Werewolf stories, p.19
Werewolf Stories, page 19
Nessie authority Roland Watson has determined that the vast majority of centuries-old reports of Kelpies emanated from Loch Ness. This, obviously, provokes an important question: could the Nessies of today, and the Kelpies of yesteryear, be one and the same? It’s a valid question, since it would seem unlikely for the loch to be populated by two different kinds of unknown animals. As for the answer, it is almost certainly the case that Nessies, far from being flesh-and-blood beasts, are in fact Kelpies in a modern incarnation.
The image that any mention of the Loch Ness Monster provokes is almost always that of a long-necked, hump-backed animal with four flippers and a powerful tail. Certainly, that’s how the media and moviemakers portray the Nessies, and even how numerous witnesses have described them. Such descriptions provoke images of long-extinct marine reptiles known as plesiosaurs — animals that became extinct around 65 million years ago. It is a little-known fact, however, that the unknown animals of Loch Ness come in all shapes and sizes, which adds even more weight to the theories that they are shape-shifting Kelpies and not merely unknown animals or surviving relics from times long past.
Contrary to the popular assumption that the Nessies closely resemble plesiosaurs, more than a few eyewitnesses to the monsters have described them in an astonishing variety of different ways — for example, as giant frogs, as tusked, as camel-like, as crocodile-type entities, as beasts that completely lack the long neck that so many people have reported, as animals closely resembling salamanders, and as creatures with feet rather than the oft-reported flippers. In many cases, such descriptions were made by people who were able to see the monsters at very close quarters, strongly suggesting they were not mistaken in what it was they encountered.
It is beyond absurd to try to assert that Loch Ness might harbor not just one but six or seven different types of amazing animals! There is only one reasonable conclusion available to us: the Nessies of today and the Kelpies of the past are one and the same. Constantly shifting their shapes, as they see fit, is the name of their ominous game. Their motivation: the stealing of the human soul.
Sources:
“Kelpie.” Mysterious Britain and Ireland, October 27, 2008 (updated January 2, 2019). http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/folklore/kelpie.html.
“Kelpies and Water-Horses.” Education Scotland. http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandsculture/lochness/kelpies/introduction.asp.
Klein-Krams Werewolf
In earlier times there were extensive forests rich with game in the vicinity of Klein-Krams near Ludwigslust, Germany. Great hunts were held in the area by sportsmen who came from all over Germany to test their prowess at bringing down their choice of game. For years, however, the hunters had been stymied by the appearance of a great wolf that seemed impervious to any bullet. Sometimes the beast would taunt them by approaching within easy shooting distance, on occasion even adding to the mockery by snatching a piece of their kill before dashing away without a bullet having come anywhere near it.
Now it happened during one great hunt that one of the participants, a young cavalry officer, was traveling through the village when his attention was captured by a group of children running out of a house, screaming. Seeing nothing pursuing them that would cause such panic, he stopped one of the youngsters and inquired whatever could be the matter. The child told him that no adult from the Feeg family was at home — just their young son. When he was left alone, it was his custom to transform himself into a werewolf and terrorize the neighbor children. They all ran from their playmate when he achieved this transformation because they didn’t want him to bite them.
The officer was bemused by such a wild play of the children’s imagination, and he assumed that they were playing big bad wolf after the sheep or some such game. But then he caught a glimpse of a wolf in the house — and a few moments later, a small boy stood in its place.
Now greatly intrigued, the officer approached the boy in the house and asked him to disclose more about his game of wolf. At first the boy refused, but the young cavalry officer was persistent. Finally, the lad confessed that his grandmother possessed a wolf strap and that when he put it on, he became a werewolf. The officer begged for a demonstration of such a remarkable transformation. After much persuasion, the boy agreed if the officer would first climb into the loft and pull the ladder up after him so he would not be bitten. The officer readily agreed to the conditions.
