Werewolves have been around since humans kept livestock, perhaps even longer. After centuries of werewolf lore, most readers think they know all there is to know about the lycanthrope. He or she is cursed by the full moon. Can only be killed with a silver bullet. Its bite will turn you into a werewolf, too. Now, if you really look hard you will find that not all of these “facts” have been believed at all times. Greek werewolves can be killed with any weapon. Medieval werewolves is usually a good person cursed by a witch. The Victorian werewolf of Clemence Housman is killed by the blood of one willing to sacrifice themselves for another. In other stories holy water, cuts on the forehead and other ideas show up. Even in the Pulps, Robert E. Howard surprised (and sometimes annoyed) readers by making his werewolves have properties all their own.
Now for a “movie traditional” werewolf there is no better novel than:
The Dark Cry of the Moon (1985) by Charles L. Grant
Lucas Stockton is the new sheriff of Oxrun Station and he already has three murders on his hands. A werewolf is prowling the little town. The police chief suspects the mystery is linked to the rich Drummond family, a crippled father, a son scarred by the Civil War and another who ran off to Europe to avoid service. To make matters worse, the other suitor for Johanna Crenshaw’s hand is Bartholomew Drummond. Lucas, with the help of his Gypsy housekeeper and a handful of deputies, solves the real mystery and stops a terror. (I won’t revel who the werewolf is.)
“…A baying while the figure began to writhe without moving, began to shimmer without reflecting, began to transform itself from shadow black to deadly flat white…Huge, white, with staring amber eyes; huge, swaying, its claws already out and scratching slowly against stone; huge, panting, its fangs slicing the moon’s surface when it lifted again to bay…”
Pretty standard werewolves, a large white wolf. Grant’s only addition is glowing amber eyes. I would have liked some new werewolfery but Grant’s intent was to write about the traditional creature, not to innovate. This book was the second in his Universal Monsters series.
This book is a good, fast-paced read with a mildly difficult mystery (and a lousy cover.) I have to admit I figured it out fairly quickly. My favorite bit was the description of Lawrence Drummond trapped under a pile of corpses in a battlefield, their blood dripping over him, while wolves feed from the slain. The sheriff element reminded me a little of The Totem by David Morrell.
But if you’d like a more challenging version of the lycanthrope, I suggest these less well-known tales:
“Hugues the Wer-Wolf” (1838) by Sutherland Menzies
Hugues’ family is reviled for being werewolves. After they all die, Hugues adopts the werewolf costume he finds and begins terrorizing travelers.
“This chest, which had evidently remained long unopened, continued the complete disguise of a wer-wolf–a dyed sheep-skin, with gloves in the form of paws, a tail, a mask with an elongated muzzle, and furnished with formidable rows of yellow horse-teeth.”
One in particular is Willieblud, who must bring him a joint of meat each time he passes. Hugues falls in love with Willieblud’s niece, Branda, and insists that she be brought to him. Willieblud does, abandoning her to the werewolf. Later Willieblud cuts off Hugues hand, but can’t prove his werewolfery because Branda supplies the missing hand to Hugues. Willieblud goes insane and the couple is free to marry happily.
The werewolf in this Gothic spinetingler is a case of false werewolves, a great-grand-dad of the Scooby Doo variety of monsters. The story does use the standard cut off hand to prove the werewolf’s guilt. The Gothics loved to explain away the supernatural (ala Ms. Radcliffe.) There is a long tradition of fake werewolves that begins about this time and continues to this day. Not as much fun as the real deal, but, hey, some people need reality.
And some don’t…
“Woman Into Fox” (1922) by David Garnett
Mrs. Tebrick is suddenly and mysteriously changed into a fox. (Garnett gives no explanation, nor does he feel required to give one.) Her husband lets all the servants go, shoots their two dogs and takes up residence alone with her. Though fox-shaped, she has the reason of a human.
“But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs. Tebrick was a full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so short a space of time. The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of hair all over the body, the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth, though it would have been monstrous, would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions, particularly had it happened in a young child.”
Slowly her human mind fades as she becomes more and more fascinated by birds. To escape this decline, Mr. Tebrick takes her to a cottage in the country where she declines further. She tries many times to escape. Finally, in a fit of despair, he lets her go. Almost immediately he regrets this. Mr. Tebrick becomes something of a madman, hunting everywhere for his lost Silvia, even attacking fox hunters. Eventually he snaps out of his madness and begins to rebuild his life alone, becoming quite religious. One day she returns, leading him to a den and her five cubs.
Garnett gives almost no information on how Mrs. Tebrick becomes a fox. He does know quite a bit about natural foxes. Garnett’s style is flawless and brilliantly played. He does take one old-fashioned digression on the matter of Catholics playing cards on Sunday. This is one of the few marks of the age of this story, which feels at times as if it might have been from this month’s issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The original book was illustrated with wood-cuts by R. A. Garnett, Garnett’s first wife (who happily did not turn into a fox).
“The Drone” (Fantasy Magazine, September 1934) by A. Merritt
The story is actually two different events narrated by different friends at the Explorers’ Club. While discussing werewolves and shape-changers, the topic turns to how people have certain animal qualities, a second animal nature under their human one.
“…And then there was a swift haze — that was what struck me so forcibly in what you told of your sensitive friend, Caranac. It cleared as swiftly and there wasn’t any priest. No. But there was a big hyena standing where he had been — standing on its hind feet like a man and looking at me. I could see its hairy body. It held its forelegs over its shaggy chest as though crossed. And the reek of it came to me — thick. I didn’t reach for my gun — I never thought of it, my mind in the grip of some incredulous fascination. The beast opened its jaws. It grinned at me. Then it walked — walked is exactly the word — six paces, dropped upon all fours, trotted leisurely into the bush, and vanished there.
The theory is suggested that were-creatures are people who can switch from their human self to their animal self. Hewitt tells how when he was in Abyssinia he saw a medicine man turn into a hyena and disappear into the jungle. Macleod tells how he ran into an old school chum, Ferguson, who had appeared to change in physical appearance from a skinny fellow into a rounder man covered in fuzz-like hair. Macleod goes out to his home where he keeps bees and finds his friend has taken on bee qualities, down to the many-faceted eyes which he hides under sun glasses. When Ferguson dies a single bee crawls out of his mouth as his body returns to its original shape and size.
The idea of a spirit or ectoplasm taking over a human is not new. Algernon Blackwood, Elliott O’Donnell and even Robert E. Howard had used it before Merritt. What is different is that Merritt suggests in this story that we all carry around animal sub-selves that lycanthropes can bring to the surface.
Merritt’s episodic tale has some interesting connections. Hewitt’s story is reminiscent of Robert E. Howard’s “The Hyena”(Weird Tales, March 1928) while having a Rider Haggard feel. Macleod’s story may have suggested the idea for Roald Dahl’s “Royal Jelly” (1959). Caranac tells of a friend who has spells where he sees people as animals. This idea is similar to Daphne Du Maurier’s “The Blue Lenses” (1959) where a woman sees people as animals. That story may have been part of the inspiration for the famous episode of the Twilight Zone where everybody normal has pig noses (“Eye of the Beholder” 11/11/1960).
