf describes the monster Grendel and his mother in terms that leave little doubt as to their lupine nature among the words used to describe them are; werga, wertho, heorowearh, brimwylf, grundwygrenne, all of which contain the elements wearg/wearth or wylf. Grendel is also called a scucca (demon), from which the second element of the Black Shuck, the supernatural dog encountered by noctural travellers in East Anglian folklore, is derived. It is also said of Grendel that him of eagum stod ligge gelicost leoht unfaegar, from his eyes shone a fire like, a baleful light. [5]

Grendel and his mother are both hunters and guardians of a burial mound in marshland and are given a aquatic aspect to match brimwylf, for instance means water-wolf. This brings to mind the bodies of water usually rivers but sometimes a lake or sea that are invariable supposed to surround the Indo-European underworld, and those of some non Indo-European cultures. This brings us strange as it may seem, to St Christopher.

In Christian popular tradition, St Chrisopher was a giant who carried travellers across a river. The story is well known, and does not need to be repeated here. But Old English traditions of the saint are rather unusual. According to the Old English Passion of Saint Christopher, he was of the race of mankind who are half hound. The Old English mythology elaborates upon this: from the nation where men have the head of a dog and from the country where men devour each other; furthermore he had the head of a hound, and his locks were extremely long, and his eyes shone as bright as the morning star, and his teeth were as sharp as a boar's tusks. [6]

It is plain that this is not quite the patron saint of travellers that we are told about at Sunday School. It is a peculiarly Old English view of St Christopher. He resembles the monstrous Healfhundingas, a race mentioned in two Old English texts: The Wonders of the East and The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle. More to the point, he resembles the lupine monsters of Beowulf. Like most other Indo-European traditions, the Germans seem to have conceived of an otherworldly ferryman who confucted the dead to the underworld; indeed, Odin was so pictured during the Viking Age. It seems reasonable to suppose that St Christopher's occupation and location struck a traditonal chord familiar to Anglo-Saxon ears, and that the legend was consequently coloured by Germanic underworld motifs.

At this point we must return to the Grendel family, and to Odin's wolves. Grendel and his mother are several times characterised by compounds of the word wearg or its variant wearth, which may be more familiar to readers of JR Tolkien in its continental German farm warg, although it has similar forms in other Germanic tongues. This is a complex word it is often used simple to mean wolf but it also denotes an outlaw or the state or outlawry, in which case it refers to those who have committed crimes that are either unforgiveable or unredeemable, and who are cast out from their communities and doomed to wander until they die. Outlaws were traditionally forest dwellers and could legitimately killed.

It would be easy to assume that outlaws were called warg simply because their offences were of an especially savage kind, and that they were likened to wolves, wild, bestial, and uncivilised as a result. Anglo-Norman law, for example, stated that the outlaw would 'be held to be a wolf and...be proclaimed wolf's head. [7] Interestingly the Frankish Lex Salica uses the phrase wargus sit (he shall be a warg) of a despoiler of buried corpses. [8] But warg is not a straightforward word. It is derived from an Indo-European wergh 'strangle', via Germanic warguz. It is suggested that the use of warg and its variants in Germanic legal codes, as a condemnation, originally was a magico-legal pronouncement which transformed the criminal into a werewolf worthy of strangulation. [9] The Indo-European antiquity of this notion is demonstrated in Hittite texts which include the phrase zi-ik-wa UR BAR RA ki-sa-at, 'thou art become a werewolf' and the name LU MES hurkilas, denoting demon-like entities who are set to capture a wolf and strangle a serpent hurkilas being dervived from the same root as warg [10] The warg, in this anaylsis, is a strangler, but one who himself requires strangulation.

