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WEREWOLVES AND SCHOLARS
proved conclusively in the following pages.’ 18 Baring-Gould’s study,
however, was founded upon the work of many writers who preceded
him, beginning with those scholars of the 1830s dedicated to the
systematic collation and presentation of the myths and legends of
antiquity, in keeping with Ranke’s exhortation to record ‘the facts’.
Ironically, Scott’s final work, entitled Letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft (1830) was just such a collection, and attracted the criticism
that he had abandoned the poetic fantasies which had previously characterized
his work in favour of the more empirical approach which has
since been associated with Ranke. 19 The early 1830s have been widely
accepted as the moment at which romantic faith in the authenticity
of the poetic imagination was giving way to renewed confidence in
empiricism, rationality, objectivity and science, so it is significant
that Ranke’s argument with Scott and questions about Scott’s own
consistency should emerge at this moment. Rather than interpreting
such dialogue as a sign that one paradigm was being abandoned for
another, however, it may be more useful to understand this tension
as arising from the coexistence of rationalist and romantic values in
modern Western thought. Recent studies of the nineteenth century
carried out by social, cultural and feminist historians have supported
such an interpretation to the extent that they argue against characterizations
of the nineteenth century as an age of unproblematic
scientism and rationality, and point instead to the popular cultural and
counter-cultural productions and activities which thrived throughout
the period. 20 Such trends as the vogue for the romance novel, or the
spiritualist craze, had origins in the romantic period.
The commingling of rationalist and romantic paradigms can be
observed in an anonymously written werewolf story of 1833, published
in a short-lived journal entitled The Story-Teller, or Journal of Fiction.
‘The Wehr-Wolf’ begins in the tone of Bordelon’s narrative, satirizing
the pretensions of Doctor Antoine du Pilon of the town of St Yrieux
in France. St Yrieux is disturbed by reports of werewolves in the surrounding
forest, and du Pilon, the town chirurgeon and ‘a profound
adept in those arts, for the learning of which some men toil their whole
lives away, and are none the wiser; such as alchemy, converse with
17