The Victorians produced many tales of werewolves but few have the impact of Clemence Housman’s “The Werewolf”. Partly because of her abilities as a writer, partly because she brings new energy and ideas to staid werewolfery, and maybe a little because of her position in Victorian literary circles, her tale of Northern climes and white furred women will be with us for a long time.
In his Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927), H. P. Lovecraft singles out her tale because it “attains a high degree of gruesome tension and achieves to some extent the atmosphere of authentic folklore”. This is a good point. Unlike other stories like George MacDonald’s “The Gray Wolf” (1871) or Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Olalla” (1887), Housman wisely leaves her tale in a foreign land, giving it a hint of fairy tale quality to it. It is easier to believe a guest is secretly eating your relatives in a rough, rural setting in the snowy mountains, than in the streets of London or Paris. This was the innovation of Gerald Biss’s The Door of the Unreal (1919) or Jessie Douglas Kerruish’s The Horror Undying (1922). The masterpiece of these modern novel is, of course, The Werewolf of Paris (1933) by Guy Endore.
“The Werewolf” was a short book published in London by John Lane at the Bodley Head in 1896. It has been endlessly reprinted since, in part because of its quality and secondly because it is in the public domain. What makes the first edition just a little more special is it was illustrated by Clemence’s younger brother, Laurence, who would gain his own reputation as a writer and illustrator.
In an isolated Scandinavian community, a strange woman appears, enchanting everyone, especially one of two twins, Sweyn. Only his brother, Christian, is aware that White Fell is a werewolf. Christian’s attempt to splash holy water on her hands fails. The little boy, Rol, and then the old woman, Trella, disappear. Both have kissed White Fell, and now his brother Sweyn has done so. To save his brother, Christian chases White Fell with a spear, hoping to catch her at midnight when she must take wolf-form. She breaks both of his hands then cuts him across the throat with her hand axe. The blood, of one willing to die to save his brother, splashes on her, killing her just as midnight arrives and she transforms. Sweyn follows their trail, finding his dead brother and White Fell’s dead wolf body. “…Two bodies lay in a narrow place. Christian’s was one, but the other beyond not White Fell’s. There where the footsteps ended lay a great white wolf….”
Housman’s werewolf has certain restrictions: at midnight she must take the form of a wolf, holy water splashed on the hands will reveal her, and dogs and natural wolves hate her. The most original idea is how the werewolf is killed, with blood as pure as Christ’s –that of someone who was willing to sacrifice themselves for another–is lethal to the monster.
There can be little doubt Housman’s story was inspired by Frederick Marryat’s “The Werewolf” from The Phantom Ship (1839). Housman, who was the daughter of A. E. Housman, sets her story is a similar way with family members disappearing while most everyone is clueless about the existence of the werewolf. Also the same is the woman becoming a wolf in death. The werewolf in both stories is a woman dressed in white fur who becomes a white wolf. What I find interesting about Housman’s “The Werwolf” is that it was published a year before Dracula, which would change everything in the horror field. Housman is obviously not influenced by Stoker, and we can see –for the last time–what werewolf writers brought to the idea. Like Sherlock Holmes for the Mystery genre, after Dracula, things just wouldn’t be the same in the horror field.
