The
Man-Wolf and Other Stories
By Erckmann-Chatrian
Contents
The Man-Wolf
Myrtle
Uncle Christian’s Inheritance
The Bear-Baiting
The Scapegoat
A Night in the Woods
The Queen of the Bees
Preliminary
Note by the Translator.
It has
often been remarked, with perfect justice, that the eminent French
writers, a translation of one of whose works is here attempted, are
singularly faithful in their adherence to historic truth. Remove the
thread of obvious fiction which is indispensable to make these admirable
productions romances or tales, and what we have left is perfectly reliable
history. It is this feature mainly which gives the indescribable charm to
their historical tales—a charm powerfully realised in the original,
though less appreciable in an imperfect translation.
The same claim to perfect truthfulness in all essential points
may be placed to the credit of the following “Roman Populaire,”
notwithstanding the startling supernatural element on which the story is
founded. Erckmann-Chatrian have not thought it right or necessary to
depart in this case from their practice of abstaining from all prefaces or
notes in every edition of their works. Yet perhaps the translator may be
forgiven, and even condoned with thanks, if he ventures upon an
explanation tending to show that the tale of Hugh
the Wolf is not entirely founded upon superstition and the
supernatural.
“Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart
be given unto him!” Such was the sentence pronounced and executed upon
him of Babylon whose pride called for abasement from the Lord. Dr. Mead (Medica
Sacra, p. 59) observes that there was known among the ancients a
mental disorder called lycanthropy, the victims of which fancied
themselves wolves, and went about howling and attacking and tearing sheep
and young children (Aetius, Lib. Med. vi., Paul
Ćgineta, iii. 16). So, again, Virgil tells of the daughters of Prćtus,
who fancied themselves to be cows, and running wildly about the pastures,
“implęrunt falsis mugitibus agros.”—Ecl. vi. 48. This horrible
disease appears happily to have been a rare one, and recoveries from it
have taken place, for it is not destructive of the sufferer’s life. It
has even been thoroughly cured after a lapse of many years.
Dr. Pusey (Notes on Daniel, p.
425), in a disquisition of great fulness upon the disease of
Nebuchadnezzar, refers to a communication which he received from Dr.
Browne, a Commissioner of the Board of Lunacy for Scotland, in which he
says, “My opinion is that in all mental powers or conditions the idea of
personal identity is but rarely enfeebled, and that it is never
extinguished. The ego and non-ego may be confused; the ego, however,
continues to preserve the personality. All the angels, devils, dukes,
lords, kings, “gods many” that I have had under my care remained what
they were before they became angels, dukes, &c., in a sense, and even
nominally. I have seen a man declaring himself the Saviour or St. Paul
sign himself James Thomson, and
attend worship as regularly as if the notion of divinity had never entered
into his head.”
Esquirol, a very trustworthy writer, has a description of an
extraordinary outbreak of lycanthropy in France (in the Jura, at Dôle,
and other places in Eastern France) in the 16th century.
“This terrible affliction began to manifest itself in France in
the 15th century, and the name of ‘loups-garous’ has been given to the sufferers. These unhappy
beings fly from the society of mankind and live in the woods, the
cemeteries, or old ruins, prowling about the open country only by night,
howling as they go. They let their beard and nails grow, and then seeing
themselves armed with claws and covered with shaggy hair, they become
confirmed in the belief that they are wolves. Impelled by ferocity or
want, they throw themselves upon young children and tear, kill, and devour
them.” (Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1838, vol i., p. 521.) Those whom the
French called loups-garous were
in German termed werewolves.
It maybe observed on this that when the nails of the fingers
and toes are cut they grow indefinitely; but if they are allowed to grow
unchecked they soon curve over the extremities, form talons or claws, and
cease to grow—answering to the Scriptural account of the effects of the
mental disorder of Nebuchadnezzar.
Of course for every case of real malady many were imputed or
charged upon poor creatures, who were driven to madness by groundless
charges of witchcraft and sorcery, and being loups-garous in secret. Many innocent people were in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries burnt at the stake as wolves in human form.
A correspondent has kindly supplied the following
information:—“When in Oude in India, twenty-six years ago, we heard of
several instances of native babies being carried off out of the villages
by she-wolves, and placed with their whelps, and brought up wild there;
there was one about when we were there, partially reclaimed, but retaining
much of the savage nature imbibed with the wolf’s milk, and having been
accustomed to go on all-fours—i.e.,
knees and elbows; but I conclude these were not affected with ‘Lycanthropy.”
’
With a few touches of his magic pencil the Laureate has drawn a
powerful picture of such a state of things in ancient Britain, of which we
can scarcely deny the literal faithfulness. It is not a poetic conception;
it is historic truth:—
“And
ever and anon the wolf would steal
The
children and devour; but now and then,
Her
own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To
human sucklings; and the children, housed
In
her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And
mock their foster-mother on four feet,
Till,
straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse
than the wolves.”
Coming of Arthur.
The following tale, in which the lycanthropy is far from being
altogether a mere effort of the imagination, appears to be founded upon
the belief in the continued existence of this rare species of madness down
to our own day—or near it—for the story seems to belong to the year
1832.
The English reader will not fail to notice the correspondence
between the title and the well-known designation of the illustrious head
of the noble house of Grosvanor. Whatever connection there may or may not
be between that German Hugh Lupus of a thousand years ago and the truly
British Thigh Lupus of our day, all the base qualities of his supposed progenitor
have disappeared in him who is adorned with all the qualities which make
the English nobility rank as the pride and the flower of our land.
F.A.M.
The
Vicarage,
Broughton-in-Furness.
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From your dark side
