The werewolf people

At one time those who lived in the area of present-day Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were known as “the werewolf people”, by neighbours and invaders. This had partly to do with pre-Christian legends about a woman who transformed into a she-wolf, a naiselibahunt, a story thought to be of Baltic-Finnic origin.

Certain times of the year were known as the werewolf times, in southern Estonia and northern Latvia, and in Livonia of former times. Particularly at the equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices. This was widely believed during the witch hunts and werewolf trials that took place throughout northern and central Europe, and in the Baltic region during the 16^th and 17^th centuries.  

“Werewolf trials reached Livonia in the 17^th century, and would become the most common form of witch-trial in that country,” says Wikipedia.

In 1651 a man called Hans, aged 18, appeared before the court in Idavere, in northeastern Estonia, on a charge of being a werewolf. He admitted he had hunted as a werewolf for two years, and that he learned how to transform into a man-wolf from a “man in black”. The court found that Hans had undergone a magical transformation, mediated by the devil, and delivered a verdict of guilty of witchcraft, and sentenced him to death.

Between 1527 and 1725, Livonian authorities accused 18 women and 13 men of having “caused harm as werewolves”. The usual confession was that a person or devil had provided them with a wolf skin for use in a ritual, or they had eaten certain foods that enabled the transformation.

In 1636 a woman from the village of Kurna in northern Estonia “claimed to have been taken into the woods by an old woman and given berries to eat, and then begun to hunt with the woman in the woods as wolves” (Wikipedia).

According to Marju Kõivupuu, in Estonian Mythology for the Beginner (2023), rituals to become a werewolf for women included wearing a wolf skin, reciting spells, and walking three times around an enchanted werewolf stone. Some stones are still known, one in Tulga marsh in Viljandi county, in southwestern Estonia, and another in Latvian Courland, formerly part of Livonia.

In other folklore, the seventh, or the ninth, or the 12^th son of a family became a werewolf. Such an animal was smaller than a real wolf, and here’s a clue to the origin of the werewolf stories.

The wolverine or “glutton” is an aggressive carnivore formerly distributed throughout northern and arctic Eurasia and North America. In Estonian, the word for the largest of the mustelids, or of the weasel, mink, otter and badger family is ahm (glutton) or kaljukass (cliff cat).

Wolverines (little wolves) are the size of a medium dog, weighing up to 20kg, and they can down and eat animals many times their size, hence also the scientific classification Gulo gulo, from Latin, meaning gluttony.

At their largest areal extent, wolverines lived in the Canadian and Alaskan arctic, across northern Siberia and westwards into Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Unlike wolves, to which they are not related, wolverines lead solitary lives. They are said to eat their prey from the tail towards the head. In folk belief, this is uncanny behaviour.

So, it is plausible that Finnic peoples regarded the wolverine as a human transformed into a wolf, either willingly or by some other agency.

Werewolf myths are common throughout Finnic, as well as Slavic and Germanic peoples, and Estonian folklore has taken in stories from those traditions. One such tells of a witch invited to a wedding feast where she feels slighted, and out of spite turns all the wedding guests into werewolves.

The purpose of a werewolf in Estonian tradition, however, is unclear. All that can be said on reading Kõivupuu is that the libahunt or soend was or is a supernatural animal to be feared, and for those who think they are werewolves, you may be glad you’re not living in the 1600s.