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<blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 5624984" data-attributes="member: 77019"><p><strong>Things that go bump in the night</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>[FONT=&quot]This is an essay I added to my Baltic book today, wanted to share it here where some people might find it amusing. - G</strong></p><p><strong>[/FONT]</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>[FONT=&quot]==================================</strong></p><p><strong>[/FONT]</strong></p><p><strong>[FONT=&quot]</strong></p><p><strong>[/FONT]</strong></p><p><strong>[FONT=&quot]Things that go bump in the night[/FONT]</strong></p><p> [FONT=&quot]Stranger and more sinister legends and perhaps traditions abound in the Baltic. One common theme are so-called werewolves. For example the 16th Century Swedish Historian Olaus Magnus relates that:[/FONT]</p><p> </p><p> <em>[FONT=&quot]"In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.[/FONT]</em></p><p> </p><p> <em>[FONT=&quot]"On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above another in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves... Between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland are the walls of a certain old ruined castle. At this spot congregate in the thousands, on a fixed occasion, and try their agility in jumping. Those who are unable to bound over the wall, as; is often the case with the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain."[/FONT]</em></p><p> </p><p> [FONT=&quot]Like so many records from this era, such stories (which were fairly common) could be interpreted a number of ways. There are records of farmsteads discovered which had been wiped out during the winter of course, but this could be due to any number of reasons, sometimes it does appear to have been wolves, though the anecdotes above sound more like desperate bandits or outlaws who have reached the point of starvation and perhaps insanity…. One might say lunacy. Such tales of people reverting to wolflike behavior (and costumes) during hard times go way back in the Baltic, for example Sigurd Dragon slayer in the Viking-Age <u>Saga of the Volsungs</u>. [/FONT]</p><p> </p><p> [FONT=&quot]Outlaws are also legally associated with wolves going way back. In Saxon common law, when someone was made outlaw (one of the worst punishments) a "Writ of Outlawry" was read, with the pronouncement <em>Caput gerat lupinum</em> ("Let his be a wolf's head," literally "May he bear a wolfish head") literally equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law. He could then proceed to the forest where he must fend for himself. Interestingly this was also a sentence frequently passed onto Berzerkers in Viking times. In pagan Latvia there was a class of unwed male warriors called <em>vilkacis</em> who were associated with wolves in a manner similar to the Norse Ulfhednar Berzerkers.[/FONT]</p><p> </p><p> [FONT=&quot]A possible bridge between the idea of an outlaw and that of a member of a mystical warrior subculture can perhaps be found in the <em>[FONT=&quot]Roggenwolf[/FONT]</em> ('rye-wolf') of German rural folklore. This is a demon that lives in grain fields and ambushes peasants, strangling them. This sinister creature is represented at harvest-time by the last sheaf, which is called 'Wolf' and tied up to nullify its malignance (in a ritual which mirrors the more positive version of what is done to prepare for the arrival of Frau Holda on 12th night in the Alps). Coincidentally, the fungus ergot, which grows on rye especially when it rains too much sometimes goes by the euphemism <em>[FONT=&quot]Wolf[/FONT]</em> or <em>[FONT=&quot]Wolfszahn[/FONT]</em> ('Wolf-tooth'). It certainly has a bite, ergot is a strong hallucinogen similar in potency to LSD which is actually derived from ergot alkaloids. Its effects were well known to alchemists and physicians in the Medieval period, who knew it as St Anthony’s Fire.[/FONT]</p><p> </p><p> [FONT=&quot]On the other hand there may be no connection between these things at all. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]The reality of this legend described by Olaus Magnus may be as simple a mistranslation of local complaints about outlaws. Or it could reflect wolves showing a bit more cunning and determination than people expected from them during a hard winter, or outlaws showing a bit more ferocity and cruelty than would normally be associated with ordinary Outlaws under the same circumstances. Thus lurid tales are invented. One thing is for sure, it could sure get creepy real late at night in the dead of winter in a small farmstead deep in the Prussian forest…[/FONT]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Galloglaich, post: 5624984, member: 77019"] [b]Things that go bump in the night[/b] [B][FONT="]This is an essay I added to my Baltic book today, wanted to share it here where some people might find it amusing. - G [/FONT][/B] [B][FONT="]================================== [/FONT][/B] [B][FONT="] [/FONT][/B] [B][FONT="]Things that go bump in the night[/FONT][/B] [FONT="]Stranger and more sinister legends and perhaps traditions abound in the Baltic. One common theme are so-called werewolves. For example the 16th Century Swedish Historian Olaus Magnus relates that:[/FONT] [I][FONT="]"In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.[/FONT][/I] [I][FONT="]"On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above another in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves... Between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland are the walls of a certain old ruined castle. At this spot congregate in the thousands, on a fixed occasion, and try their agility in jumping. Those who are unable to bound over the wall, as; is often the case with the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain."[/FONT][/I] [FONT="]Like so many records from this era, such stories (which were fairly common) could be interpreted a number of ways. There are records of farmsteads discovered which had been wiped out during the winter of course, but this could be due to any number of reasons, sometimes it does appear to have been wolves, though the anecdotes above sound more like desperate bandits or outlaws who have reached the point of starvation and perhaps insanity…. One might say lunacy. Such tales of people reverting to wolflike behavior (and costumes) during hard times go way back in the Baltic, for example Sigurd Dragon slayer in the Viking-Age [U]Saga of the Volsungs[/U]. [/FONT] [FONT="]Outlaws are also legally associated with wolves going way back. In Saxon common law, when someone was made outlaw (one of the worst punishments) a "Writ of Outlawry" was read, with the pronouncement [I]Caput gerat lupinum[/I] ("Let his be a wolf's head," literally "May he bear a wolfish head") literally equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law. He could then proceed to the forest where he must fend for himself. Interestingly this was also a sentence frequently passed onto Berzerkers in Viking times. In pagan Latvia there was a class of unwed male warriors called [I]vilkacis[/I] who were associated with wolves in a manner similar to the Norse Ulfhednar Berzerkers.[/FONT] [FONT="]A possible bridge between the idea of an outlaw and that of a member of a mystical warrior subculture can perhaps be found in the [I][FONT="]Roggenwolf[/FONT][/I] ('rye-wolf') of German rural folklore. This is a demon that lives in grain fields and ambushes peasants, strangling them. This sinister creature is represented at harvest-time by the last sheaf, which is called 'Wolf' and tied up to nullify its malignance (in a ritual which mirrors the more positive version of what is done to prepare for the arrival of Frau Holda on 12th night in the Alps). Coincidentally, the fungus ergot, which grows on rye especially when it rains too much sometimes goes by the euphemism [I][FONT="]Wolf[/FONT][/I] or [I][FONT="]Wolfszahn[/FONT][/I] ('Wolf-tooth'). It certainly has a bite, ergot is a strong hallucinogen similar in potency to LSD which is actually derived from ergot alkaloids. Its effects were well known to alchemists and physicians in the Medieval period, who knew it as St Anthony’s Fire.[/FONT] [FONT="]On the other hand there may be no connection between these things at all. [/FONT][FONT="]The reality of this legend described by Olaus Magnus may be as simple a mistranslation of local complaints about outlaws. Or it could reflect wolves showing a bit more cunning and determination than people expected from them during a hard winter, or outlaws showing a bit more ferocity and cruelty than would normally be associated with ordinary Outlaws under the same circumstances. Thus lurid tales are invented. One thing is for sure, it could sure get creepy real late at night in the dead of winter in a small farmstead deep in the Prussian forest…[/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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