Werwolves Part 17

"Well," said the woman, after some consideration, "I will spare you on one condition, namely, that you live with me and do the housework; I'm getting too old for it."

"I suppose I may see my family occasionally?" Liso said.

"No!" the old woman snapped, "you may not. You must never go out of sight of this house. Now, what do you say? Recollect, it is either that or the wolves! Quick," and she hobbled to the door as she spoke.

"I've chosen!" Liso shrieked. "I'll stay with you. Anything rather than such an awful death. Tell me what I have to do and I'll begin at once."

The old woman took her at her word. She speedily set Liso a task, and from that time onward, kept her so continuously employed, not allowing her a moment to herself, that her life soon became unbearable. She tried to escape, but each time she left the house the fierce howling of the wolves sent her back to it in terror, and she discovered that, night and day, certain of the beasts were supervising her movements. After she had been there a week the old woman said to her, "I fear it is useless to think of keeping you any longer! Times are bad--food is scarce. The wolves are hungry--I must give you to them."

But Liso fell on her knees and pleaded so hard that the Vargamor relented, "Well, well!" she said, "I will spare you, provided you can procure me a subst.i.tute. If you like to sit down and write to some one I will see that the note is delivered."

Then Liso, almost beside herself at the thought of the hungry wolves, sat down and wrote a letter to her husband, telling him she had met with an accident, and desiring him to come to her at once. She dared not give him the slightest hint as to what had actually befallen her, as she knew the old woman would read the letter.

When she had finished her note, the Vargamor took it, and for the next twelve hours Liso had a very anxious time.

"If he doesn't come soon," the old woman at length said to her, with an evil chuckle, "I shall have to let the wolves in. They are famis.h.i.+ng; and I, too, want something tastier than rabbits and squirrels."

The minutes pa.s.sed, and Liso was nearly fainting with suspense, when there suddenly broke on her ears the distant tramp of horses' feet; and in a very few moments a droshky dashed up to the door.

"Call him in here," the Vargamor said, "and run up and hide in your bedroom. My pets and I will enjoy him all the better by the fire, and there won't be so much risk of them being hurt."

Liso, afraid to do otherwise, ran up the rickety ladder leading to her room, shouting as she did so, "Oscar! Oscar! come in, come in."

The joyful note in her husband's voice as he replied to her invitation struck a new chord in Liso's nature--a chord which had been there all the time, but had got choked and clogged through over-indulgence. Full of a courage that dared anything in its determination to save him, she crept cautiously down the stairs, and just as he crossed the threshold, and the Vargamor was about to summon the wolves, she dashed up to the old woman and struck her with all her might. Then, seizing her husband, she dragged him out of the house, and, hustling him into the carriage, jumped in by his side and told the coachman to drive home with the utmost speed.

All this was done in less time than it takes to tell, and once again the familiar sounds of pattering--patterings on the snow in the wake of the carriage--fell on Liso's ears, and all the old horrors of the preceding journey came back to her with full force.

Slowly, despite the fact that there were two horses now, the wolves gained on them, and once again the same harrowing question arose in Liso's mind. Some one must be sacrificed. Which should it be? The coachman! without doubt the coachman. He was only a poor, uneducated man, a hireling, and his life was as nothing compared either with that of her husband or her own.

But she now remembered that Oscar, though usually a mere straw in her hands, and ready to do anything she asked him, had one or two peculiarities--fondness for children and animals, and a great respect for life--life in every grade. Would he consent to sacrifice the coachman? And as she glanced at him, a feeling of awe came over her.

What a big, strong man this husband of hers was, and what strength he had--strength of all kinds, physical as well as mental--if he cared to exert it. But then he loved, wors.h.i.+pped, and adored her; he would never treat her with anything but the utmost deference and kindness, no matter what she said or did. Still, when she got ready to whisper the fatal suggestion in his ear, her heart failed her. And then the new something within her--that something that had already spoken and seemed inclined to be painfully officious--once more a.s.serted itself. The coachman was married, he had children--four people dependent on him, four hearts that loved him! With her it was different: no one was actually dependent on her--there were no children now! Nothing but the memory of them!

Memory--what a hateful thing it was! She had forced them to give her their lives; would it not be some atonement for her act if she were now to offer hers? She made the offer--breathed it with a shuddering soul into her husband's ears--and with a great round oath he rejected it.

