Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

By George W. M. Reynolds

PART I






PROLOGUE.


It was the month of January, 1516.

The night was dark and tempestuous; the thunder growled around; the

lightning flashed at short intervals: and the wind swept furiously along
in sudden and fitful gusts.


melody no more, but rushed on with deafening din, mingling their torrent
The streams of the great Black Forest of Germany babbled in playful

the howling of the affrighted wolves, and the hollow voices of the
roar with the wild creaking of the huge oaks, the rustling of the firs,
storm.


the vivid lightning gleamed forth with rapid and eccentric glare, it
The dense black clouds were driving restlessly athwart the sky; and when
seemed as if the dark jaws of some hideous monster, floating high above,

they raised strange echoes--as if the impervious mazes of that mighty
opened to vomit flame.

And as the abrupt but furious gusts of wind swept through the forest,
wood were the abode of hideous fiends and evil spirits, who responded in

An old--old man sat in his cottage on the verge of the Black Forest.
shrieks, moans, and lamentations to the fearful din of the tempest.

It was, indeed, an appalling night!


He had numbered ninety years; his head was completely bald--his mouth

last voyage, from which no traveler returns.
was toothless--his long beard was white as snow, and his limbs were
feeble and trembling.

He was alone in the world; his wife, his children, his grandchildren,
all his relations, in fine, _save one_, had preceded him on that long,


discover him seated thus lonely in his poor cottage.
And that _one_ was a grand-daughter, a beauteous girl of sixteen, who
had hitherto been his solace and his comfort, but who had suddenly
disappeared--he knew not how--a few days previously to the time when we

But perhaps she also was dead! An accident might have snatched her away

more--for he had sought her throughout the neighboring district of the
from him, and sent her spirit to join those of her father and mother,
her sisters and her brothers, whom a terrible pestilence--_the Black
Death_--hurried to the tomb a few years before.

No: the old man could not believe that his darling granddaughter was no
Black Forest, and not a trace of her was to be seen. Had she fallen down

that the only being left to solace him on earth, had deserted him; and
a precipice, or perished by the ruthless murderer's hand, he would have
discovered her mangled corpse: had she become the prey of the ravenous
wolves, certain signs of her fate would have doubtless somewhere
appeared.

The sad--the chilling conviction therefore, went to the old man's heart,
his spirit was bowed down in despair.

Who now would prepare his food, while he tended his little flock? who

follow some youthful lover, who will buoy thee up with bright hopes, and
was there to collect the dry branches in the forest, for the winter's
fuel, while the aged shepherd watched a few sheep that he possessed? who
would now spin him warm clothing to protect his weak and trembling
limbs?

"Oh! Agnes," he murmured, in a tone indicative of a breaking heart, "why
couldst thou have thus abandoned me? Didst thou quit the old man to
then deceive thee? O Agnes--my darling! hast thou left me to perish
without a soul to close my eyes?"


and intelligent, but fearful now to meet, so wild and wandering were
It was painful how that ancient shepherd wept.

Suddenly a loud knock at the door of the cottage aroused him from his
painful reverie; and he hastened, as fast as his trembling limbs would
permit him, to answer the summons.

He opened the door; and a tall man, apparently about forty years of age,
entered the humble dwelling. His light hair would have been magnificent
indeed, were it not sorely neglected; his blue eyes were naturally fine
their glances: his form was tall and admirably symmetrical, but

Suddenly the thunder which had hitherto growled at a distance, burst
prematurely bowed by the weight of sorrow, and his attire was of costly
material, but indicative of inattention even more than it was
travel-soiled.

The old man closed the door, and courteously drew a stool near the fire
for the stranger who had sought in his cottage a refuge against the fury
of the storm.

He also placed food before him; but the stranger touched it not--horror
and dismay appearing to have taken possession of his soul.

above the humble abode; and the wind swept by with so violent a gust,

The roar of the thunder past--the shrieking, whistling, gushing wind
that it shook the little tenement to its foundation, and filled the
neighboring forest with strange, unearthly noises.

Then the countenance of the stranger expressed such ineffable horror,
amounting to a fearful agony, that the old man was alarmed, and
stretched out his hand to grasp a crucifix that hung over the
chimney-piece; but his mysterious guest made a forbidding sign of so
much earnestness mingled with such proud authority, that the aged
shepherd sank back into his seat without touching the sacred symbol.


The stranger listened abstractedly at first; but afterward he appeared
became temporarily lulled into low moans and subdued lamentations, amid
the mazes of the Black Forest; and the stranger grew more composed.

"Dost thou tremble at the storm?" inquired the old man.

"I am unhappy," was the evasive and somewhat impatient reply. "Seek not
to know more of me--beware how you question me. But you, old man, are
_not_ happy! The traces of care seem to mingle with the wrinkles of age
upon your brow!"

