The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-17

| to d 1flend, Dut II ndu luTIeu lD Huilifi
 hand and bore a wedding ring which tie 1 friend recognized as that of his wife 1 When he reached home he found his wife sitting by tile fire with one hand con cealed under her apron Seizing her bS l the arm he saw bloody stump fresl l from the wound She was werewolf and his friend had shot her when sht
 was in the lupine form.
 l Tn Bulgaria the sign of the werewolf was the meeting of the eyebrows as if the soul were to take flight to enter some other body. But in that country the le- gends of the loupgarou are interningled with those of the vampire. These vam- pires were addicted to the habit of dis nterring and feeding upon dead bodies. They were supposed to eminate from evil living persons or corpses whose manes would not rest. The vampire could he seen in tlre shape of a frasfl wisp floating in the air and if from lfy- ing person it could be allayed by catch ing and crushing it in the hand, but if from d corpse the only remedy was to stake down, behead or burn the cadaver. To identify the body of a vampire it vas necessary to cut the corpse, which would bleed, sl1riek and sometimes even move.
 Taylor In his Prfm. Cult says: The Budas of. Abyssinia are at once the smiths and potters sorcerers and were wolves of their dtstricts.p
 The Berserkers were q mider type of
 oup-garous, though they were feroeioas enough. Tacitus first speaks of them among the German warriors as half naked; they entered the battle dancing with frenzy, frothing at the mouth. chewing the edge of their shields and gnawing the haft of their spears. They gave utterance to q wild cry or incanta- ton. which was the first national war songs- They derived their name from being bare of any armor, which they de- spised. and entered the battle bare of clothing, save a sarS, which was a single shift or shirt.
 But. it was not werewolyes that I was after. I wanted to hunt the real lupus and my desire was gratifed in a most singular manner.
 While in Copenhagen, one of the most charming cities of Europe met a gen tleman who was a judge advocate of the Danish army. He was quite a linguist and scholar and in his voluminous ,i- brary I spent many a happy hour. Here I saw my first copy of Saxo-Gram mmati- GUS, containing. the original story of Hamlet and here I read in French the only copy of Gautier's Salarnbo l ever ran across, a romance so entrancing and so insiduously seductive that only rhe pth oi tOdil nave idSlioiitu It.
 When I told my friend of my desire he laughed and lllened me with the wolves of Norway as the snglishman who upon his first visit to America expected to encounter buffalos upon Broadway. The wolves, he told me, had been driven by the singing wires of the telegraph lines to the tall timber of the country and were difficult of access unless driven by hunger to seek the haunts of man. Then ba fold mo Of n little called Gjora, in the fastnesses of Nor way, constructed and maintained to guard a crew of woodchoppers and their families from the sorties of the wolves. He knew the captain in charge and would give me a letter of introduction. could have almost kissed his hand with grati. tude, and after spending day in pur- chasing an outfit and ammunition in Co., penhagen I was off witlihthat precious letter.
 It was long trip and an arduous jour ney, for it was early spring and the sea son was severe. While the fjords were not frozen over. 1t was too early for the rush of visitors and the boats were not in commissions This circumstance com pelled me to resort to skyding and the row boats,s but enjeyed it immensely. The livery stations for travellers in Nor way are divided into two classes, fixed" and '"slow' At the former a fixed number of horses are kept always in readiness but as I was in advance of the season few of them were open At the slow stations -the traveller is ac- commodated by sending notice of. his re- quirements ahead which notice must always precede his arrival by at least three hours and even then delays are seemingly interminable. The horses are placed in line of stalls and the first conner gets the animal nearest the stable door; there is no choosing of your nag. At every station one reads the injunction "be good to the horse.
 The vehicle supplied me was known as a stolkjoerre, a light cart drawn by a single horse and supplied with two seats arranged tandem, one for me and one for the driver. My driver was girl and a very pretty one at that but much romance is lost when one learns that the Norwegian for pretty girl is smuke pigs. It was quite problem for me to decide which seat I would occupy in the vehicle; if I sat forward smuke pige was behind me and holding the lines with her arms over my shoulders while if I occupied the rear seat my arms were over her shoulders; so I finally compromised by frequently exchanging seats. However, in neither position could see Ingeby- I myself by admiring her glorious wealth of wavy f1axen tresses. Ingebyorg was the favorite name of the princesses in viking days and is still borne by a great number of the women of Scandinavia My attentions to smuke pige were con fined to glances for she could not speak English and I was stranger to her tongue.
 In the valleys, where the snow was vet quite deep. I encountered many sleds, considerable number of which were drawn by dogs. l was extremely anxious to see if these canines were ever really provided with snow shoes. Some years ago I crossed the Andes on muleback and when high above the clouds, compan- toned only by the condors, whose thun- dering rush of wind caused me to invu- riably dodge my head at the birds ap- proach, I encountered number of stone huts. some six by six feet square and several miles apart I told that they were the night refugees for the mail car riers who crossed the Andes in the winter time. As fuel was unattainable these postmen took dogs along, among which they slept at night in the huts to keep from freezing, and my informant also told me that often the dogs were supplied with snqw shoes to enable them to keep pace with the men: but saw no cannes so equipped in Norway.
 Ingebyorg was also an excellent rower and when we discarded the stolkjoerrc for the boat she took place beside the men and handled the oar with equal dexterity.
 After four days travel reached Gtora and a desolate spot 1t was The snow was two feet deep and the circular fort constructed of logs was in the midst of