The boy left the room and soon returned as a wolf, once again chasing away his little playmates who had gathered in the doorway to watch. After a few minutes of pleasuring himself by frightening his friends, the werewolf disappeared for a few moments and then returned as the boy. Although the astonished cavalryman carefully examined the magic wolf belt, he could not discover any properties of transformation in the strip of wolf hide.
Not long after his experience at the Feeg house, the officer told a local forester about the demonstration. Perhaps the child had fooled him with a large dog of wolflike appearance. The forester said nothing, but he thought at once of the large wolf that could not be brought down during any of the great hunts. He resolved to test both the bizarre tale told by the cavalry officer and the strength of the wolf by making a bullet of silver for the next hunt.
A few weeks later, during the hunt, the wolf showed itself in its usual taunting manner. Many of the hunters were determined to bring the beast down, but their bullets appeared to miss the mark or to have no effect on the great wolf. Then the forester fired his rifle. To everyone’s astonishment, the wolf spun to the ground, wounded, then scrambled back to its feet and ran off toward the village.
The huntsmen followed the trail of blood to the Feeg household, where they found the wolf lying bleeding in the grandmother’s bed. In her pain she had forgotten to remove the wolf strap, and she was at last revealed as the werewolf.
Sources:
Bartsch, Karl. Sagen, Märchen und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg. Translated by D. L. Ashliman. Vienna, Austria: Wilhelm Bramuller, 1879.
Kornwolf
In those days in Europe when wolves were numerous, they would run through the cornfields after hares and other small game, completely hidden by the tall stalks. Because of the possibility of coming upon a hunting wolf or a wolf nest without warning, farmers warned their children to stay out of the fields and away from the corn wolves. And in those same days of old when wolves were plentiful, so were escaped prisoners of war, fugitives from justice or injustice, and outlaws — all of whom took refuge in the temporary safety of the cornfields. Until the harvest, someone on the run could remain out of sight for days and not go hungry, eating the ripening grain and peas and beans from the garden.
When wolves were numerous in Europe, farmers warned their children to stay out of the dangerous fields, and to this day festivals celebrate the harvest by disposing of the corn wolf’s corpse in a ritual bonfire.
In some rural areas of France, Germany, Lower Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and other countries, festivals celebrating the harvest are often structured around the corn wolf and the disposing of his corpse in a ritual bonfire. While some folklorists speak of the commemoration of a vegetation spirit, most experts agree that the phrase le loup est dans les bles (“the wolf is in the grain”) refers to the real wolves and werewolves (outlaws) who once haunted the cornfields.
Sources:
Eisler, Robert. Man into Wolf. London: Spring Books, 1948.
Kushtaka
Dennis Waller is one of the leading experts in the field of the Kushtaka. He notes in his 2014 book In Search of the Kushtaka: Alaska’s Other Bigfoot that the word Kushtaka equates to “Land Otter Man,” which is highly appropriate, taking into consideration that this is precisely how the Kushtaka is described. It is important, however, to note that the creature is not, literally, half human and half otter. Rather, it can take on both forms. In addition, the Kushtaka can manifest in the shape of a giant wolf — often a bipedal, upright wolf — or of a large, hairy humanoid, not unlike Bigfoot. In the Bigfoot-seeking community, Waller observes, this has given rise to the thought-provoking theory that the Kushtaka may well be an Alaskan Bigfoot — one that, over time, has been incorporated into Native lore and legend. On the other hand, Waller also notes, for the Tsimshian and the Tlingit, the creatures are monsters with the power to morph. In that sense, the jury is very much out when it comes to their true identities.
The otter angle is an intriguing one and is born out of the fact that otters are highly intelligent animals, that they have structured communities and even leaderships, that they are occasional tool users, and that they even hold each other’s hands. These parallels between the societies and actions of otters and humans are among the reasons the Tsimshian and Tlingit people associate the Kushtaka with otters. There is, however, yet another aspect to the otter issue.
