Literature / The Were-Wolf (1890)

That's no lady; she's after my brother's life!

"I fear neither man nor beast; some few fear me."

—White Fell

"The Were-Wolf" is a Short Story written by Clemence Housman for inclusion in Volume IV of Atalanta, a British magazine for girls, which left print in December of 1890. The text was accompanied by six illustrations by Everard Hopkins that emphasized the story's Christian elements and the werewolf's unfeminine threat. For half a decade, the Atalanta publication was all "The Were-Wolf" existed as. Yet in 1895, Clemence Housman came in contact with The Bodley Head through her brother Laurence, who worked for the company as a designer and illustrator. Under The Bodley Head, "The Were-Wolf" was republished in book form in January of 1896, reaching a new audience of greater size than before. For the book version, Laurence produced six illustrations of his own to replace those of Hopkins. This second set favors the two main characters, Christian and White Fell, as well as the juxtaposition that exists between them.

One winter evening, likely in Scandinavia, the residents of a farmstead are surprised by a huntress seeking shelter. She introduces herself as White Fell and she is welcomed by all except for Christian. He recognizes White Fell as being a werewolf, but as is can't do anything. White Fell bonds with the young Rol, but disappears ere midnight strikes. Days later, Rol goes missing in the woods with not even a corpse left to grieve over. White Fell resurfaces thereafter and during her second visit bonds with the elderly Trella. Christian tries to protect the family by throwing holy water at White Fell, but she dodges and leaves hastily. This attack in particular draws the ire of Christian's twin brother Sweyn, who fancies White Fell and doesn't want Christian's superstition to poison her standing at the farm. Still, again, in due time Trella vanishes near the woods just as Rol did. Returning from a hunt one night, Christian witnesses a kiss between Sweyn and White Fell and realizes his brother is next. Intent on keeping Sweyn safe, Christian goes after White Fell, but he is unwilling to kill her as a woman. What follows is a three-hour chase until midnight, when White Fell is to turn back into a wolf. Failing to outrun him, White Fell goes for the kill at the cusp of midnight. Neither party survives this final attack, because Christian's blood spilled for Sweyn's sake puts holy water to shame when it lands on White Fell. At dawn, Sweyn discovers the dual tracks in the snow and follows them to his brother's frozen corpse and that of a giant white wolf where White Fell's prints end. He has a breakdown upon realizing that Christian had been truthful and died protecting him, and with no better amends to make, he lifts Christian's corpse on his shoulders and begins the journey back home.

"The Were-Wolf" is one of several works in the course of the 19th Century that draw inspiration from "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains". Specifically, both stories feature a white-furred female werewolf who uses her human form to access her victims and whose human enabler is guilty of domestic abuse. Following the positive reception of the 1896 publication of "The Were-Wolf", Clemence Housman went on to write "The Unknown Sea", a mermaid-centric piece with thematic similarities to "The Were-Wolf", the most blatant of which being that the male lead is also called Christian.

