Month: June 2022

Elliott O’Donnell’s Werwolves, a compendium of supposedly true cases of lycanthropy, continues its European tour as chapter 16 covers Iceland, Lapland and Finland. O’Donnell starts the chapter on fairly stable historical ground, discussing Icelandic berserkers, but then launches into one of his dubious anecdotes (“told to me on fairly good authority”, he assures us).

The main character here is a berserker named Rerir, who is spurned by a beautiful maiden named Signi. The author gets to indulge his blood-and-thunder tendencies by describing Rerir turning into a bear, breaking into Signi’s family home at night, hugging to death a servent and crushing the skull of Signi’s mother. However, this awakens Signi’s father, who is also a berserker; and the two were-bears proceed to duke it out. Signi herself tries to intervene, but accidentally stabs and kills her father instead of Rerir. The day is saved by the household cook, who happens to have at hand a concoction of sulphur, asafœtida, and castoreum (ingredients mentioned elsewhere in the book as potential wards against lycanthropy). Once the brew is flung in the face of Rerir, he changes back into his true form as a hunchbacked human and is duly executed.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: Berserkers, Hags and Landladies (1912)”

Chapter 15 of Wlliott O’Donnel’s 1912 book Werwolves covers lycanthropy in Norway and Sweden. In his characteristic manner, O’Donnell opens with some bold and completely unsourced statements:

As in Denmark, werwolves were once so numerous in Norway and Sweden, that these countries naturally came to be regarded as the true home of lycanthropy. With the advent of the tourist, however, and the consequent springing up of fresh villages, together with the gradual increase of native population, Norway and Sweden have slowly undergone a metamorphosis, with the result that it is now only in the most remote districts, such as the northern portion of the Kiolen Mountains and the borders of Lapland, that werwolves are to be found.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: More Ways of Becoming a Werewolf (1912)”

In the fourteenth chapter of his 1912 book Werwolves, Elliott O’Donnell continues his international tour of purportedly true (but woefully under-sourced) lycanthrope lore. This time, he takes us to Denmark, opening with a characteristically stupendous paragraph:

SINCE so much has already been written upon the subject of werwolves in Denmark, it is my intention only to touch upon it briefly. It is, I believe, generally acknowledged that, at one time, werwolves were to be met with almost daily in Denmark, and that they were almost always of the male sex; but I can find no records of any particular form of exorcism practised by the Danes with the object of getting rid of the werwolf, nor of any spell used by them for the same purpose; neither does there appear to be, amongst their traditions, any reference to a lycanthropous flower or stream. Opinions differ as to whether werwolves are yet to be found in Denmark, but, from all I have heard, I am inclined to think that they still exist in the more remote districts of that country.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: O’Donnell’s Danish Werewolves (1912)”

After spending a couple of chapters in what can only be described as self-parody, Elliott O’Donnell’s 1912 book Werwolves heads back to pseudo-scholarship with its thirteenth chapter: “The Werwolf in Belgium and the Netherlands”.

O’Donnell opens by telling us that “Belgium abounds in stories of werwolves, all more or less of the same type” and asserts that, as with their French counterparts, Belgian lycanthropes are found as both male and female in equal proportions. While the book has offered multiple different methods of becoming a werewolf, we learn that “nearly all the cases of werwolfery in Belgium are hereditary.” The focus of the chapter, however, is less on becoming a werewolf and more on disposing of them:

In Belgium, as in other Roman Catholic countries, great faith is attached to exorcism, and for the expulsion of every sort of “evil spirit” various methods of exorcism are employed. For example, a werwolf is sprinkled with a compound either of 1/2 ounce of sulphur, 4 drachms of asafœtida, 1/4 ounce of castoreum; or of 3/4 ounce of hypericum in 3 ounces of vinegar; or with a solution of carbolic acid further diluted with a pint of clear spring water. The sprinkling must be done over the head and shoulders, and the werwolf must at the same time be addressed in his Christian name. But as to the success or non-success of these various methods of exorcism I cannot make any positive statement. I have neither sufficient evidence to affirm their efficacy nor to deny it.

O’Donnell also recommends rye, mistletoe and mountain ash as tools for driving away lycanthropes, although he warns that the last of these attracts evil spirits in some countries including Ireland, Spain and India.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: Trees, Burning, Spells and Other Methods of Combatting Lycanthropes (1912)”