“The Law of the Hills” by Grace M. Campbell (1895-1963) appeared in Weird Tales, August 1930. Campbell was a Canadian writer. Her work appeared only for a brief year or so. Besides this WT story she also wrote “Mist” for Chatelaine (March 1930) and “Exit’ for Macleans’ (March 15, 1931), a tale about an old logger recalling his days in the camps. Only “The Law of the Hills” has a supernatural element. I suspect Campbell was wisely tailoring her subject matter to the publication in question.
This story is one of a number of werewolf stories to appear in the magazine. It is rare since it is a Northern with a lycanthrope. Susan Carleton Jones, another Canadian, wrote one in “Clasp of Rank” for The Thrill Book, April 1, 1919. Sewell Peaslee Wright wrote another called “The Wolf” for Weird Tales, November 1927. In both Jones’ and Wright’s stories, the werewolf is evil and an outsider. As we will see, Campbell’s lycanthrope is more like Manly Banister’s “Eena” (September 1947).
The story begins with an elderly geologist who is our narrator. A fatherless man, he has cultured his relationship with Ken Graham, a promising young scientist. There is a professorship for Ken but he gets drawn into a love affair with a young woman from Norway.The professor goes to visit Ken in camp, only to find his wife is dead. Graham tells his mentor the strange and unbelievable story. When he mentions werewolves, the scientist scoffs. Ken relates what happened:
While visiting Norway he met Hilde, a girl raised under strict rules of her grandfather. Hilde has not been allowed to have pets or enjoy the mountains of her native Torghatten. The two marry, sending a picture to the narrator. He describes Hilde as looking like a wild thing, with strange fluffy white hair. Her father had been killed in “a hunting accident”.
The professor is disappointed when Ken takes a lucrative job as a mining boss. He and Hilde go “up north” (which I equate to Canada, probably Northern Ontario. Campbell leaves this vague on purpose.) Hilde enjoys the new life in her cabin in the mountains. The summer the couple spend is like heaven, but things change when winter comes. It is very cold and the timber wolves can be heard howling close by. This sound has a strange effect on Hilde, who is terrified by it.
As Hilde gets used to the wolves, she begins to disappear at times. Ken, who works late, has an eleven mile walk home. Timber wolves surround him. He climbs a tree to safety, but the pack is led away by a white female wolf. When he gets home, he finds Hilde there, her attitude a little superior. Ken has suspicions but they come home when his friend, Louis Barjon, comes to visit. Louis describes the white wolf that all the hunters want to kill. He describes how he was able to nick the beast on the arm. Hilde is nursing a similar wound as she sits reading a book.
There can be no doubt now. Graham worries for her but doesn’t stop her from running at night. Hilde tells him that as long as the werewolf never taste human blood they can change back into human form. It all comes to a head one night when the white wolf comes to his door, mortally wounded. Hilde has killed Barjon, tasting his blood. She can not change back and dies a wolf. Ken buries the body near the cabin. The man no longer lives there but he returns daily to see if Hilde returns, perhaps not a wolf at all. The local rumor is she has run off with Barjon, who has also disappeared. Ken knows better.
Finished telling what happened, the professor, being a man of Science, looks for proof. He goes to the cabin, digs up the wolf body. When he looks at the teeth, he finds gold fillings….
The one element that Campbell has done differently from any number of Pulp werewolf stories, is the idea that if a lycantrope tastes human blood, they are changed forever. As long as the shapechanger avoids evil attacks such as killing humans, it can enjoy its gift. I can’t recall ever hearing this one before. It seems almost Medieval, with its cursed werewolves, trying to regain their humanity.
I compared this story to Manly Banister’s “Eena”, published seventeen years later in the same magazine. Banister’s tale has a man in love with Eena, the strange girl who is a werewolf. The only real difference between the tales is that at the end of Banister’s story, it is the protagonist who kills the girl. Another story that Campbell’s tale reminds me of is Peter S. Beagle’s “Lila the Werewolf” (New Worlds of Fantasy #3, 1971). In that story the protagonist, Farrell, makes love to his werewolf girl, even while she changes. Campbell also mentions some heated moments though in a 1930s allowable context: “… At times she would lavish passionate, tearful love on me.” Beagle, writing decades later can fully explore the sexual side of the human-werewolf thing. These days, in our post-Twilight/True Blood haze, we are perhaps bored with all that.