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"The Were-Wolf" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Angsty Surviving Twin: Sweyn discovers White Fell's and Christian's tracks in the snow and surmises that Christian set out to murder the woman out of jealousy. As he follows the tracks for a day, he mourns his beloved and plans retribution on Christian. Then he comes across both their corpses and the truth of Christian's claim that White Fell is a werewolf is evident from the fact that her corpse is not a woman but a large white wolf. Realizing how wrong he was about someone who solely sought to protect him, regret, shame, and loss unravel Sweyn's self-view. He is left to atone only by carrying Christian's weighty corpse home with him.
• Amazon Chaser: White Fell is a woman who travels alone, is swift and precise with her axe, and survives as a hunter. Sweyn's attraction to her is for all these warrior-like qualities. He likes that she doesn't care for sweet words but gladly listens to tales of bravery and strength. He likes how she sympathetically lets her own hand glide to her axe, a gesture he specifically tries to elicit with his recountals. He even sings her a song specifically to have an excuse to hold her hands and feel the power they hold.
• Ambiguous Situation: Before White Fell enters the farm hall, thrice a spirit visitor knocks on the door begging to be let in. The door is opened for all three only for no one and nothing to be there, not even footprints in the snow. The first visitor has the knocking and voice of a child, the second of an elder, and the third of a man in his prime. This matches with the identities and order of White Fell's (intended) victims: young Rol, old Trella, and strong Sweyn. It is left open to interpretation whether these spirit visitors warn of the doom to befall the household or if by opening the door for them White Fell's claim is let in. Following from this, it is possible White Fell's hunt was fulfilled by her murder of Sweyn's twin Christian and while she perished too, it is suggested she's not operating alone due to her nightly meetings at Cairn Hill.
• Bloodlust: Rol shows White Fell the fresh cut across his palm from an earlier accident in hopes of getting her sympathy. Instead, White Fell's face "[lights] up with a most awful glee" at the sight of blood, which she hides by feigning shock and hugging the boy tightly so as to bury her face against him.
• Blood Magic: Christian knows that holy water will work against White Fell, but he has none with him during their impromptu final confrontation with Sweyn's life on the line. This proves irrelevant when White Fell hits him in the neck with her axe to be rid of him, causing his blood to come gushing out and land on her. To the surprise of the both of them, blood spilled in an act of self-sacrifice is even more potent than holy water. As a result, Christian gets to see White Fell perish before he falls dead himself in peace.
• Bookends:
  • Early in the story, Christian discovers wolf prints in the snow and follows them to the homestead where instead of a wolf he encounters a woman. This is how he knows that White Fell is a werewolf. At the end of the story, Sweyn discovers White Fell's tracks in the snow and follows them into the wilderness where instead of White Fell's remains the corpse of a large white wolf marks the end of the trail. This is how he learns that White Fell is a werewolf.
  • The first illustration of Everard Hopkins is a historiated initial. It's the image of Christian when he discovers the werewolf's tracks with a "T" glowing in his shadow to serve as the first letter of the opening "The". The final illustration depicts Sweyn carrying Christian while he's frozen solid in a crucified pose. This time, there's a "✝" glowing behind Christian, which symbolizes his spiritual ascension.
• Color Contrast: The villainous White Fell is defined by her whiteness and strongly associated with the harshness of the winter season and its all-covering snow. She is contrasted with black on three occasions. Firstly, there's Tyr, the noble black-furred elderly wolf-hound of the farmstead who is the first to recognize White Fell for what she is. The second instance is when White Fell and Christian both become the target of a pack of black wolves until they back off upon realizing that White Fell is higher in the food chain than they are. The third occasion is communicated through Laurence Housman's illustrations rather than the text: White Fell's hunter Christian is dressed in dark clothes.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Upon his death, Christian freezes solid into a pose reminiscent of Jesus at his crucifixion, which symbolizes his spiritual ascent. It is in this pose that Sweyn discovers him and lifts him up to carry home, a scene both Hopkins and Housman turned into an illustration.
• Dehumanizing Insult: Christian knows White Fell's name and that she's a werewolf, but he pointedly refers to her by name only once, insultingly shortened to Fell, and only uses "werewolf" for her when it's imperative to specify the danger to the household. Most often, he refers to her as the Thing, of which thrice as the Fell Thing.
• De-power: A method brought up on how to break a werewolf's power is to witness their obligatory change to wolf form at midnight. If seen by human eye during the transformation, they no longer have access to their human form. The method is never put to the test, but de-powering White Fell is Christian's backup plan if he fails to kill her at midnight.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: For all that White Fell is a werewolf, her true threat lies in the charm with which she hides her lethal intentions, emphasized by the fact that she marks her victims by kissing them. She is furthermore a stealthy murderer, stalking her prey until they are alone and leaving not one clue for family and friends to even begin guessing what happened to their loved ones.