The shepherd narrated, in brief and touching terms, the unaccountable
disappearance of his much-beloved granddaughter Agnes.


breathed his last, the wolves from the forest would have entered and
to reflect profoundly for several minutes.

"Your lot is wretched, old man," said he at length: "if you live a few
years longer, that period must be passed in solitude and
cheerlessness:--if you suddenly fall ill you must die the lingering
death of famine, without a soul to place a morsel of food, or the
cooling cup to your lips; and when you shall be no more, who will follow
you to the grave? There are no habitations nigh; the nearest village is
half-a-day's journey distant; and ere the peasants of that hamlet, or
some passing traveler, might discover that the inmate of this hut had

the eyes and a ghastly change of the countenance--signs of a profoundly
mangled your corpse."

"Talk not thus!" cried the old man, with a visible shudder; then darting
a half-terrified, half-curious glance at his guest, he said, "but who
are you that speak in this awful strain--this warning voice?"

Again the thunder rolled, with crashing sound, above the cottage; and
once more the wind swept by, laden, as it seemed, with the shrieks and
groans of human beings in the agonies of death.

The stranger maintained a certain degree of composure only by means of a
desperate effort, but he could not altogether subdue a wild flashing of
felt terror.


all human beings--belongs the means of giving thee new life--of
"Again I say, ask me not who I am!" he exclaimed, when the thunder and
the gust had passed. "My soul recoils from the bare idea of pronouncing
my own accursed name! But--unhappy as you see me--crushed, overwhelmed
with deep affliction as you behold me--anxious, but unable to repent for
the past as I am, and filled with appalling dread for the future as I
now proclaim myself to be, still is my power far, far beyond that limit
which hems mortal energies within so small a sphere. Speak, old
man--wouldst thou change thy condition? For to me--and to me alone of
bestowing upon thee the vigor of youth, of rendering that stooping form

proportion as a rapid glance at his helpless, wretched, deserted
upright and strong, of restoring fire to those glazing eyes, and beauty
to that wrinkled, sunken, withered countenance--of endowing thee, in a
word, with a fresh tenure of existence and making that existence sweet
by the aid of treasures so vast that no extravagance can dissipate
them!"

A strong though indefinite dread assailed the old man as this astounding
proffer was rapidly opened, in all its alluring details, to his
mind;--and various images of terror presented themselves to his
imagination;--but these feelings were almost immediately dominated by a
wild and ardent hope, which became the more attractive and exciting in
condition led him to survey the contrast between what he then was, and

tone. "The first is, that you become the companion of my wanderings for
what, if the stranger spoke truly, he might so soon become.

The stranger saw that he had made the desired impression; and he
continued thus:

"Give but your assent, old man, and not only will I render thee young,
handsome, and wealthy; but I will endow thy mind with an intelligence to
match that proud position. Thou shalt go forth into the world to enjoy
all those pleasures, those delights, and those luxuries, the names of
which are even now scarcely known to thee!"

"And what is the price of this glorious boon?" asked the old man,
trembling with mingled joy and terror through every limb.

"There are two conditions," answered the stranger, in a low, mysterious
one year and a half from the present time, until the hour of sunset, on

world I alone am so deeply, so terribly accurst!" was the ominously
the 30th of July, 1517, when we must part forever, you to go
whithersoever your inclinations may guide you, and I---- But of _that_,
no matter!" he added, hastily, with a sudden motion as if of deep mental
agony, and with wildly flashing eyes.

The old man shrank back in dismay from his mysterious guest: the thunder
rolled again, the rude gust swept fiercely by, the dark forest rustled
awfully, and the stranger's torturing feelings were evidently prolonged
by the voices of the storm.

A pause ensued; and the silence was at length broken by the old man, who
said, in a hollow and tremulous tone, "To the first condition I would
willingly accede. But the second?"

"That you prey upon the human race, whom I hate; because of all the
fearful yet only dimly significant reply.


must invoke to effect the promised change in thee, and by whose aid you
The old man shook his head, scarcely comprehending the words of his
guest, and yet daring not to ask to be more enlightened.

"Listen!" said the stranger, in a hasty but impressive voice: "I require
a companion, one who has no human ties, and who still ministers to my
caprices,--who will devote himself wholly and solely to watch me in my
dark hours, and endeavor to recall me back to enjoyment and pleasure,
who, when he shall be acquainted with my power, will devise new means in
which to exercise it, for the purpose of conjuring up those scenes of
enchantment and delight that may for a season win me away from thought.
Such a companion do I need for a period of one year and a half; and you
are, of all men, the best suited to my design. But the Spirit whom I
can be given back to youth and comeliness, will demand some fearful

particular seasons certain doomed men throw off the human shape and take
sacrifice at your hands. And the nature of that sacrifice--the nature of
the condition to be imposed--I can well divine!"

