Month: August 2022

Having devoted a chapter to werewolves and other animal transformations in the literature of Northern Europe, Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Were-Wolves tries to get to the bottom of where such stories came from in chapter 4: The Origin of the Scandinavian Were-Wolf.

The author discusses textual references to berserkir (in the strictest sense, warriors in bear skin) and Ulfheðin (warriors in wolf-skin), pointing to instances of the latter in the Holmverja and Vatnsdæla Sagas. He then theorises that superstition transformed these men in the public imagination from fearsome warriors to supernatural shapeshifters. To illustrate his thesis, he returns to stories outlined in the previous chapter:

The incident mentioned in the Völsung Saga, of the sleeping men being found with their wolf-skins 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.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: Sabine Baring-Gould Chapter 4 (1865)”

Having covered the lycanthropes of ancient Greece, Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Were-Wolves heads to the lands of the Vikings. The third chapter is entitled “The Were-Wolf in the North” and opens with the following description of folkloric transformations:

In Norway and Iceland certain men were said to be eigi einhamir, not of one skin, an idea which had its roots in paganism. The full form of this strange superstition was, that men could take upon them other bodies, and the natures of those beings whose bodies they assumed. The second adopted shape was called by the same name as the original shape, hamr, and the expression made use of to designate the transition from one body to another, was at skipta hömum, or at hamaz; whilst the expedition made in the second form, was the hamför. By this transfiguration extraordinary powers were acquired; the natural strength of the individual was doubled, or quadrupled; he acquired the strength of the beast in whose body he travelled, in addition to his own, and a man thus invigorated was called hamrammr.

This phenomenon, the author tells us, applies to many species of animal, not just wolves. He cites the Norse myth of Freyja and Frigg transforming into birds with the aid of falcon dresses, a power gained by Loki when he stole these garments. Similarly, the Vælundar kviða speaks of Svanhwit and the other swan-maidens.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: Sabine Baring-Gould Chapter 3 (1865)”