But the curse grows stronger. The following night with the rising of the full moon he is abroad again. This time, he happens on a luckless girl from the village, wandering home after visiting her boyfriend, and ravages her.
So it goes on. The villagers know that one of them is a werewolf, but they are too frightened to venture out after darkness. Except the blacksmith who fashions himself a silver bullet for his gun. He knows that he can kill the beast with it but his task will be a lengthy and dangerous one for he, too, must be abroad beneath the full moon, hoping to come up on his quarry, praying that he will not fall into the clutches of those jaws and feel the hot fetid breath on his face.
At last, after months of perseverance, he stalks the werewolf as it feeds on a freshly killed sheep. His bullet is true, but the creature does not roll over. Instead, with a cry of anguish, it lopes away leaving a trail of blood in its wake on the hoarfrost. Next morning the farm worker is discovered in his bed, a jagged bullet wound in his body. The villagers rejoice at the lifting of the curse, but only the blacksmith is worried. Is this the end of it all or has the farm worker passed on the werewolf curse to one of his victims and when the next moon rises the terror will start all over again?
This is the theme of almost all of the werewolf stories of centuries past. Situations vary, perhaps the killer falls into a gushing stream, but basically the legend follows a pattern.
From the point of view of today's addict to werewolf stories the old theme is hackneyed and boring, yet the 'pulp' magazines of the twenties and thirties were able to hack it up in generous servings simply because it was the original legend told in its country of origin. However today the werewolf is still as popular as ever, but his depredations are spread further afield. We read of his exploits in the towns and cities and he's found in countries other than those on the continent.
And why, indeed, should Britain not have its own werewolf stories? Once wolves roamed our forests and if we are to indulge in the fantasies of the Germans and the French, then surely our own fields and forests were plagued by creatures which were half-man, half-wolf.
Horrors have come and gone over the years. We read of plagues of outsize creatures whose ravages make those of the werewolf seem trivial by comparison. Yet the werewolf legend has lasted for centuries. The answer to this lies within ourselves. Even in the midst of civilization our subconscious fears the darkness and the unknown. Did something move in the shadows between the street-lamps or was it our imagination? The fields and woods are at their most beautiful by moonlight yet we cannot dispel that slight shudder or the quickening of a heartbeat. If such creatures as werewolves existed in days gone by are they extinct or, like the legend, have they lived on, the curse being handed down from father to son?
Logically, we tell ourselves, they are a figment of the darker side of the imagination of mankind but deep within ourselves we still fear them. The howling of a dog on moonlit nights or the soft padding footsteps of a prowling fox are magnified a thousand times, and we are grateful that our doors and windows are barred, and that we are safe within the confines of a modern house on a conventional estate.
The werewolf knows no boundaries and the legend will go on forever more.
The Howling on the Moors
(from Graveyard Rendezvous 35)
‘There it goes again!’ exclaimed a bewildered Tommy Bourne, turning to look at his chief in the bright moonlight. ‘Do you think there really is a wolf at large?’
‘We’ll know soon enough, Tommy,’ replied Raymond Odell, the Brook Street detective, ‘it’s getting closer all the time.’
The two detectives were crouched behind a low stone wall. The moonlight shone all around, casting shadows and creating an atmosphere of unreality. This was a very lonely part of the Sussex coast and from where they were they could just make out the sea about a quarter of a mile away, where the moors dipped down to join the stony beach.
The moonlight glinted eerily on the waves. They were reminded once more of their reason for being in such a place in the dead of night. There had been reports of a large ghostly wolf, which had put in several appearances over the past few weeks on this part of the coast, and eventually these stories had reached Scotland Yard. As far as the police could see no crime had been committed, and they were far too busy with much more important matters to bother investigating what was probably mere local gossip. However, the reports continued to come in, and finally Detective Inspector Richmond had asked Raymond Odell to combine work with pleasure, take a holiday in the area concerned and see what it was all about.
Suddenly Odell gripped Tommy Bourne’s arm with steel-like fingers. ‘Look!’ he whispered, ‘there it is, Tommy, amongst those rocks on the top of that hillock!’
The two detectives wasted no time, and keeping as low as possible, using every scrap of available cover, they began to weave their way towards the ghostly apparition. Raymond Odell was comforted by the fact that he had his service revolver in the pocket of his overcoat. He was taking no chances until he knew what this was all about.
Suddenly Odell