"Name the sacrifice--name the condition!" cried the old man, eagerly. "I
am so miserable--so spirit-broken--so totally without hope in this
world, that I greedily long to enter upon that new existence which you
promised me! Say, then, what is the condition?"

"That you prey upon the human race, whom _he_ hates as well as I,"
answered the stranger.

"Again these awful words!" ejaculated the old man, casting trembling
glances around him.

"Yes--again those words," echoed the mysterious guest, looking with his
fierce burning eyes into the glazed orbs of the aged shepherd. "And now
learn their import!" he continued, in a solemn tone. "Knowest thou not
that there is a belief in many parts of our native land that at
that of ravenous wolves?"


which---- But hesitate not," added the stranger, hastily: "I have no
"Oh, yes--yes--I have indeed heard of those strange legends in which the
Wehr-Wolf is represented in such appalling colors!" exclaimed the old
man, a terrible suspicion crossing his mind.

"'Tis said that at sunset on the last day of every month the mortal, to
whom belongs the destiny of the Wehr-Wolf, must exchange his natural
form for that of the savage animal; in which horrible shape he must
remain until the moment when the morrow's sun dawns upon the earth."

"The legend that told thee this spoke truly," said the stranger. "And
now dost thou comprehend the condition which must be imposed upon thee?"

"I do--I do!" murmured the old man with a fearful shudder. "But he who
accepts that condition makes a compact with the evil one, and thereby
endangers his immortal soul!"

"Not so," was the reply. "There is naught involved in this condition
time to waste in bandying words. Consider all I offer you: in another

allowing his now uncurbed fancy to change the one single room of the
hour you shall be another man!"

"I accept the boon--and on the conditions stipulated!" exclaimed the
shepherd.

"'Tis well, Wagner----"

"What! you know my name!" cried the old man. "And yet, meseems, I did
not mention it to thee."

"Canst thou not already perceive that I am no common mortal?" demanded
the stranger, bitterly. "And who I am, and whence I derive my power, all
shall be revealed to thee so soon as the bond is formed that must link
us for eighteen months together! In the meantime, await me here!"

And the mysterious stranger quitted the cottage abruptly, and plunged
into the depths of the Black Forest.

One hour elapsed ere he returned--one mortal hour, during which Wagner
sat bowed over his miserably scanty fire, dreaming of pleasure, youth,
riches, and enjoyment; converting, in imagination, the myriad sparks
which shone upon the extinguishing embers into piles of gold, and

He immediately fell back upon the seat, in a state of complete lethargy.
wretched hovel into a splendid saloon, surrounded by resplendent mirrors
and costly hangings, while the untasted fare for the stranger on the
rude fir-table, became transformed, in his idea, into a magnificent
banquet laid out, on a board glittering with plate, lustrous with
innumerable lamps, and surrounded by an atmosphere fragrant with the
most exquisite perfumes.

The return of the stranger awoke the old man from his charming dream,
during which he had never once thought of the conditions whereby he was
to purchase the complete realization of the vision.

"Oh! what a glorious reverie you have dissipated!" exclaimed Wagner.
"Fulfill but one tenth part of that delightful dream----"

"I will fulfill it all!" interrupted the stranger: then, producing a
small vial from the bosom of his doublet, he said, "Drink!"

The old man seized the bottle, and speedily drained it to the dregs.


But it lasted not for many minutes; and when he awoke again, he

thou hast conferred upon me!"
experienced new and extraordinary sensations. His limbs were vigorous,
his form was upright as an arrow; his eyes, for many years dim and
failing, seemed gifted with the sight of an eagle, his head was warm
with a natural covering; not a wrinkle remained upon his brow nor on his
cheeks; and, as he smiled with mingled wonderment and delight, the
parting lips revealed a set of brilliant teeth. And it seemed, too, as
if by one magic touch the long fading tree of his intellect had suddenly
burst into full foliage, and every cell of his brain was instantaneously
stored with an amount of knowledge, the accumulation of which stunned
him for an instant, and in the next appeared as familiar to him as if he
had never been without it.

"Oh! great and powerful being, whomsoever thou art," exclaimed Wagner,
in the full, melodious voice of a young man of twenty-one, "how can I
manifest to thee my deep, my boundless gratitude for this boon which

"By thinking no more of thy lost grand-child Agnes, but by preparing to

beckoned him imperiously away from the humble cottage.
follow me whither I shall now lead thee," replied the stranger.

"Command me: I am ready to obey in all things," cried Wagner. "But one
word ere we set forth--who art thou, wondrous man?"

"Henceforth I have no secrets from thee, Wagner," was the answer, while
the stranger's eyes gleamed with unearthly luster; then, bending
forward, he whispered a few words in the other's ear.

Wagner started with a cold and fearful shudder as if at some appalling

announcement; but he uttered not a word of reply--for his master
beckoned him imperiously away from the humble cottage.