Serpents and Werewolves (11 page)

The Accidental Wolf Cub

German folktale

There are many ways to become a werewolf. Being bitten by a wolf. Drinking water from a wolf's footprint. Or wearing a wolfskin belt...

Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted to play with a wolfskin belt.

He could see the wolfskin belt hanging up on the back of the door in his house.

The belt was hairy, grey, old, worn. Not like everything else in the house, which his
mum
kept clean and polished and mended. But his mum never touched the wolfskin belt. Neither did his big sister, nor his granny.

No one but his dad touched the wolfskin belt. Even his dad only touched it as the sun went down and the moon rose, a couple of nights a month. He would unhook it from the nail on the door and, as he wrapped it round his waist, he would smile goodbye to his family, then leave the house before he'd finished buckling the belt.

There was always fresh meat on the table the next day.

The little boy wanted to play with the belt.

He had plenty of other things to play with. Wooden sheep and cows and ducks carved by his father. Tin soldiers from a box his granny gave him. A patchwork cloak made from scraps by his mum, so he could be a brave knight or a travelling minstrel.

But these toys never seemed as much fun as the toys just out of reach. So he wanted to play with that wolfskin belt.

One day, when his mum and big sister
were
in the garden digging carrots, his dad was in the fields and his granny was dozing by the fire, her knitting on her knee, the little boy built a tower.

He built a tower from a chair, a stool and his mum's sewing box, then he climbed to the top and reached up for the belt.

CRASH! The tower collapsed.

His granny said, “What? Humph.” And started to snore again.

He built the tower again. The chair. The stool. The sewing box. He pushed the tower against the door to keep it steady. He climbed to the top, he reached up for the belt and he touched it.

CRASH! The tower collapsed.

His granny said, “Who? Humph.” And started to snore again.

The little boy lay on the floor surrounded by spools of thread and scraps of material, but he had the wolfskin belt in his hands.

He wrapped it round his tummy. He was going to be his dad. He was going to be a big tall man, and do big tall man things.

He
stood up tall and buckled the belt round his tummy.

Suddenly the little boy felt tingly all over. He sneezed and scratched.

Then his feet scrabbled on the newly slippy floor and he fell down.

He tried to stand. But his feet and hands were strange and awkward, so he fell over again.

He shook his head, waggling his ears, and tried to stand again. He got onto his hands and knees. Then he stood up on his legs and tried to walk towards his granny.

But his hind legs couldn't hold his weight. He lost his balance. He tumbled down onto the rag rug on the floor. His toenails got caught in the rug and he got all tangled up, wrapping the rug around himself. He wriggled and scrambled and crawled out on the smooth wooden floor.

Crawling was easier than walking, so he tried that, slipping and sliding, with those nails clicking. At first he tumbled and rolled around the floor. But finally he learnt how to
move
on all fours.

He bounced and jumped and leapt around the floor.

He grinned. This was fun.

Then he noticed the tail. There was a tail! Just out of reach. A long, waggly, furry silver tail. A tail! What a great toy.

He grabbed for the tail with his hands, but his fingers didn't seem to be doing anything useful.

So he grabbed the tail with his teeth.

OUCH! That hurt, and the tail flicked away. Temptingly.

He grabbed for the tail again and it flicked away again. He chased the tail round and round in a circle, until he was dizzy and fell down on the rug again.

But chasing the tail had been fun. And fast. Now he wanted to see how fast he could move on all fours. He started slow at first, then got faster and faster, running and springing under the table and round the chairs, and jumping his full length over the rug.

Now he was controlling all four legs but he kept forgetting that tail.

The tail knocked over the jug of milk cooling on the shelf by the door, and his granny's cup of tea. The house was filled with the splash of milk and the crash of china, and his granny woke up.

“What? Who's there? What's going on?”

His granny sounded worried, so he bounced over to give her a cuddle.

She screamed. “
Wolf!
”

He looked round. Wolf? Where was the wolf? He would protect his granny from the wolf! He snuggled up to his granny's legs. She screamed again and whacked him with her knitting.

His mum and sister ran into the house, and his sister yelled, “Where's my little brother? That wolf has eaten him!”

His granny shouted, “Cut it open! Cut open its belly in case it swallowed him whole. That works in fairy tales!”