• Due to the Dead: As the only thing Sweyn can do to repay Christian for his salvation, he takes his corpse home with him through the winter night over a distance that prior took him from dawn to dusk when he was well-rested and did not have a corpse to carry. Everard Hopkins contrasts the respect from human to divine human in one illustration to an illustration of White Fell's monstrous wolf corpse surrounded by the pack of normal wolves from earlier with the implication it'll be consumed.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: The social favor White Fell enjoys among humans is largely due to her beauty that obscures her off demeanor, a folly on their part that is highlighted by the line about how Rol approaches her with "a child's full confidence in the kindness of beauty." The truth is that she is a werewolf out for victims, whom she marks by kissing them.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Sweyn accuses Christian of being in love with White Fell too and jealous that she does not return the interest while Sweyn lays on the charm with success. He does not actually believe his own accusation, but it gives him something grounded to hold onto in the face of Christian's airy insistence that White Fell is a werewolf. When Christian becomes upset that Sweyn and White Fell kissed, Sweyn is almost relieved that his accusation seems to be true after all. And when the next day he discovers Christian's and White Fell's tracks in the snow, his initial assumption is that Christian hunted her down and killed her for rejecting him.
• Holy Water: During White Fell's first visit, Sweyn mockingly mentions that sprinkling a werewolf's hands and feet with holy water will kill them. During her second visit, Christian rushes out to the church almost three leagues away to fetch holy water. When he returns his hesitation allows White Fell to escape the house before he can hit her with the water and the flask smashes against the door instead. Despite his understanding that White Fell will be back, he does not get any more holy water, but this is not an issue when White Fell kills him and his blood spills onto her feet. His blood, lost in an attempt to save his brother, is even better than holy water for killing werewolves.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The werewolf White Fell selects and picks off her victims one by one until she marks Sweyn as her next prey. His twin brother Christian realizes he needs to be decisive to save Sweyn and goes after White Fell at once, confronting her with the promise she'll perish in wolf form at midnight. For the next three hours, White Fell tries to escape him and sufficiently wounds him to almost succeed, but her final strike backfires and ends her.
• Kiss of Death: White Fell marks her victims by kissing them, or so Christian accuses her of doing. What at least in the cases of Rol and Trella happens is that they kiss White Fell first and she kisses them in return as if they unintentionally and unknowingly offer themselves up to her. How the kiss between Sweyn and White Fell occurs is not described, but the dialogue between Sweyn and Christian thereafter hints that Sweyn was the initiator too. Each time White Fell kisses someone, she disappears from the farm well before midnight, when she has to change back into a wolf. She strikes many, many days later, leaving neither track nor stain of her victim.
• Messianic Archetype: Christian is a stand-in for Jesus Christ, from his name to his self-sacrifice in saving someone else from sin. Christian's frozen pose in death is identical to that of the crucified Jesus Christ. Moreover, the original publication of "The Were-Wolf" occurred in the December issue of a monthly magazine, meaning the story was meant to reach its audience around Christmas.
• Malicious Misnaming: Christian only once addresses White Fell by her name out of necessity, and even then he still refuses to use her proper name, reducing it to "Fell". White Fell takes offense.
• Middle-of-Nowhere Street: nearly all of the story takes place on a single farm and in the surrounding wilderness. Other farms and settlements as well as their residents are mentioned as being located a walk away, but they have no bearing on the whole deal with the werewolf.
• Mirror Character: The two main characters, Christian and White Fell, have common ground in being hybrids. Christian is a man with feminine attributes, emphasized by the contrast with his twin brother Sweyn, while White Fell is a woman with masculine attributes, which is what makes Sweyn recognize her as his equal. They are also both half human, half other, although what makes them other is opposite: White Fell is bestial while Christian is divine.
• Must Be Invited: There is one detail to White Fell's modus operandi that suggests she needs her victims' permission and another one which meaning is unclear. White Fell marks her three prey by kissing them, but of the two of them that have the kiss described, it's the prey that kisses White Fell first. And before White Fell ever sets foot inside the homestead, the residents are creeped out thrice by a visitor at the door that isn't there when the door is opened. The identities of the three visitors and their order match White Fell's prey, but whether the visitors are a warning by an unknown party or part of White Fell's hunting claim and the door being opened for them what allows her access to her victims is unclear.
• My God, What Have I Done?: It's only when Sweyn finds Christian's corpse lying next to a wolf's corpse at the end of White Fell's footprints that he understands that Christian's accusation that the lovely huntress was a vicious werewolf was sincere. It is only then that he reflects on just what an awful lout he is and how his own loving brother, moreso since White Fell's arrival, specifically was on the receiving end of his arrogance.
• Mysterious Animal Senses: All of the animals in the story are canines: the old wolf-hound Tyr, an unnamed puppy that is Rol's companion, and a pack of wolves. The puppy has no remarkable reaction to White Fell, but both Tyr and the wolves can immediately tell that White Fell is bad news.
