Month: January 2023

In last week’s post I talked about Laurent Bordelon’s 1710 novel L’histoire des imaginations extravagantes de monsieur Oufle (A History of the Ridiculous Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle) and covered the first three chapters, which introduced the main character: a Don Quixote-like oaf who believes in all manner of supernatural phenomena. Now, it’s time to read on and see how Bordelon was responsible for one of literature’s earliest werewolf comedies…

Chapter four opens with Monsieur Oufle sharing some festivities with his family (“for tho’ he was very whimsical, and very superstitious, he yet lov’d Mirth”). During the course of the event he indulges in wine — “a much larger Dose than his Head cou’d bear” — and gets rather excited. Nobody seems to mind, however: even Madam Oufle takes his behaviour in her stride, unlike most other wives who, the author informs us, “never shew more Uneasiness, than when they see their Husbands gay.”

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: A History of the Ridiculous Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle, Part 2 (1710)”

An often overlooked addition to the body of early werewolf literature is Laurent Bordelon’s 1710 novel L’histoire des imaginations extravagantes de monsieur Oufle, which was translated into English the following year as A History of the Ridiculous Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle (this post is based specifically on the English version, so I can’t comment on liberties taken by the translator).

The book belongs to a vogue for satirical fiction that began with Don Quixote in the previous century, and was followed by such similarly-themed titles as Charles Sorel’s The Extravagant Shephard (1653) and the anonymous Mock-Clelia (1678). Indeed, all three of these books are specifically mentioned in the preface to Monsieur Oufle, which notes that “Several very Entertaining Fictions have been publish’d to expose those deprav’d by reading Poets, Romances, Books of Chivalry and other such Trifles, widely distant from Truth, and all Probability”.

The title character of Monsieur Oufle (an anagram of “le fou”) is another protagonist who, like Don Quixote, has been sent to a world of fantasy by his choice of reading matter. As opposed to chivalric romance, however, this novel sets out to skewer belief in the occult — and so Oufle believes himself to be not a knight in shining armour, but a werewolf.

Monsieur Oufle is introduced to us as a man wealthy enough to avoid finding any kind of work, instead whiling away his time reading books about magic and apparitions:

[H]e believ’d only those Histories, which affirm’d, for Instance, that such a Spectre appear’d; that such a wanton Daemon play’d his Pranks in the Night in a Garret, or a Stable; that such a Girl was bewitch’d by a Nosegay; such a Child by an Apple; that this Person could not avoid what was fortold by his Horoscope, and an infinite Number of the like Stories…

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: A History of the Ridiculous Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle, Part 1 (1710)”

Alexander Nisbet’s 1722 System of Heraldry includes a reference to something that, until this week, I’d not come across: the werewolf (or warwolf) as heraldic charge. Here is the relevent passage:

…I shall therefore end here with Fourfooted Beasts, only mentioning one of a monstrous Form, carried with us; its Body is like a Wolf, having four Feet with long Toes, and a Tail; ’tis headed like a Man, called in our Books, a Warwolf, carried by Dickison of Winkelstoun, Azure, a Warwolf passant, and three Stars in Chief, Argent; so blazoned by Mr. Thomas Crawford, and illuminate in several Books; which are also to be seen cut upon a Stone above an old Entry of a House in the Cowgate in Edinburgh, above the Foot of Libberton’s Wynd, which belonged formerly to the Name of Dickison, which Name seems to be from the Dicksons, by the Stars which they carry.

Note that the heraldic warwolf described by Nisbet is a wolf with the head of a man: the opposite of how werewolves are typically depicted today, but no less legitimate an interpretation of the “man-wolf”.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: The Human-Headed Warwolf of Heraldry (1722)”

Among the twelve lais of twelfth-century Breton poet Marie de France is a werewolf narrative entitled “Bisclavret”, which has similarities to the later, anonymous Lai of Melion (c.1200). Another comparable work is the narrative of Arthur and Gorlagon, an obscure Arthurian text that survives on a fourteenth-century manuscript and possibly influenced the minor character of Sir Marrok in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, who was betrayed by his wife to become a werewolf for seven years.

English versions of Marie de France’s lai include a loose 1910 prose retelling by Jessie L. Weston, which explicitly connects the story to Malory’s Sir Marrok narrative by identifying the king (unnamed in the original) as Arthur; Eugene Mason’s rather more faithful prose rendition of 1911; Judith P. Shoaf’s annotated version from 1996; and A. S. Kline’s 2019 translation.

Continue reading “Werewolf Wednesday: “Bisclavret” by Marie de France (12th Century)”