The Lex Salica is not alone in condemning corpse-violaters as warg. Exactly the same thing can be found in the Lex Ripuaria, and in the laws decreed by Henry I of England. Medieval Scandanavian legal texts, however, tend to apply the cognate term to vargr to those who kill by cowardly means, and to oath breakers; however, the term is almost always used in compounds, which suggests that the archaic point has been lost. Ultimately, a warg is an outlaw, one who has literally become a wolf in they eyes of his fellows: a warg can become what he is by being outlawed, for murder or oath breaking; or he can be outlawed for what he already is, a warg, a worrier of corpses.

The traditonal method for disposing of outlaws was hanging, a punishment that is only a minor variation on strangulation. This was the prescribed way of sacrificing to Odin. As the poem Grimnismal says, 'Odin's hall is easy to recognise: a vargr hangs before the western door...' [11] Odin is known as Hangaguth, God of the Hanged' in Old English, Old Saxon, and Old Norse, the gallows is known as the warg tree. Strangulation is implied by a number of references to the ropes or snares of the death goddess in Indo-European myth and here the name Mengloth, 'necklace-glad', may be significant, especially as one of the walls that surround her Lyfjberg is the clay wall called Gastropnir, 'Guest Strangler'.

The situation thus far can be summarise as follows: Firstly, the land of the dead is guarded by a canine or lupine creature. Secondly, that land must be reached by crossing a body of water. Next, warg applies to men who are legally wolves or werewolves for that is what we are dealing with here and are condemned to the noose. Lastly, the references to Grendel in Beowulf suggest further that the dogs or wolves who guard or bar the way to the underworld are themselves warg.

There are two more things to note before we can progress further. One is an interesting kenning in another Eddic poem, Helreith Brynhildar this is hrot-garmr meaning 'howling dog' which stands for fire, and in this case refers specifially to Byrnhild's funeral pyre. The other is the wall of fire that surrounds Mengloth's Lyfjberg. This is paralleled in several other medieval Norse texts by walls of flame that surround otherworld realms. The two ideas could be linked: after all, cremation is itself a wall of fire that is a boundary between this world and the next.

This takes us, indirectly, back to warg. The Roogenwolf (rye-wolf) of German rural folklore is a demon that lives in grainfields and ambushes peasants, strangling them. This creature, essentially a type of werewolf, is represented at harvest time by the last sheaf, which is called 'Wolf' and tied up to nullify its malignance. Like Grendel, the Roogenwolf has a sinister mother, the Roogenmutter or Kornmutter. Another lupine connection is the fungus ergot, which is particularly associated with rye. This fungus, which gives the grain an unpleasant appearance, is sometimes known as Wolf or Wolfszahn (Wolf-tooth). Mary R Gerstein [12] suggests that there is an etymological link between ergot and warg: she presents a number of examples where variants of warg are used to imply moral or physical corruption or disease, and in some way they are coupled with the term and represented in Old Norse by argr and ergi and in other Germanic languages as earh, earg, arag, arug, and so on. This is basically a term used to denote passive homosexuality, and is specifically applied to the recipient in anal intercourse. It is also used to describe Odin, as a consequence of his use of the magical technique called seithr, an art appropriate to women. Gerstein's idea is that, just as warg indicates the transformation of man into wolf, arg denotes the notional change of man into woman. Arg and its cognate forms form the third corner of this etymological triangle.

Ergot contains a number of interesting subtances, chief among them which is lysergic acid, from which the hallucinogen LSD is made. Poisoning by ergot (ergotism) used to occur frequently in Europe. Among the symptoms of this virulent, and often lethal condition are: disruption of motor control functions, causing tremors and writhing, wry neck convulsions, rolling eyes, and speechlessness, dizziness, confusion, hallucinations, panic attacks, and delusions, extreme thirst, uncontrollable appetite, feelings of extreme heat, or even cold, with itching and tingling, swelling and blistering of the skin. Ergotism was known by a variety of names: St Anthony's Fire, and to the physicians of seventeenth-century England 'suffocation of the mother'. In other words the symptoms of ergotism mimic lycanthropic behaviour, and can often lead to a fairly convincing simulation of death by strangulation (wry neck) or suffocation [13]. In addition, the presence of lysergic acid is capable of taking the victim on a very bad trip indeed. From the observer's point of view, the symptoms are also superficially similar to rabies. Ergotism or rabies could explain the popular belief that lycanthropy is tranmitted through the bite of a werewolf, and in this context ergotism may be the more likely candidate.

