The Werewolf's Daughter

This folktale comes from Slovakia. It’s a quite popular werewolf tale that can be found in Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Werewolves under the title “Daughter of the Vlkodlak”. In her work, Baring-Gould cites T. T. Hanush’s Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Mythologie, vol. 3 as her source. Like many such old folk tales, this one could be told omitting the werewolf element and it wouldn’t lose much of its meaning, but nevertheless here it is!

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    There once was a man who had nine daughters, all of them ready to be wed, but the most beautiful of them all was the youngest. The father was a werewolf and one day he thought to himself: "What benefit is there from keeping so many girls?"

    Hence, he decided to get rid of all of them. Before leaving for the forest to gather firewood, he ordered that one of his daughters bring him dinner. The eldest one was the one to do it.

    "Why have you brought me my meal so fast?" asked the lumberjack.

    "To tell the truth, father, I wanted to feed you for fear that you would be angry with us were you to be left hungry!"

    "What a good girl you are! Sit down, while I eat."

    While he was eating, a certain idea came to his mind. He rose and said: "Come, daughter, I will show you a trench I dug."

    "What is the purpose of this trench you speak of?" she asked.

   "I dug it so we would be buried there when we die, because nobody cares about us poor people once we’re dead."

    The girl went with him and stood at the edge of the deep trench.

    "Listen," said the werewolf. "You must die and be buried in this trench."

    The girl started begging him to spare her, but in vain. He grabbed her and threw her into the trench; then he took a big stone and tossed it straight on her head, smashing her skull, so the poor thing died. When the deed was done, the werewolf returned to working in the forest.

    At sunset, the next daughter came and brought him a meal. He told her about the trench, led her to it and threw her inside, killing her the same way as the first. He did the same with all of his daughters save for the last one.

    The youngest daughter knew that her father was a werewolf and was very sad when her sisters did not return home. "Where could they possibly be at this hour?" she wondered. "Did he keep them for company or to help him with his work?" And so she prepared the meal she was to bring to her father and, keeping her guard up, went to the forest.

    When she came close to where her father was working, she heard the sound of his axe as he was cutting down trees and she could smell smoke. She saw a great fire and above it two human heads were roasting. She left the fire behind and walked to where the sound of the axe was coming from, which led her to her father.

    "Here, father," the girl said. "I brought you your meal."

    "You are a good daughter," he replied. "While I eat, pile up this wood."

    "And where are my sisters?" she asked.

    "Down there in the valley, gathering firewood. Come, I will take you to them."

    The two of them approached the trench and the father said that he had dug it to serve as their grave.

    "Now," he added, "you must die and be buried in this trench alongside your sisters."

    "Turn around, father," the girl asked. "I will undress and then you can kill me, if you want."

    He turned away, just like she asked him to, and then she pushed him with all the strength she had, making him fall face-first into the hole that he had dug out for her.

    The girl ran for her life, because the werewolf was unhurt and soon leaped out of the trench. She could hear his howling as it carried through the dark forest paths, but she kept running like the wind. She could hear his steps and laboured breath closer and closer, so she threw a handkerchief behind her. The werewolf caught it and started tearing it to shreds with his fangs and claws. But soon he was again chasing after her, foaming at the mouth, howling grimly and with red eyes that glowed like charring coals. When he was about to catch up to her, she threw her dress for him to devour. He grabbed it and tore it to pieces, then resumed his chase. Afterwards, the girl threw behind her apron, then her underwear, eventually ending up naked as a new-born babe. But the werewolf was getting closer and closer all the same.

    The girl ran out of the forest and into a mowed meadow, where she hid in the smallest stack of hay. Her father charged in after her and, howling, began searching for her, overturning every stack of hay, all the while growling and gritting his teeth. He flashed his fangs angrily that the daughter managed to run away from him. Drool dripping from his jaws, he paced around, his body sweltering from the heat. Before he could get to the smallest stack of hay, however, exhaustion overcame him, his strength waning, so he went back into the forest.

    It just so happened that at that time, the king was out hunting in the vicinity, as was his custom. His hounds chased prey onto the meadow, which, coincidentally, had been avoided by peasants for three days. Having followed the hounds, the king found the beautiful girl not on top of the hay, but neck-high inside the hay stack. She was then taken, along with the hay, to the palace, where she eventually married the king. The girl agreed to become his wife on condition that no beggar would have entrance to the palace.

    However, a few years later, one beggar managed to come inside. Of course, it was none other than the werewolf-father. He crept upstairs to the children’s room, slit the throats of the two children the queen had had with her husband, and then planted the knife under the queen’s pillow. In the morning, thinking that it was the queen who murdered their children, the king exiled her from the palace, the two dead princelings hung around her neck.

    A hermit came to her rescue and brought the two children back to life. The king realised his mistake and made peace with the girl he had found in the hay stack. And the werewolf, in turn, was hunted down and met his end by being thrown off a cliff into the sea.