"What! You! Let you be thrown to the wolves?" he roared. "No--sooner than that, ten thousand times sooner, I will jump out! But I don't think there is any need. Knowing there were wolves about, I brought arms. If occasion arises we can easily account for half of them. But we shall outdistance them yet."

He spoke the truth. Bit by bit the powerful horses drew away from the pack, and ere the last trees of the forest were pa.s.sed, the howlings were no longer heard and all danger was at an end.

Then, and not till then, did Oscar learn what had become of the children.

He listened to Liso's explanation in silence, and it was not until she had finished that the surprise came. She was antic.i.p.ating commiseration--commiseration for the awful h.e.l.l she had undergone. She little guessed the struggle that was taking place beneath her husband's seemingly calm exterior. The revelation came with an abruptness that staggered her. "Woman!" he cried, "you are a murderess. Sooner than have sacrificed your children you should have suffered three deaths yourself--that is the elementary instinct of all mothers, human and otherwise. You are below the standard of a beast--of the Vargamor you slew. Go! go back to those parents who bore you, and tell them I'll have nought to do with you--that I want a woman for my wife, not a monstrosity."

He bade the coachman pull up, and, alighting, told the man to drive Liso to the home of her parents.

But Liso did not hear him--she sat huddled up on the seat with her eyes staring blankly before her. For the first time in her life she was conscious that she loved!

CHAPTER XVI

WERWOLVES IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, AND FINLAND

The Bersekir of Iceland are credited with the rare property of dual metamorphosis--that is to say, they are credited with the power of being able to adopt the individual forms of two animals--the bear and the wolf.

For substantiation as to the _bona-fide_ existence of this rare property of dual metamorphosis one has only to refer to the historical literature of the country (the authenticity of which is beyond dispute), wherein many cases of it are recorded.

The following story, ill.u.s.trative of dual metamorphosis, was told to me on fairly good authority.

A very unprepossessing Bersekir, named Rerir, falling in love with Signi, the beautiful daughter of a neighbouring Bersekir, proposed to her and was scornfully rejected. Smarting under the many insults that had been heaped on him--for Signi had a most cutting tongue--Rerir, who, like most of the Bersekir, was both a werwolf and a wer-bear, resolved to be revenged. a.s.suming the shape of a bear--the animal he deemed the more formidable--Rerir stole to the house where Signi and her parents lived, and climbing on the roof, tore away at it with his claws till he had made a hole big enough to admit him. Dropping through the aperture he had thus effected, he alighted on the top of some one in bed--one of the servants of the house--whom he hugged to death before she had time to utter a cry. He then stole out into the pa.s.sage and made his way, cautiously and noiselessly, to the room in which he imagined Signi slept. Here, however, instead of finding the object of his pa.s.sions, he came upon her parents, one of whom--the mother--was awake; and aiming a blow at the latter's head, he crushed in her skull with one stroke of his powerful paw. The noise awoke Signi's father, who, taking in the situation at a glance, also metamorphosed into a bear and straightway closed with his a.s.sailant. A desperate encounter between the two wer-animals now commenced, and the whole household, aroused from their slumber, came trooping in. For some time the issue of the combat was dubious, both adversaries being fairly well matched. But at length Rerir began to prevail, and Signi's father cried out for some one to help him. Then Signi, anxious to save her parent's life, seized a knife, and, aiming a frantic blow, inadvertently struck her father, who instantly sank on the ground, leaving her at the mercy of his furious opponent.

With a loud snarl of triumph, Rerir rushed at the girl, and was bearing her triumphantly away, when the cook--an old woman who had followed the fortunes of the Bersekir all her life--had a sudden inspiration.

Standing on a shelf in the corner of the room was a jar containing a preparation of sulphur, asaftida, and castoreum, which her mistress had always given her to understand was a preventive against evil spirits. s.n.a.t.c.hing it up, she darted after the wer-bear and flung the contents of it in its face, just as it was about to descend the stairs with Signi. In a moment there was a sudden and startling metamorphosis, and in the place of the bear stood the ugly, misshapen man, Rerir.

The hunchback now would gladly have departed without attempting further mischief; for although the household boasted no man apart from its incapacitated master, there were still three formidable women and some big dogs to be faced.

But to let him escape, after the irreparable harm he had done, was the very last thing Signi would permit; and with an air of stern authority she commanded the servants to fall on him with any weapons they could find, whilst she would summon the hounds.

