Under the Werewolf's Skin

Gerald of Wales, a priest and writer active in Britain around 1200 CE, tells a curious tale of “some astonishing things that happened in our times.” He has heard the story of another priest travelling through Ireland with only a boy as his com-panion. They are sitting around a campfire, beneath a tree, when a wolf approaches them. Naturally, they are afraid, but the wolf then speaks to them with a human voice, telling them to have no fear. The wolf even “added sensible words about God” to further reassure him. The priest is, nonetheless, astonished and afraid: he and his young assistant are alone in the woods with a supernatural creature, a wolf that speaks like a man. The wolf then tells the priest his story:

Many werewolf narratives imply that the monstrosity is a curse, but the source of this curse is rarely spelled out in such detail. This cursed werewolf then explains that he and his wife are this cursed pair, and that she, trapped in the shape of a wolf, is dying and needs a priest to attend to her last rites. “The priest follows trembling,” but is hesitant to provide a mass and absolution for a talking wolf. Then, as Gerald tells us, “to cleanse any doubt, his foot performing as a hand, [the male wolf] pulled back the entire skin of the [female] wolf from the head to the navel and folded it back; and the clear form of an old woman appeared […]. He immediately rolled the skin of the wolf back on, and joined it together in its prior form.” The priest then agrees—“compelled more by terror than reason,” though Gerald does not specify the precise cause of this fear—to perform the last rites for her.