Guest Blog by Tony-Paul de Vissage

Historical Horror

When I got the idea to write a werewolf story, I immediately said to myself: “Hold it right there! I write about vampires. Why would I want to write about a werewolf?

Well, let me count the whys…

I gave myself Pros and Cons: Vampires are way cooler; handsome, charming and irresistible, and look great in formal evening attire, while poor werewolves slouched around in shaggy, dirty fur, no matter how neat they are in human form. Vampires were always titled and rich —show me a vampire whose original blood wasn’t blue—and they’re oh-so-polite unless they don’t get their way, whereas a werewolf can be any old Ordinary Joe in sweatshirt and jeans. He might be your BFF by daylight but let the full moon shine and he’s as likely to eat you as greet you.

Besides, according to popular mythology, vampires and werewolves are bitter enemies with vamps at the top of that particular food chain and wolfies second-class citizens definitely near the bottom.

Who wants to write about the losers?

Apparently, I did.

Then I remembered the regret and pathos a werewolf generally suffers—remember Henry Hull and Lon Chaney, Jr in their respective roles, Leon’s angst in Hammer Films’ Curse of the Werewolf, and David Naughton’s conscience-stricken American Werewolf in London—as they suffered remorse after their transformations. Do we ever see vampires do that?

So I started researching.

A popular facet in European folklore as well as of contemporary horror movies, werewolves are mentioned by the Classical Romans, Classical Greeks, as well as in ancient Asia and the Native Americans of the New World. Though there were older writing of demons with vampire-like characteristics, the first literary reference to vampires as such recorded was The Vampire by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, a German poem written in 1748. The earliest mention of werewolves appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh in 2100 BCE so that’s score one for the lycanthropes. During the 15^th through 18^th centuries, many were accused and persecuted for having the ability to change from human into wolf. The first recorded was Gilles Garnier in 1573 but the most famous is Stubbe Peter of Cologne in 1589 which was documented by witnesses.

According to the mythology, the most common causes of werewolfism are: being born on Christmas Day; drinking water out of a wolf’s pawprint—double ugh on that one from a simply sanitary point of view. Allowing moonlight to shine on a sleeper’s face was believed to cause insanity and there’s the old standby, the Pact with the Devil. There also was another way to become a wolf, and there’s voluntary transformation…wrapping oneself in a wolfskin and chanting incantations. And, as those familiar with the standard mythology the “horror” cinema sets forth (as in The Werewolf of London and The Wolfman)—a werewolf’s bite.

Today, the actual diagnosis for anyone believing he can become a wolf is that of lycanthropy. Other theories are that supposed werewolves might’ve also been stricken with rabies, suffering from porphyria, or hypertrichosis, which causes an overabundance of hair growth. In 1642, Petrus Gonsalvus (“so-called The Man of the Woods”) of the Canary Islands was the first person documented as having hypertrichosis.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no safe cure for werewolfism, since the most popular but terminal—the use of wolfsbane or shooting with a silver bullet—are fatal to the victim.

In Path of the Wolf, Giovanni is born on Christmas Day and subsequently his parents are told by the parish priest to send him to a monastery where daily scourging and prayer will route the beast from his body. Before that can happen, a group of gypsies pass by and the hapless child is sold to them, to be caged and trotted out to perform pornographics with the gypsy leader’s daughter for the titillation of curious villagers. Enter the villain. François de Montaigne is an up and coming artist, commissioned to paint a mural of St. Jean in the Wilderness for a local church. Not finding a model among his usual group, he spots Giovanni and buys him from his captors, planning to use him in his painting and then promote the “good: deed of killing him and ridding the world of a monster but Fate and François’ much younger—and neglected—wife have different plans, for she and Giovanni see themselves as François’ captives and both wish to escape…

EXCERPT:

It was early in the spring when Isabeau de Montaigne first met the man who would become her lover.

France was at war with Italy; that very day, the country had suffered another defeat in its continuing conflict begun by their king, Louis, the twelfth of that name. It was also the day when, after an absence of three months, Isabeau’s husband returned to Aux-le-Piémont.

With her skirts skimming her ankles to avoid brushing the damp grass, which made up the untended meadow that called itself their front courtyard, she met François on the path connecting their cottage to the highroad. If the sluggishness of her movements was any indication, she was unenthused about welcoming him home.

The first time he went away, when she woke to find him throwing a change of clothing into his knapsack along with his sketchbooks and charcoals, she thought he was abandoning her. He swore otherwise, that he would come back “when I’ve found what I’m seeking.”

It had happened so many times since, she didn’t worry if she awoke and her husband was gone, didn’t wait in quiet distress for the sight of his silhouette on the highroad. Sometimes, she hoped he wouldn’t come back.

Recently, he’d been approached by le église de Rue Jean-Baptiste Amélioré about painting a mural depicting their sainted namesake. François accepted and set off on a quest to find the man who’d be his subject.

This time, he’d been gone so overlong she wondered if perhaps le bon Dieu had finally granted her unspoken wish. Then she thought, why should he? He never has before.

Now, as if to underscore that belief, François was back, and this time, he wasn’t alone.

There was a dog with him, restrained at the end of a length of rope; a big lumbering brute, loping clumsily behind him. Its gait was odd, as if its forelegs were shorter than the hind ones.

He stopped. So did she.

The creature dropped to its haunches.

Without preamble or greeting, she said, “Did you find what you sought?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I did. I found my St. Jean.”

“Where is he?” She looked past him down the track, expecting to see some beautiful boy on horseback, hurrying to catch up. It was usually the handsome son of a noble family whom he had entranced with promises of immortality on canvas.

“Here.” He held up the rope.

Her gaze traveled its length to where it wrapped around the animal’s neck, only to have her attention caught and held by the oddest eyes she had ever seen. They were the color of molten copper, flecked with glints of bronze-patina-green, under heavy brows meeting in a single line, looking out of place in what she could see of the mud-bedaubed face.

Isabeau thought, these are not the eyes of a beast.

Frowning, she studied the creature’s face. An odd countenance, no snout, no muzzle with a wet bulbous nose, though fur-covered and whiskery, as uncomfortably disturbing as its eyes.

She glanced at the creature’s body, at the long, coarse hair growing in a tangled mane around its neck and down its back, spreading over dirty shoulders. A matted pelt encircled its hips, part of its texture and color like the skin of another creature, the rest its own flesh, and the legs … hairy but relatively bare, as were the feet … but so filthy.

With a start, she was certain she was looking not at an animal, but a man, a dirt-caked man, squatting at her husband’s side, his fingers digging into the grass. A man, watching her with curious but intelligent eyes.

Path of the Wolf is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble in ebook and paperback.

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