Werewolf Stories, page 15
One night, Mrs. N. was attacked in bed by an invisible assailant that attempted to smother her. At last she freed herself, only to be thrown to the floor with such force that her ankle twisted beneath her and her head hit the wall. Throughout the incredible attack, her husband could only sit helplessly by, his face ashen with fear.
The three couples held a council to decide whether they should move, but they voted to bear the frightening phenomena and continue to save their money. And so they endured foul, nauseating odors, the sound of something sighing and panting in a darkened corner of the basement, and a remarkable variety of ghostly clanks, creaks, and thuds.
After a few days of getting to feel the atmosphere of the old mansion, Grandmother W. said that the place was haunted by something inhuman.
They received some insight into their haunted home when Mrs. M.’s grandparents came for a visit. Grandmother W. was a tiny woman who possessed great psychic abilities. She told the couples that the blond woman in the portrait that hung above the living room fireplace had been poisoned in one of the upstairs bedrooms. After a few days of getting to feel the atmosphere of the old mansion, Grandmother W. said that the place was haunted by something inhuman. She stated that she was not easily frightened, but the creature had terrified her.
As the elderly couple was preparing to leave, some invisible monster threw Grandmother W. to the floor in front of the fireplace and began to choke her. Grandmother W. was turning blue when her husband called upon the name of God and wrenched her free of the unseen beast and into his arms.
Her voice barely a whisper after the attack, Grandmother W. said that she had been “speaking” with the blond lady in the portrait when she saw an awful creature creep up behind her. It was as big as a large man but like nothing that she had ever seen before. It had stiff, wiry, orange-colored hair standing out from its head, its arms, and its torso. Its hands curved into claws, like those of a wolf. The beast had threatened to kill her, and it had left cuts on her neck where its claws had gouged her flesh. Grandfather W. proclaimed the mansion a place of evil and urged the three couples to move.
They made their final decision to move a few days later after a night in which a huge black bat had crept under the covers and clamped its teeth onto Mrs. N.’s foot. It took two men to beat and pry the monstrous bat off her foot — and even after it had been clubbed to the floor, it managed to rise, circle the room, and smash a window to escape.
The encounters with the grotesque werewolf spirit being did not end with their vacating the haunted mansion. Ten years after Grandmother W.’s death, a number of her kin were living in her old ranch house. One night Uncle J. came downstairs, trembling with fear, claiming that he had seen a monster with bristly, orange-colored hair poke its head out of a storage room, then shut the door. Although the family teased him when he began to claim that “something” was entering his room at nights, the laughter ceased when Uncle J. died after about a week of such nocturnal visitations.
A decade later, Mr. and Mrs. M., one of the three couples who had occupied the haunted mansion, were now themselves grandparents, and they decided to spend their vacation on Grandmother W.’s old ranch. They had their nine-year-old grandson with them, and they were looking forward to a comfortable stay in the old homestead. But on their very first night, Mrs. M. was awakened by something shuffling toward her grandson.
In the moonlight that shone through the window, she could see huge hands that curved into long claws.
Looking the creature full in the face, she saw a grinning mouth with huge, yellow teeth. Its eyes were nearly hidden in a series of mottled lumps. It brushed Mrs. M. aside and lunged at her grandson, who was now wide awake and screaming. She grabbed a handful of thick, long hair and desperately clutched a hairy, scaly arm with the other hand. In the moonlight that shone through the window, she could see huge hands that curved into long claws.
At last her husband was alerted to the terrible struggle taking place and turned on the light. The monster backed away, seemingly irritated by the sudden illumination, but it still gestured toward their grandson. In the light, they could see that the beast wore a light-colored, tight-fitting one-piece suit of a thin material that ended at the knees and elbows. Thick, bristly, orange-colored hair protruded from its flattened and grossly misshapen face, and thick, bulbous lips drew back over snarling yellow teeth. It gestured again toward their grandson, then turned and shuffled through the doorway, leaving behind a sickening odor of decay.
