seasons; it would be also useful in deadening the
effect of the hard knocks; and by its grimness,
ferocity, and ugliness, would help to intimidate
the foe, sure to be superstitious though by no
means sure to be cowardly, and easy to be awed
if difficult to be terrified. Wherefore the
berserkir or bear-clothed guerillas of olden times
may have done something towards the establishment
of the were-wolf theory, which madness,
and outlawry, and diseased appetites, consolidated
into a positive and undeniable fact. The
berserkir used to work themselves up into a state
of frenzy, in which they had a superhuman force
and a diabolical ferocity. "As insensible to pain
as the convulsionists of St. Medard, no sword
would wound them, no fire would burn them, a
club alone could destroy them by breaking their
bones or crushing in their skulls. Their eyes
glared as though a flame burned in the sockets,
they ground their teeth, and frothed at the
mouth; they gnawed at their shield-rims, and
are said to have sometimes bitten them through,
and as they rushed into conflict they yelped as
dogs or howled as wolves."

It being in the mind of the priests that this
berserkir rage was demoniacal possession, it
was given out that baptism extinguished it; and
as Christianity advanced, the number of the
berserkir decreased; which was something gained,
however done; for a more uncomfortable set of
gentlemen than these berserkir, when their fits
of rage were on them, could not well be.
They slew all they came near, friend and foe
indiscriminately; and the sight of a stalwart
broad-shouldered Norseman, clad in his bear-
skin, yelping like a dog or howling like a wolf,
while he flung himself upon every living thing
that came in his way, must have been appalling
even to the strongest nerves. No wonder if the
poor maniacs came to be regarded as either
"possessed," or as men-wolves who changed their
skins and their natures when the mania came
upon them, and who were man, beast, and demon,
all in one.

The strangest thing in this, as in all other
branches of that odd delusion called witchcraft,
is the glibness at confession of the poor wretches
themselves, and the unaccountable romances
they make up. Over and over again we come
upon men and boys gravely confessing to the
were-wolf superstition, telling how they changed
their skin at will, then roamed over the country
as ravening wolves, slaying and eating children
wherever found. In almost all cases they have
previously made a compact with the Evil One,
either personally or by the mediumship of one
of his emissaries; and they give particulars of
the time and place of meeting, which are, of
course, known to be all hallucination, but which,
as circumstantial evidence detailed on oath,
would hang the most innocent man in
England. For the most part people of low and
brutish intellect were these self-confessed were-
wolves, retaining the power of dreaming dreams,
but not that of distinguishing between dreams
and realities. The confession of Pierre Bourgot,
or Peter the Great as he was called, is one of
these singular bits of delusion. Peter tells how
he was grieving over his flock scattered and lost
through a terrible tempest, when up came three
black horsemen; and after some conversation
one of them persuaded Peter to forswear God,
our Lady, and all saints and dwellers in
Paradise, and to give in his allegiance to the Evil
One. Peter did as he was bid, and kissed the
stranger's left hand in token of submission,
and his hand became black, and ice-cold as that of
a corpse. He then obtained some salve, with
which he smeared himself, and then he was in the
form of a wolf. "I was at first somewhat horrified
at my four wolf's feet, and the fur with which I
was covered all at once," says Peter; but finding
that he could travel with the speed of the wind,
he accepted the fur and the feet as disagreeable
conditions inherent to the situation, and became
one of the most notorious and dreaded were-
wolves of the time.

Another gentleman of the same habits, one
Gilles Garnier, called the Hermit of St. Bonnot,
because of his remote dwelling and secluded
habits—not because of his sanctity, be sure—
seems to have been a murderous cannibal, and no
more. Perhaps he disguised himself at times
in a wild beast's skin, for the better concealment
of his identity when out on his horrid expeditions;
but he was not so much insane—though
confessing to having been a were-wolf—as he
was hungry, poor, and cruel, and so satisfied his
craving for food on human flesh, that being the
easiest to be had. Jean Grenier, the boy-were-
wolf of thirteen, was evidently a ferocious idiot—
a thing more beast than human from the beginning.
"His hair was of a tawny red and
thickly matted, falling over his shoulders and
completely covering his narrow brow. His
small pale grey eyes twinkled with an expression
of horrible ferocity and cunning from deep
sunken hollows. The complexion was of a dark
olive colour; the teeth were strong and white,
and the canine teeth protruded over the lower
lip when the mouth was closed. The boy's
hands were large and powerful, the nails black
and pointed like birds' talons. He was ill
clothed, and seemed to be in the most abject
poverty. The few garments he had on him were
in tatters, and through the rents the emaciation
of his limbs was plainly visible." He was a
were-wolf according to his own confession, to
whom one Pierre Labourant, who seems to have
been none other than Auld Hornie himself, gave
a wolf-skin cape which transformed him at
sunset into the beast it represented; and in this
state he used to attack, kill, and partially eat
such unfortunate little ones as fell in his way—his
were-wolferism, poor wretch, being just poverty,
ferocity, and imbecility combined.

There are more of these child-eating men in
Mr. Baring Gould's book; and there is no need
to doubt this part of the confessions made by
the wretched criminals, however much we may
shake our heads at the wolf's paws and the fur
growing inward. If they were, as is most
probable, maniacs or idiots, it was not at all
an unlikely form of madness; if they were