#Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction

[see-arcane]

Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction – Assorted Lycanthrope Flavors

After meandering through it for months—I cracked this book open in March—I finally picked my way through Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction, edited by Alexis Easley and Shannon Scott. The categories I parted them into:

SPOILERS BELOW

Stories I Would Return to Out of Enjoyment

“The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains” by Frederick Marryat– Actually a segment taken from a larger novel, The Phantom Ship, but an excellent classic Beware of the New Woman who is Scary and Evil horror. Has a good helping of Fair Folk elements too. 

“Lycanthropy in London; or, The Wehr-Wolf of Wilton-Crescent” by Dudley Costello – A rare somewhat comedic take, displaying what looks to be Mr. Costello gleefully calling bullshit on the entirety of physiognomy and the type of people who latch onto pseudoscience and faux mystic intuitions to declare a stranger has Bad Vibes ™ and is probably a vicious werewolf in disguise! Has a happy ending though.

“The Gray Wolf” by George Macdonald – Leans almost in a folktale direction. Hot wolf girl seeks wandering young man. Some blood is shed. It’s fine.

“The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold” by F. Scarlett Potter – A rare case of the werewolf having something like the usual vampiric seductive-coercive power over a target, nearly to the point of a devilish archetype. A lot of corpses by the end.

“Dracula’s Guest” by Bram Stoker – Proto-Jonathan Harker being a proud and haughty Englishman disregarding the locals’ fears only to nearly get chomped by a vampire horde! Dracula in a werewolfish role! Sharing wine with the manly soldier who shared his horse with you! Fun stuff. 

“Where There is Nothing There is God” by William Butler Yeats – Period typical problematic bits with the poor kid involved, but a surprising twist on dubbing the werewolf-adjacent character a kind and magical holy figure in disguise.

“A Ballad of the Were-Wolf” by Rosamund Marriott Watson – A decent Victorian stab at ye olde English poetry regarding a bloody werewolf tale.

Stories I Would Return to Only to Reference in a Period Piece to Highlight What a Terrible View People of the Time Had Regarding People They Want to Demonize By Calling Them Werewolves (or Were Otherwise Just Not That Engaging)

“Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf” by G.W. M. Reynolds – Skipped entirely! The intro pointed out the guy was a plagiarist. Immediate pass.

“The White Wolf of Kostopchin” by Gilbert Campbell – Dragged too much for me to get interested. More imperiled children, more Scary Evil Powerful Lady wolf.

“The Mark of the Beast” by Rudyard Kipling – Old-fashioned Scary Magic Retaliation Curse from Scary Indian (actual India, not Native American) after an Englishman was a jackass in a temple. Too much colonialism glaze on this one for me. Pretty straightforward man-to-beast gimmick, nothing fancy. 

“The Were-Wolf” by Clemence Housman – Starts out as a promising Nordic-flavored shapeshifter tale, but ultimately peters out into an incredibly on-the-nose ‘Christlike sacrifice for the Greater Good!’ end. Good effort on characterization, but ultimately felt like a letdown.

“The Other Side: A Breton Legend” by Eric Stenbock – Once again, comes with the Christianity cure-all sledgehammer at the end. Has a refreshingly witchy buildup, at least. Fairy tale angles.

“Morraha” a Celtic tale recorded by Joseph Jacobs – Not great, not terrible. Would have been more enjoyable if the telling was worded less like a rambling Madlibs game of ‘and then this happened and then this and then this.’ It does have a cadence pretty close to old fairy tale recitations which are notoriously incredibly condensed and very hit or miss for me, so I could just be biased.

Stories About Regular People Being Mistaken for Werewolves via Trickery, Idiocy, or Belief in Lycanthropy/‘Wolf Madness’ as an Actual Mental Illness

“Hugues the Wer-Wolf” by Sutherland Menzies – Every other paragraph had me going, “Hmm. That’s a bit fucked up. (depressing)”

“A Story of a Weir Wolf” by Catherine Crowe – Simultaneously vindicating and deeply saddening.

“Lycanthropy in London; or, The Wehr-Wolf of Wilton-Crescent” by Dudley Costello – See above.

“A Pastoral Horror” by Arthur Conan Doyle – Crazy murderer in the Alps. Bit of a stretch to include this one, I think. No real wolfish traits on display, but it does nod to the old ‘if you wound a werewolf in lupine form, it will show the mark in human shape!’ trope a little. Not Doyle’s best, not his worst.

Not Stories, Just Victorian Attempts at ‘Educating’ on Lycanthropy

“Wolf-Children” from Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal

“Wolf Lore” from Once a Week

“The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition” (Excerpt) by Sabine Baring-Gould

Overall I was deeply surprised at seeing so little in this collection that had anything to do with werewolves within England as a setting. So much of it is just tucked away in other countries happening in 'uncivilized' (read: not England) territories. I suppose that keeps in parallel with the vampire fiction fascination, with all these blood-drinking undead having come from far off places or older less-than-modern corners of the world. But even Dracula got around to menacing London! And yet there’s not one measly wolfman wandering around the cities? Genuinely shocked.

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I recently picked up an anthology of Victorian era werewolf fiction called Terrifying Transformations. I have so many short story collections and novels of that period’s supernatural horrors, but so little of that material has featured werewolves that I assumed the monster simply wasn’t as popular back then as the usual vampires and ghosts. So I was thrilled to not only find this collection, but to get caught up in its introduction which delivers a brief history lesson on the many ways the werewolf character was held up as alternate symbols of villainy, madness, and freedom by the various movements that took place within the period. Including that of the anarchists.

Case in point, this Punch comic, which is included in the book itself:

The Were-Wolf of Anarchy, a symbol of the horrid anarchists out to dismantle good polite English society!

Just as the werewolf was worn by female villains in fiction, boasting strength, individualism, sexual liberation and, gasp, devouring rather than nurturing children; the New Woman in fur.

Just as it stood for the commoners and working-class parties striving for rights and recompense against the aristocrats and nouveau riche.

Beasts abound, howling and tearing. Anarchy! This bit says it best:

I haven’t even gotten deep into the stories themselves yet, but this little opening essay has been delicious to chew on. Werewolves have always been part of the modern Other-symbolism crowd, shouldered up against the undead and the uncanny. Monsters to alternately fear within or without, or else performing as outright escapism in shedding human constraints and the collars of society.

It never occurred to me how that particular lupine flag has been waving since at least the 1800s.