Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/224

 216

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. SEPT. 13, 1902.

haying anointed their Bodies, with an Oyntment which they make by the Instinct of the Devil, and putting on a certain enchanted Girdle, do not only unto the View of others seem as Wolves, but to their own thinking have both the Shape and Nature of Wolves, so long as they wear it ; and they do dispose of themselves as very Wolves in worrying and killing ; and mostly humane Creatures. Of such, sundry have been taken and executed in several Parts of Germany and the Netherlands. One Peter Stump (as you may read in Verstegan's 'Antiquities,' pag. 237) for being a Were- Wolf, and having kill'd 13 Children, two Women, and one Man, was at Bedbur, not far from Cullen, in the Year 1589, put unto a very terrible Death. The Flesh of divers Parts of his Body was pull'd out with hot Iron Tongs, his Arms, Thighs, and Legs broken on a Wheel, and his Carcass lastly burnt. He died with very great Remorse, desiring that his Body might not be spar'd from any Torment, so his Soul might be sav'd. A little after this a young Gentleman of about 20 Years of Age, being un- happily seduc'd to be in this infernal Gang of Were- Men or Sorcerers, was hang'd at Vienna, and whilst he was hanging, a Beard as white as Snow imme- diately sprung from his Chin down to his Waste, to the Admiration and Astonishment of all the Spec- tators ; the News whereof being carried to the Emperor, who call'd several wise Men together to give their Opinion of this Prodigy, they conjectur'd, that if this young Man had not offended against the Laws of his Country, he might by leading a good Life have lived to that Age, which would have deserv'd such a Beard as then appear'd upon him at his Execution : And by this Example we may see that Wicked Men may cut off their Days, long before the appointed Time allotted them by Nature." J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Webster, in his very powerful drama 'The Duchess of Malfi,' alludes to this terrible superstition :

Doctor. A very pestilent disease, my lord, They call it lycanthropia.

Pescara. What 's that ?

I need a dictionary to 't.

Doctor. I '11 tell you.

In those that are poasess'd with't there o'erflows Such melancholy humour, they imagine Themselves to be transformed into wolves ; Steal forth to church-yards in the dead of night, And dig dead bodies up : as two nights since One met the duke 'bout midnight in a lane Behind Saint Mark's church, with the leg of a man Upon his shoulder ; and he howl'd fearfully Said he was a W9lf, only the difference Was, a wolf's skin was hairy on the outside, His on the inside; bade them take their swords Kip up his flesh, and try ; straight I was sent for And having mmister'd to him, found his grace Very well recover'd. Act V. sc. ii.

O. ln ir ? empion >' a wild set of vei> ses which bir Walter Scott was the first to publish and which he suggests may be an old metrical romance surviving only in ballad form, the were- wolf occurs :

was it warwolf in the wood ?

Or was it mermaid in the sea ? Or was it man or vile woman, My ain true love, that misshaped thee ?

It wasna warwolf in the wood,

Nor was it mermaid in the sea ; But it was my wicked stepmother, And wae and weary may she be !

' Minstrelsy of Scottish Border,' ed. 1862, vol. ii. part i. p. 246.

In Morris's ' Life of St. Patrick ' we read of a man assuming the shape of a wolf, but as I do not remember the authority for the tale, if one be given, I cannot make even a guess as to its age. Giraldus Cambrensis writes of a man and a woman being changed into wolves (Rolls Series, vol. v. p. 101).

Some interesting information on this sub- ject occurs in Henri Gaidoz, ' La Rage efc St. Hubert,' pp. 110-12.

Edward I. possessed a war-engine called " the warwolf," which was used at the siege of Stirling Castle (Andrew Lang, 'Hist, of Scotland,' i. 193). EDWARD PEACOCK.

' CASTE ' : PROTOTYPES OF THE CHARACTERS (9 th S. x. 108). I can remember many years ago, I think in 1858 or 1859, Sir William and Lady Don coming to Aberdeen and acting in the farce ' Used Up,' in which Sir William sustained the part of Sir Charles Coldstream, a favourite role of Charles J. Mathews. Shortly afterwards he emigrated to Aus- tralia. In Solly's ' Index of Hereditary Titles of Honour ' may be found :

" Don of Newtondon, Berwick. Don, Bart., S., 1667 till 1862. Wauchope. Took name of Don- Wauchope, 1862."

This may perhaps be the same family.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

JAMES ANDERTON (9 th S. x. 87). James Anderson (not Anderton) was born at Edin- burgh 5 August, 1662, his father being the Rev. Patrick Anderson, who was ejected from his church at the Restoration, and who held a conventicle at Edinburgh, for which he suffered imprisonment on the Bass Rock. At the age of eighteen James obtained the Master of Arts degree at Edinburgh Uni- versity, and three years later, having served his law apprenticeship with Sir Hugh Pater- son, W.S., of Bannockburn, was admitted a member of the Writers to the Signet. He first appeared before the public in 1705, pub- lishing 'An Historical Essay, showing that the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland is Im- perial and Independent,' confuting the mis- takes and misrepresentations of Drake's ' Historia Anglo - Scotia ' and Attwood's 'Superiority of the Crown of England over the Crown of Scotland,' both these books being ordered by the Scots Parliament to be burnt by the common hangman. On 10