The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

have taken, and point to

the mountains whence they have fallen. It will not be difficult for us

to arrive at the origin of the Northern belief in werewolves, and the

data thus obtained will be useful in assisting us to elucidate much

that would otherwise prove obscure in mediæval tradition.

 

Among the old Norse, it was the custom for certain warriors to dress

in the skins of the beasts they had slain, and thus to give themselves

an air of ferocity, calculated to strike terror into the hearts of

their foes.

 

Such dresses are mentioned in some Sagas, without there being any

supernatural qualities attached to them. For instance, in the Njála

there is mention of a man i geitheðni, in goatskin dress. Much in

the same way do we hear of Harold Harfagr having in his company a band

of berserkir, who were all dressed in wolfskins, ulfheðnir, and

this expression, wolfskin coated, is met with as a man’s name. Thus

in the Holmverja Saga, there is mention of a Björn, “son of

Ulfheðin, wolfskin coat, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, son of

Ulf, wolf, son of Ulfhamr, wolf-shaped, who could change forms.”

 

But the most conclusive passage is in the Vatnsdæla Saga, and is as

follows:—“Those berserkir who were called ulfheðnir, had got

wolfskins over their mail coats” (c. xvi.) In like manner the word

berserkr, used of a man possessed of superhuman powers, and subject.

to accesses of diabolical fury, was originally applied to one of those

doughty champions who went about in bear-sarks, or habits made of

bearskin over their armour. I am well aware that Björn Halldorson’s

derivation of berserkr, bare of sark, or destitute of clothing, has

been hitherto generally received, but Sveibjörn Egilsson, an

indisputable authority, rejects this derivation as untenable, and

substitutes for it that which I have adopted.

 

It may be well imagined that a wolf or a bearskin would make a warm

and comfortable great-coat to a man, whose manner of living required

him to defy all weathers, and that the dress would not only give him

an appearance of grimness and ferocity, likely to produce an

unpleasant emotion in the breast of a foe, but also that the thick fur

might prove effectual in deadening the blows rained on him in

conflict.

 

The berserkr was an object of aversion and terror to the peaceful

inhabitants of the land, his avocation being to challenge quiet

country farmers to single combat. As the law of the land stood in

Norway, a man who declined to accept a challenge, forfeited all his

possessions, even to the wife of his bosom, as a poltroon unworthy of

the protection of the law, and every item of his property passed into

the hands of his challenger. The berserkr accordingly had the unhappy

man at his mercy. If he slew him, the farmer’s possessions became his,

and if the poor fellow declined to fight, he lost all legal right to

his inheritance. A berserkr would invite himself to any feast, and

contribute his quota to the hilarity of the entertainment, by snapping

the backbone, or cleaving the skull, of some merrymaker who incurred

his displeasure, or whom he might single out to murder, for no other

reason than a desire to keep his hand in practice.

 

It may well be imagined that popular superstition went along with the

popular dread of these wolf-and-bear-skinned rovers, and that they

were believed to be endued with the force, as they certainly were with

the ferocity, of the beasts whose skins they wore.

 

Nor would superstition stop there, but the imagination of the

trembling peasants would speedily invest these unscrupulous disturbers

of the public peace with the attributes hitherto appropriated to

trolls and jötuns.

 

The incident mentioned in the Völsung Saga, of the sleeping men being

found with their wolfskins hanging to the wall above their heads, is

divested of its improbability, if we regard these skins as worn over

their armour, and the marvellous in the whole story is reduced to a

minimum, when we suppose that Sigmund and Sinfjötli stole these for

the purpose of disguising themselves, whilst they lived a life of

violence and robbery.

 

In a similar manner the story of the northern “Beauty and Beast,” in

Hrolf’s Saga Kraka, is rendered less improbable, on the supposition

that Björn was living as an outlaw among the mountain fastnesses in a

bearskin dress, which would effectually disguise him—_all but his

eyes_—which would gleam out of the sockets in his hideous visor,

unmistakably human. His very name, Björn, signifies a bear; and these

two circumstances may well have invested a kernel of historic fact

with all the romance of fable; and if divested of these supernatural

embellishments, the story would resolve itself into the very simple

fact of there having been a King Hring of the Updales, who was at

variance with his son, and whose son took to the woods, and lived a

berserkr life, in company with his mistress, till he was captured and

slain by his father.

 

I think that the circumstance insisted on by the Saga-writers, of the

eyes of the person remaining unchanged, is very significant, and

points to the fact that the skin was merely drawn over the body as a

disguise.

 

But there was other ground for superstition to fasten on the

berserkir, and invest them with supernatural attributes.