To the M. family, it had been demonstrated that a ghostly entity that haunts one house can follow the family to another domicile. Perhaps Grandmother W. had thrown down a psychic gauntlet and a challenge that the grotesque, werewolf-like entity had accepted. Whatever the explanation for the frightening manifestation, they demolished the old ranch house shortly thereafter.
Ghouls
The ghoul is linked with both the vampire and the werewolf in the traditional folklore of the frightening, but a number of somewhat different entities are included in the category of ghoul. There is the ghoul that, like the vampire, is a member of the unrelenting family of the undead, continually on the nocturnal prowl for new victims. Unlike the vampire, however, this ghoul feasts upon the flesh of the deceased, tearing their corpses from cemeteries and morgues. The ghoul more common to the waking world is that of the mentally unbalanced individual who engages in perhaps the most disgusting of aberrations, necrophagia, eating or otherwise desecrating the flesh of deceased humans. Yet a third type of ghoul would be those creatures of Arabic folklore, the ghul (male) and ghulah (female), demonic Djinns that hover near burial grounds and sustain themselves on human flesh stolen from graves.
Just as the ghoul is linked with both the vampire and the werewolf in the traditional folklore, Sergeant Bertrand (the infamous “werewolf of Paris”) is literally an all-purpose monster.
Sergeant Bertrand, the infamous “werewolf of Paris,” is literally an all-purpose monster, for rather than ripping and slashing the living, he suffered from the necrophiliac perversion of mutilating and sexually abusing the dead. R. E. L. Masters and Eduard Lea tell of a similar necrophiliac, the ghoul Ardisson, who exhumed the corpses of females ranging in age from three to 80. On one occasion he removed a woman’s head from its body and took it home with him to be his “bride.”
It is quite easy to envision how the legend of the ghoul began in ancient times when graves were shallow and often subject to the desecrations of wild animals seeking carrion. Later, as funeral customs became more elaborate and men and women were buried with their jewelry and other personal treasures, the lure of easy wealth circumvented any superstitions or ecclesiastical admonitions that might have otherwise kept grave robbers away from cemeteries and disturbing the corpses’ final rest.
Then, in the late 1820s, surgeons and doctors began to discover the value of dissection. The infant science of surgery was progressing rapidly, but advancement required cadavers — and the more cadavers that were supplied, the more the doctors realized how little they knew and, thus, the more cadavers they needed. As a result, societies of grave robbers were formed called the Resurrectionists. These men did their utmost to be certain that the corpses finding their way to the dissecting tables were as fresh as possible. And besides, digging was easier in unsettled dirt.
Ghoulish practices have continued into our own times. Jilted lover Michael Schinkel of Herald, California, was so obsessed with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee Crane, that he stabbed her to death in September 1986 and placed her body in a freezer. For the next five years, until the corpse was accidentally discovered by a landlord, Schinkel kept the body with him wherever he moved. He even continued to cherish the mummified corpse after he was married.
In 1994 in Rochester, New York, Jeffrey Watkins, then 24, a self-proclaimed sorcerer who named himself the Grinch, was found guilty of 19 charges of stealing corpses, digging up graves, and vandalizing mausoleums. Watkins slept in coffins with corpses, desecrated cemeteries, and kept a human skull at his bedside. He explained to police that he felt safe with the dead because he could trust them. He needed their company to enable him to feel peaceful inside.
Sources:
Hurwood, Bernardt J. Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghouls. New York: Ace Books, 1968.
Masters, R. E. L., and Eduard Lea. Perverse Crimes in History. New York: Julian Press, 1963.
Godfrey, Linda S. (1951–2022)
Author and investigator Linda S. Godfrey was one of the leading authorities on strange creatures, especially the unknown, upright canines some call werewolves. Four of her 13 published books are devoted to that topic, and she was featured on many national TV and radio shows such as History Channel’s MonsterQuest: Lost Tapes, AMC’s Fang or Fiction, Sean Hannity’s Inside Edition, the Jeff Rense Radio Show, Canada’s Northern Mysteries and Coast to Coast AM, National Public Radio, and Wisconsin and Michigan Public Radio. A former award-winning newspaper reporter, she lived in Wisconsin with her husband until her death on November 27, 2022, at the age of 71.
