The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves (31 page)

The exact origins of these stories are unknown. Some say they are literally true, while others view them as mythic metaphors associated with the fear of death and/or misfortune. Many black dog legends claim that the number of times one saw a hellhound dictated what would happen. Most commonly, one time means joy, two times means ill fortune, and a third time is a sign of an untimely death (of the person or someone close to him or her).

 

The significance of three suggests an origin from ancient mythology, when monstrous canines were often said to guard the threshold to certain realms of the dead. For example, Norse myth has the figure of Fenrir, a gigantic wolf that is bound until the arrival of Ragnarok (the Norse version of the apocalypse). Most westerners are more familiar with the Greek myth of Cerberus. Cerberus was a terribly strong and enormous dog, said to have three heads, that guarded the gate to the underworld. This likely led to an anglicized version of the legend that seeing a black dog three times is an omen of death.

One story from the latter half of the sixteenth century tells of one such black dog encounter that befell a church in Suffolk. A terrible thunder-storm rattled the structure of the church during a regular sermon. Suddenly a snarling, pitch black dog appeared near the pulpit before the entire congregation. The dog’s presence inside of the church was especially odd because all windows and doors had already been secured to keep out the storm.

 

The dog stepped forward as the congregation watched in stunned silence.

 

The shadowy animal brushed against one churchgoer, who was probably paralyzed with fear. The man immediately fell stone dead to the floor. The man’s wife reached for him and also brushed against the black fur of this hellish creature. As a result, she too was struck dead, following her husband into the afterlife. A third man boldly took hold of the creature to remove it from the church. His fate was even worse. The story goes that he shrieked feebly as his entire body shriveled like a prune, as if his very life-force was being drained from his body. He soon fell to the floor, looking much like a mummy.

According to the legend, this same black hound also appeared before a congregation at a church in Blythburg almost immediately after the incident at the Suffolk church. This was thought unusual because the churches sat roughly 7 to 8 miles away from one another.

 

The outcome of the black hound’s appearance at the Blythburg church would be no less tragic than at Suffolk. Again, the hound took the lives of three church members. The head clergyman stepped forward, leading a group of fellow priests and invoking the name of God in an attempt to restrain the dark beast. The entire group, however, was blown clear across the church by some unseen force. Today, many landmark buildings in Blythburg can be seen with dog-shaped weather-vanes, said to represent this black hound of death, as a grim memorial of the incident.

Another British hellhound story dates from the late nineteenth century and allegedly occurred in or around Norfolk. The story usually goes that, on that particular day, two farmers were in a hurry, running late with their goods, which they were to sell at the town market (most versions claim the market was in Norfolk). They whipped their horses, forcing them to pull the heavily packed wagon as fast as possible—without throwing their precious cargo, of course.

 

A black dog with blazing red eyes stepped into the wagon’s path, though it was still a good ways ahead. The farmer who was driving the wagon, not wanting to risk being slowed down or having his wagon tipped by attempting to avoid the animal, is said to have driven right over the shadowy beast without so much as slowing down. This would certainly have been considered a rather disrespectful (not to mention stupid) transgression against an obvious messenger of death. Suddenly both men began to notice the heavy odors of sulfur and smoke. They soon came to the realization that, much to their horror, the entire wagon (which, as one might expect, was made entirely of wood) was now completely engulfed in flames. The hound, it seemed, had disappeared into a raging ball of fire.

 

The men now had no other choice but to leap from the wagon, both barely escaping with their lives. Sadly, however, they lost all of their sale goods, not to mention their wagon and both of the horses. Some versions of the story say the two horses ran straight through the market of Norfolk, dragging behind them the ball of fire that had once been a wagon full of valuable goods. Spurred on by the flames (which to them probably seemed to be pursuing close behind), the horses eventually ran themselves to death.

 

As for the driver who so hastily drove over the fiery beast? Well, most versions of the legend tell that the wagon driver was dead before the next morning (though some versions claim he died at sundown, at the moment when the last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon). Some stories say the other farmer escaped with only some form of permanent injury or maiming, while others say that he, too, was soon dead. However, the details regarding when the second farmer died are rather vague. It would be obvious to anyone that the man died eventually, but many such versions of this legend fail to elaborate as to whether he died
much
later or just by a matter of days. One version claims that the wagon-driving farmer died at sunset (which is, incidentally, when the moon became fully visible) and the other farmer met his end upon the following sunrise (when the moon disappeared).

 

Part 4

Of Wolf and Man

How do we as individuals address the bestial side of our natures? What should one expect to experience (hypothetically) if bitten by a werewolf or otherwise somehow afflicted with it? What should one do if confronted by a werewolf (aside from run screaming, of course)? What are the potential rational explanations for lycanthropy? What do werewolves represent to the psyche? The answers to these questions and more are conveniently at your fingertips.

Chapter 15

Once Bitten ... Then What?

So you’ve been bitten by a werewolf, have you? This probably means that any number of possibilities has occurred. Perhaps you failed to heed the warnings provided in Chapter 1 and decided that you would just go looking for a lycanthrope on your own. Then again, you may have gotten hasty and decided you would try to hunt down a werewolf before you finished reading (or even bothered looking at) Chapter 16 on how to properly deal with one. Of course, there is also the possibility that you had a run-in with a werewolf long before you ever got your hands on this book. The matter of how you came to be in this precarious situation is, quite honestly, no longer of any real consequence. What’s done is done … right?

 

If you have been bitten by a werewolf, or just suspect you have, then at the present moment there is probably only one question going through your mind. What in the world are you supposed to do now? Well, sometimes the best medicine is to be as well informed as possible. The following pages can at least help you in that regard … but unfortunately, that is about all it
can
do for you. Best of luck, my future furry friend! Please keep in mind, most of the information in this chapter addresses cursed lycanthropy. Clinical, psychological, and enchanted forms do not always correspond to these symptoms or methods. Remember, there are many different types of lycanthropes.

Let’s not panic just yet. It’s quite possible that you were just bitten by some stray dog, rabid coyote, or some other breed of undomesticated canine. In any case, you should probably bandage the bite and just take this book with you to the emergency room so you can get yourself checked out. You can always read this over while you wait to be seen. Don’t worry about “wolfing out” at the hospital. Most available accounts support the idea that you’ve still got enough time left to see a doctor before you start randomly attacking, biting, or eating people. Of course, knowing this may not be all that comforting.

 

There are a number of primary symptoms for which you should be on the lookout. The initial symptoms of lycanthropy infection are commonly thought to include combinations of the following: