by Graeme Davis
The Yokai Jincha has no mandate to operate outside Japan, but senior investigators occasionally travel to attend conferences and act as advisors.
A 12th-century wall painting of St Cuthbert from Durham Cathedral. (Holmes Garden Photos / Alamy)
The Order of St Cuthbert
The position of the Catholic Church has always been that werewolves do not exist, and that it is a sin even to believe in them. As early as the 8th century AD, St Boniface wrote that upon their baptism, converts to Christianity must renounce “trusting in witches and a superstitious fear of werewolves.” Records of medieval werewolf trials in France and elsewhere invariably conclude that the accused was either acting under a delusion or had put on the form of a wolf through witchcraft.
This position has remained official policy to the present day. The 18th-century Benedictine monk Augustin Calmet makes only a passing mention of werewolves in his wide-ranging Traité sur les Apparitions et sur les Vampires (“Treatise on Ghosts and Vampires”), dismissing lycanthropy as a delusion brought about by witchcraft or suggestion. As late as 1933, Montague Summers continued to promulgate this view in his book The Werewolf.
Despite this, the Inquisition – first under its own name, and later as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – has maintained a small but active sub-branch devoted to the investigation of lycanthropy, which is known today as the Order of St Cuthbert. It will be remembered that this early Northumbrian saint is a patron of shepherds, the wolf’s natural enemy.
From documents available in the public domain, it seems that the Order was founded around 1760 in Sainte-Colombe-de-Peyre, a small village on the pilgrimage route of St James of Compostela. It is interesting to note that just a few years later, the nearby Gévaudan district was plagued by a notorious beast which may or may not have been a werewolf.
The Order’s present-day headquarters is thought to be at Ushaw College, a former Catholic seminary that is now a part of the University of Durham in northern England, which was founded in 1808 as St Cuthbert’s College – not to be confused with St Cuthbert’s Society, which was founded 80 years later as an Anglican college within Durham University.
Members of the Order have been active in many parts of the world, frequently operating under the cover of Catholic charities and aid organizations. In Bosnia, the Order worked with local Franciscans to track Serbian and other groups that made use of wolf imagery, and separate genuine werewolf packs from simple bandits and war criminals.
More recently, the Order sponsored an extensive study of the chupacabra in North and Central America. As a result several public reports were issued that concluded – neatly in line with Church policy – that the creature was no monster, but simply a coyote (or sometimes a raccoon) suffering from a particular kind of mange.
The Inquisition remains active worldwide, secretly investigating reports of lycanthropy and other paranormal phenomena. The Order of St Cuthbert takes the lead in werewolf investigations, but the main body of the Inquisition provides logistical support and firepower as required. A typical investigative team will consist of one member of the Order and one or more specialists from other branches of the Inquisition, supported by a fire team from the Swiss Guard. Typical cover identities include Catholic aid or charity workers, missionaries, or anthropologists from a European or American university.
Equipment varies, and some can be locally acquired. Guns and other military equipment usually come from the armories of the Swiss Guard: Glock 9mm automatic pistols and Heckler & Koch MP7 and UMP submachine guns are standard. Ground vehicles are almost always sourced locally, and vary widely.
Like the rest of the Inquisition, the Order of St Cuthbert maintains very few bases of its own. Normally it counts on other local Church organizations for accommodation and local knowledge. The Order is known to have strong ties with Franciscans around the world, and through the Inquisition it can also count on the support of Dominican assets. It is thought to be less close to the Jesuits, who are rumored to have a small force of monster-hunters attached to their exorcist arm.
The Zaroff Society
Mikhail Zaroff (1882–1924) was a Don Cossack who had risen to the rank of general by the time of the Russian Revolution. His twin passions were war and hunting, and after the fall of the Russian Empire he traveled the world seeking out the most dangerous game. With the wealth he had smuggled out of Russia he was able to purchase a small island in a remote corner of the Caribbean, and set about turning its jungle terrain into a private hunting park.
