Dances with wolves: The Ireland of old

I TOOK the dog for a walk through an old deciduous wood the other day. I watched him chase squirrels and sniff the traces of badgers while trying to imagine what the walk would have been like back in the days when this sort of forest covered most of Ireland.

The forest would obviously have been much more dangerous and frightening: apart from the threat posed by outlaws, robbers and wood kerns, there would’ve been wild animals — the dog might easily have disturbed an angry wild boar from its lair in the briars and there would also have been wolves and bears.

I also remembered another danger, one I’ve only recently discovered in the course of some research: apparently in times past there were werewolves in Ireland.

The werewolves were recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, the tireless Welsh journalist who visited our country during the Norman invasion; he says the sighting occurred shortly before he set foot here – Cambrensis arrived in 1185 but there are details in the story that suggest it’s much older.

I think the story goes back in oral tradition to the early years of Christianity in Ireland, where a few medieval details were added on for the benefit of Giraldus; it mentions an Abbot Natalis and, when I Googled him, I found out he was St Natalis of Ulster, a student of St Columba, and he lived in the sixth century.

It’s a long story, too long for this page, but the gist of it is that a priest accompanied by a young novice was travelling on foot from the Kingdom of Ulster to the Kingdom of Meath on important church business; it was a long and dangerous journey.

One night the pair camped at the edge of a huge wood in the ecclesiastical See of Ossory and lit a small fire.

The novice fell asleep and the priest was reading his religious books when he was disturbed by a strange, gruff voice calling him from the trees.

The priest naturally assumed the voice was the devil’s and was cautious about responding, but eventually became more confident and coaxed its owner into the firelight where both he and the novice, who was now awake, were astonished to find it belonged to an elderly werewolf.

The werewolf wanted the priest to come and administer the last rites to his wife, also a werewolf, who was dying from an arrow wound after they’d been pursued by hunters. Despite the fact the werewolf was pious, the priest took a lot of convincing; the last rites were only for Christian humans.

Eventually the priest allowed the werewolf to guide him to the dying female wolf and, after a number of tests, he heard her last confession and gave her absolution.

The priest was told the werewolves were members of the Clan Allta which had been cursed by the Abbot Natalis for some sin not mentioned in the story — two clan members had to spend seven years as werewolves, after which they regained human form and were replaced by two others; the elderly werewolf and his wife were the current incumbents and were very religious.

In the end, the surviving werewolf guided the priest and novice out of the forest but before they parted, the priest asked how long the new invader would be in Ireland; the werewolf said he didn’t know but he could find out from supernatural sources and tell the priest if he cared to call by on his return journey. However, the priest could find no trace of the werewolf on his way back to Ulster.

This reference to the Norman invasion is the bit I think was grafted onto the story to tease Giraldus Cambrensis.

[e-mail]