Otters are perceived by most as being good-natured and friendly animals. This is not the case, however, for the two tribes that fear the Kushtaka. For these people, the engaging outward character of the otter is merely a ruse designed to deceive and manipulate people, in particular to lure them into stressful and even deadly situations. Notably, tribal history maintains that every otter is secretly part human, which allows it to jump from form to form as it sees fit.
It is eye-opening to learn that the Kushtaka has a notable way of luring its human prey into darkened forests, where it can work its evil ways: it mimics the cry of a baby or young child in distress. As we have seen, similar activity has been reported in Bigfoot encounters in Texas and Pennsylvania, and also at Bridge 39 on England’s Shropshire Union Canal, the home of the hair-covered shape-shifter known as the Man-Monkey. Clearly, there is a connection here, made all the more fascinating by the fact that these stories span not just countries but continents. This begs an important question: how, centuries ago and from lands separated by thousands of miles, could such tales proliferate? Is it just coincidence? Doubtful. Far more likely, the people of those widely varied areas and eras encountered extremely similar shape-shifters that utilized the same skills of mimicry and supernatural powers.
One of the primary activities of the Kushtaka is to steal the soul — or the supernatural essence — of its targeted victim. This, too, is something we have seen elsewhere, specifically in relation to shape-shifters. When a tribesperson loses his or her soul, it is the responsibility of the tribe’s medicine man, or shaman, to seek out the specific Kushtaka that made its victim soulless and then to wrestle it from the Kushtaka and reunite body and soul into one. And, just like the water-based Selkies of Scotland’s Shetland Islands, the Kushtaka is known for its cunning and callous ability to lure sailors to watery graves, deep below the high seas. Interestingly, as in the tales of shape-shifting fairies, despite its malignant and dangerous reputation, the Kushtaka is sometimes helpful, even to the extent of saving someone in dire peril. It should be noted, however, that such positive cases are few and far between.
Although the majority of reports of the Kushtaka come from the Tlingit and the Tsimshian people, there have been other sources. A particularly spine-tingling story, dating from 1910, came from the late Harry D. Colp. It is cited in Maddy Simpson’s article “Kushtaka: The Alaskan Half-Otter Half-Man Bigfoot.”
Colp was an adventurer and a gold prospector who firmly believed that he encountered a colony of Kushtaka at Thomas Bay, which is located in the southeastern part of Alaska. It is also known as the “Bay of Death” as a result of a huge landslide that occurred at the bay in the mid-eighteenth century. And even more chilling name is “Devil’s Country,” on account of the Kushtaka legends and encounters.
According to Colp, as he climbed a particular ridge on the day in question, he developed a sudden sense of being watched. As Colp quickly turned around, he was terrified to see an entire group of horrific-looking monsters carefully and diligently pursuing him. In eye-opening fashion, he described them as creatures that appeared to be half-human and half-monkey. He also described them as being sexless, by which, in all probability, he meant that no genitalia could be seen. This would not be surprising since Colp said that the entire pack was covered by long and thick hair — aside from those areas showing oozing, infected sores. As the monsters moved closer, howling and screaming in the process, Colp wretched at the foul odor that emanated from their forms, to the point where he almost passed out. Fortunately, after hurling his broken rifle at them, Colp managed to outrun his hideous pursuers, ensuring that he did not fall victim to this grisly band of hungry beasts.
There is no doubt that the tale of Harry D. Colp has more than a few Bigfoot-themed overtones attached to it: the strange howling, the stinking smell, and the description of the animals appearing to be semi-human and semi-monkey are all part and parcel of what today appears in much of Bigfoot lore. Add to that the aforementioned ability of the Kushtaka to imitate the stressed cries of a baby, just as Bigfoot does, and what we have is an undeniable connection. That the Tlingit and the Tsimshian people are firmly of the belief that the Kushtaka is a shape-shifter, however, suggests something potentially mind-blowing: that Bigfoot may not be the flesh-and-blood beast that so many cryptozoologists believe it to be but instead has the ability to morph into multiple forms — apparently, all of them monstrous.