Various unsavory rumors were circulated about Zaroff in the years following his death, apparently in a hunting accident. According to certain American newspapers, he had become bored with big game, and took to hunting shipwreck victims in his search for a more challenging quarry. Despite decades of claim and counter-claim, these charges have never been substantiated.
What is known for sure is that Zaroff sought out the company of the world’s greatest hunters, and seldom refused an invitation to join a safari or an expedition into unknown territory. He accompanied Colonel Percy Fawcett into the jungles of Brazil, and traveled to Tibet in search of the yeti. The archives of the Royal Geographical Society have a letter from Zaroff accepting a place as a tracker on N. A. Tombazi’s 1925 expedition to Tibet, but Zaroff died before the expedition set out.
The only surviving photograph of General Mikhail Zaroff.
The Zaroff Society claims to be descended from the general’s coterie of fellow hunters, and its stated purpose is to seek out the most dangerous game in the world. Among its trophies are several large pelts claimed to have come from werewolves, as well as South American were-jaguars and African were-hyenas. The Society’s library is said to contain first-hand accounts of werewolves and their behavior written by members – as well as an angry letter from Ernest Hemingway, protesting the rejection of his application for membership.
The Society has discreet houses in many of the world’s great cities, and in gateway cities such as Mombasa, Cape Town, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Bucharest, and Lhasa. Its expeditions often pose as private safaris, but have also moved under the guise of archaeological, zoological, or geological expeditions: the Society maintains ties with some of the most prestigious universities in Europe and North America for this specific purpose. Since about 1980, the Society has increasingly used oil exploration as a cover story: it has members at the highest levels of Middle Eastern politics and royalty, whose influence can open doors in parts of the world where Western universities cannot.
The equipment of a Society expedition is always the newest and the best. Thanks to the enormous wealth of many Society members, cost is never an issue. High-powered rifles with telescopic sights are the standard hunting weapon, but are backed up by machine pistols and large-caliber handguns for personal defense; equipment is almost always the property of individual members, and not of the Society. Some Society members also take great pride in their mastery of archaic and exotic hunting weapons, deeming a kill made with a primitive weapon more valuable than one made with high-tech modern equipment.
Books
Baring-Gould, Sabine, The Book of Were-Wolves, Watchmaker Publishing (Seaside, OR, 2012). Originally published by Smith, Elder & Co (London, 1865). Baring-Gould characterizes all forms of lycanthropy as mental illness.
Boguet, Henry, An Examen of Witches, Dover Occult (New York, 2009). An English translation of Boguet’s 1602 Discours des Sorciers in which the witch-hunter and magistrate records many of his cases, including several involving werewolves. Edited by Montague Summers (see below).
Calmet, Augustin, The Phantom World, Wordsworth Editions (Ware, 2001). An English translation of Calmet’s Traité sur les Apparitions et sur les Vampires (“Treatise on Ghosts and Vampires”), first published in 1751. Calmet mentions werewolves in passing, attributing lycanthropy to delusion caused by drugs or mental illness.
Godfrey, Linda S., Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern Amer
ica, Tarcher (New York, 2012). Various reports on sightings of upright lycanthropes.
Greene, Rosalyn, The Magic of Shapeshifting, Red Wheel/Weiser LLC (Boston, 2000). Presented as a practical guide to shamanic shapeshifting, the book also covers historical instances of lycanthropy.
Hite, Kenneth, The Nazi Occult, Osprey Publishing (Oxford, 2013). Includes an account of Nazi werewolves and the Cologne incident of 1945.
Noll, Richard (ed.), Vampires, Werewolves, and Demons: Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature, Bruner Meisel (New York, 1992). A scholarly treatment of obsessive lycanthropy and other conditions.
O’Donnell, Elliott, Werewolves, Methuen & Co Ltd (London, 1912). Available as a free ebook on Project Gutenberg. A wide-ranging summary of lycanthropy across Europe.
Steiger, Brad, The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings, Visible Ink Press (Canton, MI, 2011). Written by a paranormal researcher, this book takes a broad look at shapeshifters as a phenomenon.
Summers, Montague, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend, Dover Publications (New York, 2003). Originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co Ltd (London, 1933). Various other editions are available. Summers follows the official Catholic Church line in maintaining that all manifestations of lycanthropy are due to witchcraft and/or demonic activity.
Fiction
Frost, Brian J. (ed.), Book of the Werewolf, Sphere Books Ltd (London, 1973). Includes a well-researched essay on “The Werewolf Theme in Weird Fiction” as well as stories by Ambrose Bierce, A. Merritt, August Derleth, and others.
Howard, Robert E., “In the Forest of Villefère,” in Shadow Kingdoms: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1, Wildside Press (Rockville, MD, 2004). Originally published in the August 1925 edition of Weird Tales magazine and anthologized several times since. This short but atmospheric werewolf tale is clearly inspired by reports of lycanthropy in 16th-century France.
Ingraham, Prentiss, “Buffalo Bill and the Barge Bandits, Or, The Demon of Wolf River Canyon,” Buffalo Bill Stories, Issue 308, Street and Smith (New York, 1907). An account of “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s encounter with a werewolf in Wyoming
Pronzini, Bill (ed.), Werewolf! A Chrestomathy of Lycanthropy, Harper Perennial (New York, 1980). Includes stories by Guy de Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Fritz Leiber, and Clark Ashton Smith.
Reynolds, George W. M., Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf, Dover Publications (New York, 1975). A rambling Gothic “penny dreadful,” first published in 1846, which follows the career of a man who became a werewolf after making a pact with the devil. Also available as a free ebook on Project Gutenberg.
Schweitzer, Darrell and Greenberg, Martin H. (eds.), Full Moon City, Simon & Schuster (New York, 2010). A collection of recent werewolf fiction, mostly in the “contemporary urban fantasy” genre.
Wagner, Karl Edward, “Reflections for the Winter of My Soul” in Death Angel’s Shadow, Coronet Books (Sevenoaks, 1980) and elsewhere. A tense novella in which the inhabitants of a snowbound castle try to survive and identify a werewolf in their midst.
Games
Werewolf: The Apocalypse by White Wolf Publishing. Arguably the definitive treatment of werewolves in tabletop role-playing games. Players take the roles of werewolves from culturally distinct clans to protect Gaia (Earth) from a form of demonic pollution known as the Wyrm.
Are You a Werewolf? By Looney Labs. A social game of bluff and deduction in which one player is a werewolf and the other players must identify them.
The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow by Asmodee. Players assume various roles and hunt for a werewolf in their midst.
Complete Guide to Werewolves by Goodman Games. A detailed sourcebook with game statistics for the d20 System.
Movies
Werewolf of London (1935). The first movie to feature the now-archetypal bipedal man-wolf.
The Wolf Man (1941). Starring Lon Chaney Jr. in his most iconic role, this movie arguably defined the Hollywood werewolf. It was remade in 2010 starring Benicio Del Toro.
The Howling (1981). The first in a long-running movie franchise, which was relaunched in 2011 with The Howling: Reborn.
An American Werewolf in London (1981). This film does a particularly good job of conveying the pain and horror of lycanthropic transformation, as well as the confusion of a newly made werewolf.
The Company of Wolves (1984). A lushly photographed movie with many parallels to the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood.
Ladyhawke (1985). This poignant medieval fable features Rutger Hauer as a soldier kept from the woman he loves by a lycanthropic curse.
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001). A fictionalized treatment of the Gévaudan incident, which concludes that the beast was not a werewolf, but a natural creature fitted with a frightening mask and used to spread terror in a plot to undermine the king of France.
Underworld (2003). This popular movie franchise centers around a war between vampires and werewolves, who are called “lycans.”
Online Sources
Project Gutenberg (www.projectgutenberg.com). An excellent source for free e-texts, including several books mentioned above.
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