SOURCE: "THE WHITE WOLF OF THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS" (1839) by Captain Frederick Marryat

DESCRIPTION: "....Imagine his horror when (unprepared as he was for such a sight) he beheld, as he advanced towards the grave not a wolf, but his wife, in her night-dress, on her hands and knees, crouching by the body of my sister, and tearing off large pieces of the flesh, and devouring them with all the avidity of a wolf."

PLOT: Two men travelling in a small boat share their misfortunes. Krantz tells how his father fled justice to live in the evil Hartz Mountains (Transylvania).   Krantz was the middle child of three, having an older brother, Caesar, and younger sister, Marcella. The children were locked up in their cabin in the winter while the father hunted. One night they hear a horn and the father goes hunting a large white wolf. When he reurns he has brought company with him, another fugitive/hunter and his beautiful daughter, Christina. The father marries Christina, not by Heaven's grace, but with a strange oath to the spirits of the Hartz Mountains, swearing never to harm her. If the oath is broken, the children's lives will be forfeit to the "the wolf, the vulture". Later Caesar is killed by a white wolf. His body is buried under stones but the wolves get at it anyway. After this Marcella is killed as well. Krantz sees his step-mother eaving the house at night and follows her to Marcella's grave. He runs home for his father and they both see Christina eating the dead girl's body. Father shoots her dead. The girl turns into a dead white wolf. Christina's father comes back to condemn the only surviving child, Krantz, "to the wolf, to the vulture". So ends his story. Krantz tells his sailing companion that he feels a dire premonition, that he will soon die. When they land to get water a tiger leaps from the jungle, dragging away Krantz.

WEREWOLF FACTS: We don't get to see Christina change into a wolf, only her dead body. More interesting is when Christina is discovered eating the dead girl. She is human but eating like a wolf. This is probably the creepiest part.

INTERESTING FACTS: The opening of this story may seem disjointed to the reader. This is because it was part of the ending of a novel, The Phantom Ship. This story is one of the earliest of the Victorian werewolf tales and had a great influence on all those that followed. It is probably this tale that has made so many werewolves white in color.