Sources:
Redfern, Nick. Interview with Dennis Waller.
Lamia
Lamia became a monstrous shape-shifter because of the jealousy of Hera, the consort of Zeus, the father of the Greek hierarchy of gods. Lamia was a beautiful woman who, like so many other humans, bore a number of Zeus’s children. The furious Hera kidnapped those hybrid offspring and bundled them off to Olympia, far out of the reach of their mother’s arms.
Distraught with grief and helpless in her wrath, Lamia knew that she was powerless to combat the wiles of Hera and to win back her children. In desperation, she began to entice any mortal child to serve as substitute for her own progeny.
Regretfully, such wrongful actions transformed her into a beast with the head and breasts of a woman and the writhing, scaly body of a great serpent. And rather than mothering the human children she lured into her presence, she began to feast upon them.
Isobel Lilian Gloag’s c. 1890 painting The Kiss of the Enchantress was inspired by John Keats’s poem “Lamia.”
In time, Lamia reproduced and gave life to other creatures such as herself, beautiful women with the power to seduce and to suck the vital essence from those men who fell under their spell. In certain applications of the ancient legend, the so-called Lamiae become very much like vampires or succubi, stealing the life force from their victims.
Sources:
Gordon, Stuart. Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends. London: Headline Books, 1993.
Larousse Dictionary of World Folklore. New York: Larousse, 1995.
Lawton, Oklahoma
On the evening of February 27, 1971, 35-year-old Donald Childs of Lawton, Oklahoma, suffered a heart attack when he looked out in his front yard and saw a wolflike creature on its hands and knees attempting to drink out of a fish pond. When he was released from the hospital two days later, Childs told police officer Clancy Williams that the werewolf had been tall, “with a lot of hair all over his face … and dressed in an indescribable manner.”
Childs was not the only one who saw the werewolf of Lawton, Oklahoma. Other witnesses who viewed the incredible creature told police investigators that the thing was wearing pants “which were far too small for him.”
The first reports of the werewolf came from west Lawton. Police officer Harry Ezell said that the precinct received calls describing “something monstrous” running down the street, dodging cars, hiding behind bushes, then getting up and running again.
Twenty minutes after the initial reports, Officer Ezell stated that they received a call from a man who had seen the monster sitting on a railing outside of his apartment. According to Ezell, the man told him that he saw the thing when he opened his curtain about 11:15 p.m.:
He thought it was all a practical joke because the thing was perched on the railing. It looked like some monkey or ape. He thought it was a joke until it turned its head and looked at him, then jumped off its perch on the second floor railing and onto the ground seventeen feet below.
Once it hit the ground, it ran from the area on all fours, running something like the man thought an ape or monkey would run. He described it as wearing only pants, which covered its leg to its knee, as if it had outgrown them. He said that it had a horribly distorted face, as if it had been in a fire. It had hair all over its face, the upper parts of its body, and the lower parts of its legs.
A group of soldiers from nearby Fort Sill encountered the werewolf 15 minutes later, and they freely admitted that the thing had frightened them.
The monster was sighted on Friday and Saturday nights in Lawton. Sunday night was quiet, and on Monday night, Major Clarence Hill, commander of the police patrol division, sent out an alert, ordering his men to be on careful watch for the wolf man.
But the nightmarish creature — whoever or whatever it might have been — had already moved back into the strange dimension from which it had come — or else it traveled east to make its den under an old farmhouse near Fouke, Arkansas.
On May 1, 1971, Bobby Ford, 25, moved into the old Crank place outside of Fouke. He had lived in the home for less than five days when he had a face-to-face encounter with a six-foot-tall, hairy monster. An Associated Press release quoted Ford as saying that the hideous creature had frightened him so badly that he had run “right through the front door — without opening it.”
Sources:
