Death of a werewolf. 1893.

I couldn’t resist this article from 1893 for a few reasons. How could I not love a story about a werewolf for a start! I loved the details in this tale from 1558, it seems to be the re-telling of an old fairy story.

Camperdown Chronicle 17 Aug 1893 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19365982

The story is a re-telling of a tale from 1558 about a woman who was burned at the stake after being charged with werewolfery (yeah, I made that word up but you know what I mean…).

Apparently a gentleman, who was visiting her husband’s château in Auvergne, went out to hunt early one morning, the man of the house telling him “Mind you bring me what you take.”

Clearly the hunt was none too successful as the guest returned at night fall, ‘weary and footsore’.

I think he was lucky it was only his feet that were sore! He reported that the only creature he saw was a large wolf, which attacked him.

His story ended only with him only just managing to escape with his life after severing one of the creatures front paws.

After telling the master of the house the tale of his desperate struggle he opened the bag containing the paw and, amazingly, it had changed into a womans bejewelled hand.

The master of the house recognized one of the jewels as belonging to his wife. She was quickly tracked down to the kitchen and was found to be minus one hand. Off she went to trial and was unsurprisingly found guilty and quickly executed.

Now, you know I love a Fortean tale but this one…. all I could think of as I was reading was the poor wife and what on earth had gone on in Auvergne that day for her to lose her hand and be conveniently accused of this supernatural crime?

The most surprising thing about this article is the last paragraph. “It is a pity that history does not tell us what became of this pair of scheming villains. Their crime does not seem to have been brought home to them judicially, so they probably escaped the fate they richly deserved.” Even in 1893, when some strange things were still believed, people could see right through a story like that.

I wonder what the wife’s real crime was? Not inheriting enough money? Not producing the right amount of sons?  I wonder if the master of the house had another wife already lined up? If so, I wonder what dreadful fate was in store for her if she didn’t live up to expectations?

The Wuuluman Monster. 1910.

What a terrifying tale! A rabbit trapper was out doing his rounds in 1910 when his dogs alerted him to the presence of a frightening monster.

The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate 1 Jun 1910 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article86005265

The description of this creature is pretty amazing isn’t it?

“Looking round he was rooted to the spot with horror to find a strange-looking animal gazing at him. It is described as being something in the shape of a man, with long shaggy hair; tusks, resembling those of an old boar pig, projecting: about four inches from the mouth. On his hands and foot were long horny spikes, resembling a goat’s horns and a long smooth tail.”

Eeeek!

I think these kinds of tales are mainly a cover-up for a person being frightened by something quite harmless and, either consciously or unconsciously, needing to have a suitably scary story to make their fear seem justified. Conveniently, there is no way of verifying such a tale!

Usually these kinds of stories have a “and we ran inside and slammed the door” kind of ending. This one is slightly different in that the monster caught and devoured one of the trapper’s dogs during the chase. I find that to be a very interesting part of the story.

Unless this drama was entirely fabricated for the paper, what was the real fate of the dog? For the trapper to appear at Mr. Crawley’s farmhouse in terror, and minus one dog, would certainly take some explaining, although I am not sure the story of a shaggy haired, spiky handed, horned, long tailed monster is one you want to have to keep straight for any length of time!

Not so wonderful for the goat. 1907.

I wonder who wrote the title for this article. “A Wonderful Story”. It isn’t an entirely wonderful story, is it?

Geraldton Guardian 22 Feb 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66221175

A miner, Joe Bourke, of Landlock Bay, Alaska, had noticed some of his blasting powder had gone missing, and started a search. As he was doing so he noticed a few sticks of dynamite lying on the path ahead.

Just as he started towards them a goat came out of the bushes and ate it all up.

Joe shouted at the goat and gave chase, so naturally, the goat started running.

Unfortunately for the goat he had supposedly also swallowed a blasting cap. This caused the dynamite to do its job perfectly, and the goat disappeared in what I can only imagine would have been a red mist….

The ‘wonderful’ part of the story is that the goat had conveniently exploded right at the point where a valuable vein of cuprum (copper) ore was. The blast caused a seven-foot deep hole to appear and revealed it to the world.

The only one it was lucky for was the miner. He landed in a snow bank 40ft away and was unhurt, but obviously considerably richer.

I am not sure I would want to do much mining there though until there had been a good hard rain, you know, to wash away all the bits of goat… ick……

Bluestone frog. 1906.

I have done articles before about frogs being found embedded in stones but I am still going to post this one as I never tire of them.

Singleton Argus 14 Aug 1906 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79595778

Sometimes it seems fairly clear how the frog managed to get into the position it is found in like these posts I have done in the past, a protoplasmic sandstone frog, and this frog who was cruelly sealed up in the cornerstone of a West Texas court house and released, still alive 31 years later.

This frog found inside a block of bluestone is an interesting one and one of those that doesn’t have enough details for us to make up our own minds as to whether the frog actually spent any length of time in the stone or just found its way in there last night.

We don’t hear about these kinds of things in the news anymore do we? I wonder if it means that the well of Frog in a Rock has dried up recently or if people are a little more likely to notice things like convenient cracks in those frog bearing rocks.

Perhaps it is because much of our digging is done by heavy machinery these days. Quarries throughout the world contain poor frogs that have spent eons awaiting rescue. Only seconds after they emerge, blinking in the light, a large tyre squishes them… 😉

Strange things falling from the sky. 1930.

Stories of strange things falling from the sky never fail to amuse me and when I found this one I just had to share it.

The Queenslander 31 Jul 1930 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23126302

Not just boring old frogs and fish here, among other things this article tells us about the live 2ft long alligator falling from the sky in Charleston in 1844. Nice try, but a single alligator does not a shower make.

Frankly, unless I saw the thing falling from a great height with my own eyes I will continue to believe that it appeared immediately after a strange rain event and the people assumed that it fell from the sky.

Can you imagine how angry an alligator would be after a fall like that? I bet that anyone coming across it would be unlikely to live to tell the tale!

I have done posts before about strange things falling from the sky, I loved this one that included poisonous insects (ouch!) and a butter-like substance that, when applied to the skin, effected astonishing cures. What the?! (In that post I said that such a thing would never be smeared upon any part of my body unless that body part had already been amputated…..)

Usually these strange showers are attributed to whirlwinds sucking up the tiny victims (frogs, fish etc) and then dropping them in an unlikely location, seemingly for our amusement.

(In this article from 1911 a poor schoolgirl was sucked up but didn’t travel very far before she fell to her death.)

I understand that the whirlwind theory is a logical one, but it doesn’t explain everything does it? You would think that reports of a shower of frogs would be followed by reports of a pond being suddenly and mysteriously emptied in a nearby part of the country wouldn’t you? After all, the frogs don’t just hang around on the surface waiting to be sucked up, do they? Surely the falling pond frogs should be accompanied by weeds, old boots and lost fishing rods? 😉

The Leprechaun. 1908.

We have all heard of Leprechauns haven’t we. Tiny and elaborately dressed beings just hanging around with a pot of gold waiting for us to ask them for a share.

West Gippsland Gazette 10 Nov 1908 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article68683945

I have always had a problem with this. Why on earth would they want to share their gold with me? Fairy gold should be guarded by dragons (insert mental picture of Smaug curled over a huge pile of dwarf gold here) not just there for the asking!

This article from County Westmeath in August 1908 tells the story of a strange person who had been seen in the district for some time, mostly by children, and who was assumed to be a leprechaun.

For two months there had been sightings of this mythological being until he was apprehended by two policemen.

That is a surprise because usually these stories end with “and we never saw him again”.

The policemen took this unusual person to the workhouse in Mullingar where he was looked upon with awe and interest by the other inmates.

The workhouse sounds more like a prison-house doesn’t it, with ‘inmates’ and the fact that he was locked up inside and the crowds clamouring for a sighting were locked outside.

This strange person didn’t appear to have much in the way of gold with him, nor was he able to communicate properly either. What was it, I wonder, that made them suggest he was one of the fairy folk? That he was small?

Was he wearing the expected leprechaun garb? I always thought of leprechauns as quite articulate beings too, always ready with a rhyme, or maybe I just read too many fairy tales.

The article also says he was wearing workhouse clothes so I have to wonder what happened to what he was wearing when he was found.

What it seems these policemen found is a person, likely dressed in rags, small of stature and inarticulate, not looking like a leprechaun or guarding a pot of gold. Hmmm… how long was it do you think before they gave up trying to find his pot of gold and just let him ‘escape’?