The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf (2003) documents the events surrounding her breaking 1991 news story about sightings of a werewolf-like creature near Bray Road in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. It describes the impact on the town, explores related local and world history, and speculates on possible explanations for the many eyewitness accounts, including Native American traditions such as the Navajo skin walker.
Hunting the American Werewolf (2006) picks up the trail with many new sightings across the United States and expands not only the many Native American connections — including a surprising relationship to ancient effigy mounds — but also a slew of alternative theories ranging from relict Ice Age species to multidimensional creatures.
Author Nick Redfern stands with legendary investigator and author Linda Godfrey at the Dogman Symposium of 2016.
The Michigan Dogman: Werewolves and Other Unknown Canines across the USA (2010) adds an astonishing new collection of modern-day sightings from coast to coast and examines not just the witness reports but also the geographical characteristics and socio-cultural artifacts of each location. Godfrey shows eerie similarities between many of the modern American werewolves and takes another look at the many possible theories, including marked links between these sightings and the worldwide phenomenon of phantom black dogs.
Werewolves: Mysteries, Legends and Unexplained Phenomena (2008) takes a broad-ranging look at werewolves throughout history and the world, starting with the earliest cave paintings of transformed animals. It includes case studies from medieval to modern, legends from many cultures, and examples of werewolves in contemporary media. The final chapter provides a how-to on conducting a creature investigation.
Godfrey’s work constitutes a unique contribution to the field of cryptozoology because of its large body of contemporary sightings of unknown, upright canines. This topic is also included in many of her other books, including:
(With Richard D. Hendricks) Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets, Sterling, 2005.
Weird Michigan: Your Travel Guide to Michigan’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets, Sterling, 2006.
Strange Wisconsin: More Badger State Weirdness, Trails, 2007.
(With Lisa Shiel) Strange Michigan: More Wolverine Weirdness, Trails, 2008.
Mythical Creatures: Mysteries, Legends and Unexplained Phenomena, Chelsea House, 2009.
Haunted Wisconsin: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Badger State, Stackpole, 2010.
Monsters of Wisconsin, Stackpole, June 2010.
Sources:
“Linda Godfrey” (obituary). GazetteXtra, November 29, 2022. https://www.gazettextra.com/obituaries/linda-godfrey/article_3d47e954-adad-5db8-86a0-1783177cddcd.html.
Gordon, Harry (?–1941)
William Johnston, alias Harry Meyers, alias Harry Gordon — the sadistic killer of three women — did not claw or bite his victims to death but earned the title “the Werewolf of San Francisco” with a straight razor. In the manner of London’s Jack the Ripper, Johnston chose prostitutes for his victims.
On the night of April 6, 1935, Betty Coffin turned a corner and started to walk down San Francisco’s Market Street. It was 2:30 a.m., and her feet hurt. It was time to call it a night.
Then she saw him. She walked right up to the heavy-set, slightly drunk man, who was dressed like a seaman, and propositioned him. Fifteen minutes later, “Mr. and Mrs. Harry Meyers” had registered in a cheap waterfront hotel.
Two hours later, Meyers came down alone and asked the sleepy night clerk where he could get a beer and a sandwich. The clerk directed him to an all-night greasy spoon diner on the corner.
At eight o’clock the next morning, the maid entered the Meyers’ room using her passkey and found the nude, bloody, and battered body of Betty Coffin sprawled on the bed. Her face had been beaten savagely. Her mouth was taped shut. Her body had been ripped open again and again with gaping wounds in a regular pattern, as if she had been raked over and over by the claws of a wild beast, a werewolf. Blood-stained fragments of clothing were strewn about the room.
