- Paperback : 248 pages
- ISBN-13 : 979-8573801582
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.56 x 8 inches
- Publisher : Notoir Books (November 29, 2020)
- Item Weight : 11.8 ounces
- Language: : English
“A VICTORIAN CLASSIC”
With the shocking histories of 10 famous cases, this Classic blends science, superstition, and fiction to tell the full story of the Werewolves among us. The first serious academic study of lycanthropy and “blood-lust”, this book draws upon a vast body of observation, myth, and lore.
Written in the 1860’s this book still ranks as a classic of European lore on lycanthropy – or shapeshifting – pertaining to Werewolves. This Victorian study is worth its weight in gold just for the two chapters on Scandinavian wolf lore, and the idea that the Viking berserkers were werewolves.
Besides that, there is plenty of folklore on Werewolves in eastern Europe, France, and various other places in Europe. Also historical documentation of medieval cannibalism and serial killers like Gilles de Rais – who were alleged to be werewolves – is recounted, as well as the writer’s own encounters with local werewolf legends that had people in fear to go in the woods alone in various locales in France that he visited.
In Victorian times the Referend Sabine Baring-Gould was somewhat of an eccentric, and this is probably the most famous of his many nonfiction books. While many of his other works cover esoteric topics of local folklore and Church history, it is no surprise that this one on were-wolves still attracts modern readers. It is one of the first and still one of the best books on the topic, and is such a standard reference that many later books on werewolves and lycanthropy owe a great deal to his work.