Back To Werewolves: Some Lesser Known Fursonas
My first Wolfsburg Adventure book, ‘Seed of A Lord,’ is on sale until the 31st, and I would like to celebrate by contemplating more werewolves.
This time, we’ll visit some examples that tend not to appear on ‘real werewolf’ websites.
- Niall. This gentleman overhears some birds talk about a magic wand that is in their tree. He scoffs outloud at this, but his wife thinks he is scoffing at her. He explains about the wand. She finds it then turns him into a wolf. He runs off and comes across a king who keeps losing his kids mysteriously. Niall in wolf form sleeps next to the newest baby, sees a hand come down to snatch the kid, and bites the hand off. Surprise, it’s his wife, but she fled. Still, since he saved the prince, they let him take care of him. When the prince is three, he wanders off, which gets Niall in hot water. He swims back home to Ireland to discover that his wife has successfully kidnapped the prince again. Niall gets the kid to hit him with the wand and turns back into a human. His wife offers to drown herself, but he says she can go on living if she promises to never talk about his time as a wolf.
- Gorlagon. This prince was cursed to turn into a wolf because there is a magic sapling that was planted when he was born. To turn him into a wolf, you just had to shake a branch and say ‘be a wolf, have the mind of a wolf.’ Guess who does this? His wife, only she says ‘have the mind of a man.’ Gorlagon finds another king to suck up to, and this king’s wife is having an affair with his steward. Gorlagon attacks the steward when he visits the queen, and the queen gets revenge by hiding her kid and claiming Gorlagon ate him. Gorlagon proves otherwise, rats out his own wife, and condemns his ex to forever stare at her dead lovers head.
- Raimbaud de Pouget. This knight was disinherited, so he goes wandering in the woods while he panics. This is apparently enough to turn him into a wolf. He got to wander about in this infinitely preferable state until a woodsman lops off his paw and he reverts to the stinky ape form and has to confess to all this publicly.
- Chaucevaire. Apparently rolls around in the sand once a month to transform. Are we sure he doesn’t just have a thing for the beach?
- Alfonse. Turned into a wolf by his stepmother to make sure her biological son became king. Goes on long quest to keep a pair of royal lovers together and alive in the woods until he can bring both families together and is reconciled with his dad and stepmom.
Similarities:
If you are thinking that Gorlagon and Niall sound hauntingly similar- and also resembles the better known Bisclarvet- you are not alone. A guy named Kittridge wrote an entire 143 page essay on their similarities. I point out that copyright was a Victorian invention.
Conclusions:
It doesn’t escape my notice that the default assumption in Alfonse, Gorlagon, and Niall’s stories is that your wife will turn you into a wolf with little provocation. Alfonse’s mom at least has reasonable dynastic concerns, but Niall and Gorlogon’s SOs apparently just wanted wolves for husbands.
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What can I say? Bitches love furries.
All jokes aside, this does remind me of a book from the period that called wives ‘part friend and part servant.’ Is it this limnal role of a wife, someone who clearly has to be given some power of estate but is also kept from the rightful, full exercise of that power lest you have to give up an unearned power, that lurk in these stories? The terror that if she had the power to take away the ‘servant’ part of the equation, you would be turned out of society and made to run wild where hunters could lop off your paw?
And the wolf as a symbol of wild living is on full display here. Chaucevaire disrobes and leaves his friends to become a wolf, de Pouget is transformed in the woods and while giving into fear; but the literary equivalents are relying on that ‘wild’ connection to bring out the irony of who is really civilized and who isn’t.
Anyway, if you want to know how awesome Bigitte thinks it would be to marry a wolf, my ebook ‘Seed of A Lord’ is only $1.99 for the next eight days.
https://books2read.com/u/bpvJNz
Sources:
Eloping Lovers and A Werewolf: The Romance of Guillaume de Palerne
https://dn760109.eu.archive.org/0/items/cu31924027098072/cu31924027098072.pdf