“No!” said the mum, “No! I wonder...?
Don't
hurt the cub. We'll try to catch it.” She said to his sister, “Fetch your father, but shut the door on your way out.”

The little boy watched as his mum grabbed a blanket and threw it towards him. A game!

The little boy bounced off, tail waving, paws skidding, racing round the kitchen in a glorious game of chase, howling with laughter as his mum and his granny tried to stop him. They threw shawls and tablecloths over him to try to wrap him and catch him. Between them, they knocked over every chair and jug and bowl and stool and even his box of tin soldiers, all clattering onto the floor.

Finally his mum threw the little boy's own patchwork cloak at his feet. His claws caught in it, and he tripped and tumbled to the floor.

His mum wrapped him in his dressing-up costume and said, “Hush, hush, hush.”

His dad walked in the door and said calmly, “Oh dear.”

His dad took the wolf cub from his mum's arms. He unwrapped the cloak, scratched the cub's furry chin and smiled.
Then
he ran his hand along the wolf's tummy and pulled off the wolfskin belt.

And there in his arms was the little boy, all soft skin and fingers again. The little boy grinned and giggled. “That was fun, Daddy. Can I do it again?”

“No!” said his mum. “Never again!”

“Not yet,” said his dad, “not yet.” Then he whispered in his son's ear, “But you'll make a fine wolf when you grow up...”

How
To Track Down Shape-Shifters

Shape-shifting seems like a wonderful magical power. Have you ever imagined being a bird, or a wolf, or a dragon? Have you ever imagined flying or running on four legs? Shape-shifting does seem fantastic, if you can control it.

But if a change of shape is forced on you, if you've been cursed or enchanted to become a swan or a frog or a snake, it could be terrifying! (As well as very inconvenient.)

Shape-shifting was one of the first kinds of magic I heard about as a child, because there are lots of shape-shifters in Scottish legends and folktales. So I use images and magic from shape-shifting legends in my adventure novels. And I'm always on the lookout for shape-shifters I've never met before.

There are shape-shifting stories in almost every culture, and most shape-shifter stories
are
wonderful: vivid and exciting, with lots of sharp teeth and dark magic. So it's been difficult choosing which stories to include in this book. I've tried to include lots of different kinds of animals, in stories from lots of different parts of the world.

In myth, legend and folklore, it's not just the characters who change shape. The stories themselves can change shape too. I believe that all oral stories, stories told and heard and remembered and told again, change as they pass from teller to audience to teller.

I've altered all these stories as I tell them, to make them work for me and for the audience I'm telling to. And if you tell them, I hope you'll change them a little bit too!

I'm very grateful to the storytellers, collectors and writers (many of whom are listed in the sources below) who inspired me and this collection. I hope you're inspired to track down more shape-shifter stories, or even make up your own. What animal would you like to become, just for a little while?

The Snake Prince

Punjabi folktale

It's quite common for people in folklore and fairy tales to marry snakes accidentally, and this is my favourite version of that widespread story, because I really like the snake becoming a necklace, then becoming a baby. This tale was told to a Major Campbell in the Punjab, then published in Andrew Lang's
The Olive Fairy Book
(Longmans, Green and Co., 1907). The Princess in Lang's version is a bit inclined to weeping and fainting, so she has more backbone in my retelling.

The First Werewolves

Greek myth

This is one of many stories from Greek mythology about shape-shifters. I first came across it in Ovid's
Metamorphoses
(Penguin Classics, 2004; originally published around 8AD), which is a great source for stories of unfortunate people turned into plants and animals when they fall foul of the gods. (Though Lycaon deserved it more than most!) Ovid tells the story about Jove, because it's a Roman version of the older Greek myth. The nasty detail that Lycaon cooked his own son comes from Robert Graves's
Greek Myths
(Penguin, 1955). In many versions, it's this bowl of boy stew which leads to the gods' anger and the great flood, but that's a different story!

Catching Loki

Norse myth

I often tell the story of how Loki tricked Hodur, the god of winter, into killing his brother Baldur, the god of summer (you can find my retelling in
Winter's Tales
, A&C Black, 2013). And sometimes, if the audience want to know what happened next, I tell the story of how Loki was caught by his own cleverness. I found Loki's house with four doors in
Teutonic Myth and Legend
by Donald A Mackenzie (The Gresham Publishing Company, 1912).