Furthermore, the itching and burning sensations caused by extreme vascular constriction often a prelude to tissue necrosis, gangrene could also be construed as a foretaste of the fires of hell, and the experience would augment the effects of the lysergic acid. The growth of ergot is stimulated by certain atmospheric conditions: it grows best in overcast and damp weather. Epidemics have been linked to volcanic eruptions, particularly in Scandinavia; and the presence of nearby marshland or lakes is enough to moisten the air sufficiently to facilitate the growth of ergot. [14] To this we must add the simple fact that rye has long been the traditonal staple grain of Germany and Scandinavia; although ergot is no means exclusive to that cereal. With that in mind, it may be useful to note that the most commonly accepted interpretation of the controversial name Beowulf is 'Barley-wolf,' which hints at the same theme, and adds the notion of the warrior as one who can change into a ravening beast, a lycanthropic transformation that is also expressed in the Norse term berserkr 'bear-shirt'.

It is difficult to summarise this complex argument with clarity. The basic Indo-European (or even Eurasiatic) myth, of the dog that keeps watch over the realm of the dead, has been augmented by the peculiarly Germanic idea of the outlaw as wolf, and as a foredoomed sacrifical victim. The term warg may orginally have applied exclusively to those guilty of desecrating buried corpses, or perhaps even those who killed in a cowardly manner. The latter, if the etymology of warg is any indication, may have been stranglers in other words those who killed by a method normally reserved for human sacrifice. Like those men who are argr, 'passive' homosexuals, the warg occupies a marginal position; just as one is a man who acts like a woman, the other is a man who legally is a wolf and is also, it must be remarked as good as dead in the eyes of his fellows. Such people are able to travel between the worlds of life and death, like the shaman. That these ideas came to grow together is shown in the Middle High German epic Eneide by Henreich von Veldeke, who characterises Kerberos as both arg and warg.

Kerberos the warg

and all the wargs

who follow him. [15]

The phenomenon of ergostism apes both the lycanthropic state of the warg and thanks to the lysegic acid present in the growth the journey to the underworld. It also gives the victim an unpleasant precongnition of the flames of the funeral pyre, the wall of fire that must be crossed to reach the land of the dead. As we have seen, this fire is itself characterised in one poem as a dog, and in German folklore the fungus that causes the foretaste is called a wolf, or the tooth of a wolf.

The liminal status of the dog, and its role as guardian has been dealt with in more detail in Bob Trubshaw's Black dogs: guardians of the corspeways. It remains only to emphasise that this analysis underscores the argument presented there.

References

1. My translation.

2. HR Ellis (Cambridge, 1943) The Road to Hel, ch 7

3. My translation.

4. Bruce Lincoln (Chicago 1991) Death, War and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice, ch 7 All quotations are from p 100.

5. Cited by Sam Newton (Cambridge 1993) The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, p 6

6. Cited by Sam Newton (lbid) pp 5-6

7. Quoted by Mary R Gerstein (Berkeley, CA 1974) Germanic Warg: The Outlaw as Werwolf, in G.J Larson (ed) Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, p 132

8. Katherine Fischer Drew (Philadelphia, 1991), The Laws of the Salian Franks, p 118

9. Gerstein (op cit) pp 133-4

10. ibid p 134

11. My translation.

12. Gerstein (op cit) pp 153-4

13. Mary Kilbourne Matossian (New Haven, 1989) Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics and History, pp 11-12

14. lbid, pp 13-14, 94-5

15. Quoted by Gerstein (op cit) p 150

16. Bob Trubshaw (Mercian Mysteries, 1994) Black Dogs: guardians of the corpseways.

Originally published in Mercian Mysteries No. 20 1994

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