Now, indeed, the tables were completely turned. Rerir was easily overpowered and bound securely hand and foot by Signi and her servants, and after undergoing a brief trial the following morning he was summarily executed.

Those Icelanders who possessed the property of metamorphosis into wolves and bears (they were always of the male s.e.x), more often than not used it for the purpose of either wreaking vengeance or of executing justice.

The terrible temper--for the rage of the Bersekir has been a byword for centuries--commonly attributed to Icelanders and Scandinavians in general, is undoubtedly traceable to the werwolves and wer-bears into which the Bersekirs metamorphosed.

It is said that in Iceland there are both lycanthropous streams and flowers, and that they differ little if at all from those to be met with in other countries.

THE WERWOLVES OF LAPLAND

In Lapland werwolves are still much to the fore. In many families the property is hereditary, whilst it is not infrequently sought and acquired through the practice of Black Magic. Though, perhaps, more common among males, there are, nevertheless, many instances of it among females.

The following case comes from the country bordering on Lake Enara.

The child of a peasant woman named Martha, just able to trot alone, and consequently left to wander just where it pleased, came home one morning with its forehead apparently licked raw, all its fingers more or less injured, and two of them seemingly sucked and mumbled to a mere pulp.

On being interrogated as to what had happened, it told a most astounding tale: A very beautiful lady had picked it up and carried it away to her house, where she had put it in a room with her three children, who were all very pretty and daintily dressed. At sunset, however, both the lady and her children metamorphosed into wolves, and would undoubtedly have eaten it, had they not satiated their appet.i.tes on a portion of a girl which had been kept over from the preceding day. The newcomer was intended for their meal on the morrow, and obeying the injunctions of their mother, the young werwolves had forborne to devour the child, though they had all tasted it.

The child's parents were simply dumbfounded--they could scarcely credit their senses--and made their offspring repeat its narrative over and over again. And as it stuck to what it had said, they ultimately concluded that it was true, and that the lady described could be none other than Madame Tonno, the wife of their landlord and patron--a person of immense importance in the neighbourhood.

But what could they do? How could they protect their children from another raid?

To accuse the lady, who was rich and influential, of being a werwolf would be useless. No one would believe them--no one dare believe them--and they would be severely punished for their indiscretion. Being poor, they were entirely at her mercy, and if she chose to eat their children, they could not prevent her, unless they could catch her in the act.

One evening the mother was was.h.i.+ng clothes before the door of her house, with her second child, a little girl of four years of age, playing about close by. The cottage stood in a lonely part of the estate, forming almost an island in the midst of low boggy ground; and there was no house nearer than that of M. Tonno. Martha, bending over her wash-tub, was making every effort to complete her task, when a fearful cry made her look up, and there was the child, gripped by one shoulder, in the jaws of a great she-wolf, the arm that was free extended towards her.

Martha was so close that she managed to clutch a bit of the child's clothing in one hand, whilst with the other she beat the brute with all her might to make it let go its hold. But all in vain: the relentless jaws did not show the slightest sign of relaxing, and with a saturnine glitter in its deep-set eyes it emitted a hoa.r.s.e burr-burr, and set off at full speed towards the forest, dragging the mother, who was still clinging to the garment of her child, with it.

But they did not long continue thus. The wolf turned into some low-lying uneven track, and Martha, falling over the jagged trunk of a tree, found herself lying on the ground with only a little piece of torn clothing tightly clasped in her hand. Hitherto, comforted by Martha's presence, the little one had not uttered a sound; but now, feeling itself deserted, it gave vent to the most heartrending screams--screams that abruptly disturbed the silence of that lonely spot and pierced to the depths of Martha's soul. In an instant she rose, and, das.h.i.+ng on, bounded over stock and stone, tearing herself pitiably, but heeding it not in her intense anxiety to save her child. But the wolf had now increased its speed; the undergrowth was thick, the ground heavier, and soon screams became her only guide. Still on and on she dashed, now s.n.a.t.c.hing up a little shoe which was clinging to the bushes, now shrieking with agony as she saw fragments of the child's hair and clothes on the low jagged boughs obstructing her path. On, on, on, until the screams grew fainter, then louder, and then ceased altogether.

Late that night the husband, Max, found his wife lying dead, just outside the grounds of his patron's chateau. Guessing what had happened, and having but one thought in his mind--namely, revenge--Max, arming himself with the branch of a tree, marched boldly up to the house, and rapped loudly at the door.