Inspector Allan McGinn of the San Francisco police told the press that the kind of monster who murders in such a fashion is the type to strike repeatedly. Newspapers headlined stories of the Werewolf of San Francisco and his brutal and bloody savagery. But the most arduous of police work failed to turn up any clue of the murderer’s identity.
Five years passed without another werewolf murder in San Francisco, but Inspector McGinn had been correct about the sadistic human monster working according to some inner cycle of bloodlust. On June 25, 1940, the moon was right for the San Francisco Werewolf to strike again.
The body of Irene Chandler was found in another waterfront hotel in the same condition as that of Betty Coffin. Official causes of death were listed as strangulation and loss of blood, but the corpse bore the same terrible beastlike slashings. The victim was known to the police as a “seagull,” a streetwalker who catered to seafaring men. And this time the werewolf had left his “claws” behind — a rusty, blood-stained razor.
The Sailors’ Union of the Pacific supplied the police with a picture of the man whom they felt fit the werewolf’s general description. On July 8, 1940, a detective confronted Harry W. Gordon at a sailors’ union meeting. Gordon was a big, blond man, and the manner in which he had mutilated the two women indicated that he was bestial, cruel, and most likely a psychopath. The detective braced himself for a struggle.
Keeping his voice quiet, hoping to avert violence and to defuse the situation, the detective told Gordon that the police wanted to talk with him at headquarters. Amazingly, the brute who had so hideously carved up two women slumped his shoulders and offered no resistance. Later, after intense questioning, he broke down and confessed to the murders of Betty Coffin and Irene Chandler. The officers were unprepared for Gordon’s next confession: “And I killed my first wife in New York, too!”
On September 5, 1941, Harry W. Gordon took his last breath in San Quentin’s lethal gas chamber. The savage hunger of the Werewolf of San Francisco was quieted at last.
Sources:
Masters, R. E. L., and Eduard Lea. Perverse Crimes in History. New York: The Julian Press, 1963.
Steiger, Brad. Demon Lovers: Cases of Possession, Vampires and Werewolves. New Brunswick, NJ: Inner Light, 1987.
Green Wolf
The celebration of the Green Wolf marks an ancient custom that commemorates the times past when outlaws, wolves, and werewolves would hide in the fields, sometimes camouflaged with green leaves and moss. At harvest time, farmers would come upon “werewolves’ nests,” where the creatures had trampled down the crop to make a more comfortable sleeping spot. In many sections of France, the children were warned about the loup-garous (werewolves) that crouched in the fields.
In the Normandy region of France, le loup vert, the Green Wolf, is chosen each year to lead the other members of the farming community in dance during the harvest festival. The climax of the dance comes when a group of husky farmers make a pretense of tossing the Green Wolf — the man who has been selected to masquerade as the wolf at next year’s observance — into the roaring bonfire. The burning of the werewolf clothed in leaves and moss symbolizes the farmers’ triumph over hidden menaces in their land that might threaten their families or their crops.
Sources:
Eisler, Robert. Man into Wolf. London: Spring Books, 1948.
Greifswald Werewolves
According to old records, around 1640 the German city of Greifswald became overrun with werewolves. The lycanthropic population had become so large that they literally took over the city, working outward from their principal hovel in Rokover Street. Any human who ventured out after dark was in certain danger of being attacked and killed by the large company of werewolves.
At last, as the story goes, a group of bold students decided that they had had enough of living in fear and staying indoors at night, cowering before their hearths. One night they banded together and led a charge against the monsters. Although the students put up a good fight, they were virtually helpless against the powerful werewolves.
The German city of Greifswald, overrun with werewolves, fought back by melting down their silver buttons, goblets, belt buckles, and so forth into bullets for their muskets and pistols.
But then a clever lad suggested that they gather all their silver buttons, goblets, belt buckles, and so forth, and melt them down into bullets for their muskets and pistols. Thus reinforced, the students set out once again to challenge the dominance of the werewolves — and this time they slaughtered the creatures and rid Greifswald of the lycanthropes.
