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50 THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF
in drinking a dog laps, whereas a wolf sucks, and in biting the wolf gives
a rapid succession of vicious snaps, instead of the firm, retaining hold
which generally characterizes the bite of a healthy dog. The character
of the bark also differs greatly, the honest dog-bark being replaced by a
short snapping, while the wolf voice is chiefly exerted in producing dismal
howls. As regards external appearance … the cruel treacherous expression
of the obliquely-set eyes betrays how different is the wolf-spirit from that
which looks out through the kind true eyes of the faithful dog. 20
Nineteenth-century representations of lycanthropy drew from such
characterizations of the wolf, so that whenever a werewolf was discovered
in its lupine form, it was described in similar terms. G.W.M.
Reynolds’s Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, for example, is variously described
as a ‘ferocious’ or ‘infuriate’ monster, a ‘monstrous’ wolf of ‘appalling
ferocity’ and as ‘the destroyer’. 21 Similarly, the she-wolf in Campbell’s
story ‘has gleaming tusks and a pair of yellow eyes that blazed with
lurid fire’. 22
As all these examples from narratives about lycanthropy demonstrate,
the werewolf, like other monsters, embodied a composite
Otherness which gave expression to anxieties about working-class
degeneracy, aristocratic decadence, racial atavism, women’s corporeality
and sexuality, and the human relationship to the animal world.
The physical defects or stigmata of the werewolf’s human incarnation
suggested the presence of the interior beast, much as bumps on the
skull or facial characteristics were interpreted by phrenologists as
evidence of interior characteristics and tendencies. Indeed, the process
by which such descriptions were drawn was satirized as early as 1855
by Dudley Costello, in his short story ‘Lycanthropy in London; Or, the
Wehr-Wolf of Wilton-Crescent’, in which Miss Adela Cunninghame
relies upon ‘her fatal skill in physiognomy’ to assess the character of
her friend’s new husband, Mr Fitz-Poodle. 23 ‘His sharp nose, his small
eyes, his sandy eyebrows, his large teeth, his wiry hair, and his yellow
whiskers, were severally objects of dislike to Miss Cunninghame’, to
the extent that she says to herself ‘Very like a wolf! … I must observe
his habits.’ 24 Adela’s suspicions that Mr Fitz-Poodle is a werewolf are
subsequently confirmed when she notes that he consumed his food