• Narrating the Obvious: The whole "Christian is the Christ" metaphor is very on the nose, but in case somehow the reader missed it, the last line reads "And he knew surely that to him Christian had been as Christ, and had suffered and died to save him from his sins." "The Were-Wolf" was originally written for the Christmas edition of a girl's magazine, so that line is probably to ensure every possible reader gets it.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: After White Fell breaks Christian's left hand and right arm, there's little more he can do against her when he struggles with her just before midnight. In an act of desperation not to lose track of her, he clamps his teeth in the fabric of her tunic, letting go only when she axes him in the neck.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: As a werewolf of unknown origin, White Fell may take human form by day but must resume wolf form at midnight. It isn't confirmed that she needs the fur cloak for which she is named to become a wolf, but she is never not dressed in it and as midnight approaches wraps herself tighter in it. It is suggested but not confirmed that if a human witnesses the transformation a werewolf gets locked in wolf form permanently. To kill a werewolf, their paws or feet and hands need to be sprinkled with holy water, though as it turns out blood sacrificed to save another works even better. Normal wolves are as afraid of werewolves as humans are, with the added benefit that unlike humans (experienced) animals can spot a werewolf at a glance. White Fell mentions that "White Fell" is not her true name, which remains unrevealed because it supposedly sounds off-putting in the local tongue. White Fell also mentions having a meeting with another party, apparently also a hunter or hunting group, at Cairn Hill at night and that she's awaiting the sound of a sea-horn as her signal, but whether this is truth or a lie to excuse her leave before midnight is left ambiguous.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Sweyn and Christian are two of the finest men the region has to offer, but Sweyn is so all-around superior and more masculine that his brother that Christian's accomplishments don't draw the admiration they would've if Sweyn hadn't been around. Christian is also humble, empathic, and believes in the supernatural, while Sweyn is boastful, selfish, and abhors superstition.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: After three ghostly visitors terrify the farmstead with their disembodied voices, all they can do is make the sign of the cross as prompted by Sweyn. Sadly, it doesn't work.
• Prepare to Die: When Christian confronts White Fell with the singular intent to kill her before she can murder his brother, he is straightforward with her about the why and what: "You kissed Rol—and Rol is dead! You kissed Trella: she is dead! You have kissed Sweyn, my brother; but he shall not die! You may live till midnight."
• Prophetic Names: Christian's name signifies his eventual likeness to the Christ.
• Rule of Three: Three spirit visitors come by the farmstead to seek entrance with the phrase "Open, open; let me in!" The terrified residents leave answering the door to Sweyn, who finds no trace there ever was someone on the other side each time. The first visitor has the voice and soft knocking of a child while the latch rattles as if he person outside barely reaches up to it. The second visitor's voice is old, their tread sounds feeble, and the tapping on the door appears to be made with a walking cane. The third visitor is the only one with a specified gender, as his is the forceful voice of a man in his prime whose strength rattles the door. As White Fell's hunt commences, it becomes clear that these three voices represent the identities and order of her victims. The first to die is Rol, the youngest of the household. The second is Trella, the oldest of the household. Sweyn, as the champion of the household, is the intended third victim. However, he is spared because his twin brother Christian steps up as Sweyn's protector and effectively takes his place.
• Sacred Hospitality: Christian is horrified at the realization his kin not only are providing shelter to a werewolf, but also breaking bread with her. He cannot prevent this, but he stays out of the host-guest bond by not taking so much as a lick during dinner.
• Savage Wolves: During Christian's and White Fell's race, they get hunted by a pack of wolves at one point. Christian worries that wolves consider werewolves kin, in which case he'd find himself severely outnumbered, but it turns out that wolves fear werewolves just as humans do. When they get close enough to recognize White Fell for what she is, they abandon the hunt. In one of Everard Hopkins's illustrations, the wolves return once White Fell lays dead, ostensibly to eat the corpse.
• Shout-Out: The race between White Fell and Christian gets compared to the myth of Atalanta and Hippomenes with the line "when in old Greece man and maid raced together with two fates at stake." Atalanta, named for the mythological character, was the magazine that "The Were-Wolf" was originally published in.
• Statuesque Stunner: White Fell is introduced as exceptionally beautiful in a masculine way that does not undermine her femininity. She is both tall and imposing. In the illustrations of Everard Hopkins, White Fell is consistently framed as taller and more graceful; standing tall and unaffected while Sweyn is bending over to hold back Tyr, overshadowing the young Rol when he cuddles up to her in admiration of her beauty, and holding her own with the wind dramatically blowing up her cloak as Christian almost trips during their struggle.
• This Was His True Form: Shortly before the climax of their race, Christian is hit by an understanding of White Fell's dual nature as the wolf will soon replace the woman. Simultaneously, he feels that there is a hidden truth to his own being too that edges on emerging. Upon her death at midnight, White Fell returns to the form of a white wolf. Christian lives long enough to realize he succeeded in protecting Sweyn and dies in peace with his arms outstretched. He freezes solid in this position reminiscent of Christ on the cross, who also died as the savior of others.
• The Unpronounceable: White Fell explains that her name is merely a nickname given to her by the Irish because her true name sounds uncouth to their ears and tongue.
• Weaker Twin Saves the Day: Christian is the identical but comparatively faulty and incidentally younger twin of Sweyn, who is the champion of the countryside in whatever aspect imaginable. Only when it comes to running does Christian outperform Sweyn, but it's something neither value. In the end, it is running which plays a key role in his ability to kill the werewolf.
• Withholding Their Name: When asked for her name, White Fell states that its sound is uncouth to their ears and tongue and that for this reason she's already been given another name by their countrymen based on her manner of dress: White Fell.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The whole reason Christian doesn't attack White Fell but chases her for three hours up to midnight through the snow is because he wants her to have the form of a wolf when he kills her and not that of a woman. He acknowledges that his inability to hurt a woman whom he knows is A.) not actually a woman, and B.) a filthy murderer is a flaw in his character.