 

No fact in connection with the history of the Northmen is more firmly

established, on reliable evidence, than that of the berserkr rage

being a species of diabolical possession. The berserkir were said to

work themselves up into a state of frenzy, in which a demoniacal power

came over them, impelling them to acts from which in their sober

senses they would have recoiled. They acquired superhuman force, and

were as invulnerable and as insensible to pain as the Jansenist

convulsionists of S. Medard. No sword would wound them, no fire would

barn them, a club alone could destroy them, by breaking their bones,

or crushing in their skulls. Their eyes glared as though a flame

burned in the sockets, they ground their teeth, and frothed at the

mouth; they gnawed at their shield rims, and are said to have

sometimes bitten them through, and as they rushed into conflict they

yelped as dogs or howled as wolves. [1]

 

[1. Hic (Syraldus) septem filios habebat, tanto veneficiorum usu

callentes, ut sæpe subitis furoris viribus instincti solerent ore

torvum infremere, scuta morsibus attrectare, torridas fauce prunas

absumere, extructa quævis incendia penetrare, nec posset conceptis

dementiæ motus alio remedii genere quam aut vinculorum injuriis aut

cædis humanæ piaculo temperari. Tantam illis rabiem site sævitia

ingenii sive furiaram ferocitas inspirabat.—_Saxo Gramm_. VII.]

 

According to the unanimous testimony of the old Norse historians, the

berserkr rage was extinguished by baptism, and as Christianity

advanced, the number of these berserkir decreased.

 

But it must not be supposed that this madness or possession came only

on those persons who predisposed themselves to be attacked by it;

others were afflicted with it, who vainly struggled against its

influence, and who deeply lamented their own liability to be seized

with these terrible accesses of frenzy. Such was Thorir Ingimund’s

son, of whom it is said, in the Vatnsdæla Saga, that “at times there

came over Thorir berserkr fits, and it was considered a sad misfortune

to such a man, as they were quite beyond control.”

 

The manner in which he was cured is remarkable; pointing as it does to

the craving in the heathen mind for a better and more merciful

creed:—

 

“Thorgrim of Kornsá had a child by his concubine Vereydr, and, by

order of his wife, the child was carried out to perish.

 

“The brothers (Thorsteinn and Thorir) often met, and it was now the

turn of Thorsteinn to visit Thorir, and Thorir accompanied him

homeward. On their way Thorsteinn asked Thorir which he thought was

the first among the brethren; Thorir answered that the reply was easy,

for ‘you are above us all in discretion and talent; Jökull is the best

in all perilous adventures, but I,’ he added, ‘I am the least worth of

us brothers, because the berserkr fits come over me, quite against my

will, and I wish that you, my brother, with your shrewdness, would

devise some help for me.’

 

“Thorsteinn said,—‘I have heard that our kinsman, Thorgrim, has just

suffered his little babe to be carried out, at the instigation of his

wife. That is ill done. I think also that it is a grievous matter for

you to be different in nature from other men.’

 

“Thorir asked how he could obtain release from his affliction … .

Then said Thorsteinn, ‘Now will I make a vow to Him who created the

sun, for I ween that he is most able to take the ban of you, and I

will undertake for His sake, in return, to rescue the babe and to

bring it up for him, till He who created man shall take it to

Himself-for this I reckon He will do!’ After this they left their

horses and sought the child, and a thrall of Thorir had found it near

the Marram river. They saw that a kerchief had been spread over its

face, but it had rumpled it up over its nose; the little thing was all

but dead, but they took it up and flitted it home to Thorir’s house,

and he brought the lad up, and called him Thorkell Rumple; as for the

berserkr fits, they came on him no more.” (c. 37)

 

But the most remarkable passages bearing on our subject will be found

in the Aigla.

 

There was a man, Ulf (the wolf) by name, son of Bjálfi and Hallbera.

Ulf was a man so tall and strong that the like of him was not to be

seen in the land at that time. And when he was young he was out viking

expeditions and harrying … He was a great landed proprietor. It

was his wont to rise early, and to go about the men’s work, or to the

smithies, and inspect all his goods and his acres; and sometimes he

talked with those men who wanted his advice; for he was a good

adviser, he was so clear-headed; however, every day, when it drew

towards dusk, he became so savage that few dared exchange a word with

him, for he was given to dozing in the afternoon.

 

“People said that he was much given to changing form (hamrammr), so

he was called the evening-wolf, kveldúlfr.”—(c. 1.) In this and the

following passages, I do not consider hamrammr to have its primary

signification of actual transformation, but simply to mean subject to

fits of diabolical possession, under the influence of which the bodily

powers were greatly exaggerated. I shall translate pretty freely from

this most interesting Saga, as I consider that the description given

in it of Kveldulf in his fits greatly elucidates our subject.

 

“Kveldulf and Skallagrim got news during summer of an expedition.

Skallagrim. was the keenest-sighted of men, and he caught sight of the

vessel of Hallvard and his brother, and recognized it at once. He

followed their course and marked the haven into which they entered at

even. Then he returned to his company, and told Kveldulf of what he

had seen … . Then they busked them and got ready both their boats;

in each they put twenty men, Kveldulf steering one and Skallagrim the

other, and they rowed in quest of the ship. Now when they came to the

place where it was, they lay to. Hallvard and his men had spread an

awning over the deck, and were asleep. Now when Kveldulf and his party

came upon them, the watchers