Category Archives: Storm Wolf

St. George and the Werewolves

Posted on by
Reply

Icon of St. George killing the dragon from the late 1400s.

St. George is probably best known for killing the dragon. But there are many other legends and customs associated with the celebration of St. George’s Day on April 23 or the night before (St. George’s Eve). One of the most mysterious is that of the Master of the Wolves. On St. George’s Eve a man is wandering in the forest, becomes tired, and climbs into a tree to rest. He falls asleep. When he awakes, he sees the Master of the Wolves below him, who is giving out food to the wolves or werewolves, sometimes sending them in all directions to search for food. The last in line is the Lame Wolf. Since there is no more food, the Master of the Wolves says he can eat the man watching from the tree.

Among part of the southern Slavs (Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians) the legends and beliefs about the Master of the Wolves are also connected with numerous commandments, prohibitions and customs associated into the so-called “wolf holidays”. Legends about some type of Master of the Wolves can also be found in written form among the majority of southern and eastern Slavs, partially also among the Poles, and among the Estonians, the Gagauz in Moldavia, in Latvia, Romania and in an incomplete form even in France. His function, as can be established from the legends and beliefs, is to lead the wolves and determine what they may and may not eat. In some versions of the legend, the Master of Wolves is St. George himself! (For more about the Master of Wolves, read here.)

In the book Dracula, by Bram Stoker, evil things are said to occur on St George’s Day, beginning at midnight. The date of St George’s Day presented in the book, 5 May (on the Western, Gregorian calendar), is St George’s Day as observed by the Eastern Orthodox churches of that era:

“Do you know what day it is?” I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again: “Oh, yes! I know that, I know that! but do you know what day it is?” On my saying that I did not understand, she went on: “It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?”(Excerpt from Dracula, 1897)

#WerewolfWednesday

Posted on by
Reply

“Alexei” and I close-up at the Brooklyn Book Festival (September 2016)

I recently began a new feature on Facebook and Twitter by posting a brief, “fun fact” in honor of #WerewolfWednesday each week.

I got this idea during the International Thriller Writers conference I attended this July in midtown. (Over 700 authors from across North America and Canada were there but luckily I didn’t need to pay for airfare or hotel room; I only needed to ride the subway and buy a few extra lunches at a deli! The conference was a great experience — I learned a lot about writing, characterization, plotting, tension, etc. as well as practical things like what you can or cannot learn from an autopsy, how hostage negotiators work, how blood spatter can be examined, how the FBI forensics lab is organized. I met lots of thriller writers who work not only in supernatural thrillers but in many other subgenres as well. There were also lots of agents there and each agent I spoke with asked for sample pages of Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes–the novel I am currently working on.)

So far, #WerewolfWednesday has shared:

The elite did not believe werewolves existed. Church teaching insisted ALL werewolf claims were frauds.

Werewolf trials began in Switzerland during the 1600s and were finished by the late 1700s, just like witchcraft trials.

In Roman folktales, a man became a wolf after eating a child’s intestines but was restored to human form after 10 years.

Upcoming #WerewolfWednesday features will include werewolf folklore from the Satyricon, as well as from Slavic, French, Italian, and German sources.

If you haven’t “liked” or “followed” my Author Pages on Facebook or Twitter, click on the links above!

What Do I Write?

Posted on by
Reply

Evil and black magic lurk in the shadows of Prague beneath The Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Square. (photo by Joseph O’Neill, 2016)

What Do I Write?

What do the COME HELL OR HIGH WATER trilogy and the STORM WOLF novel have in common? They are supernatural/fantasy thrillers that straddle timelines and cultures.

The Come Hell or High Water trilogy alternates between 1350s Prague and contemporary Prague. A witch curses the city in the 1350s and the curse is reawakened in the modern city; the curse works its way through the life of the town in both time periods as a handful of people in each period race to stop it before Prague is destroyed.

Storm Wolf follows the adventures of Alexei, the last werewolf in 1880s Estonia who is driven to become a killer and frantically searches throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Bohemia for a sorcerer who can save him from the wolf-magic.

All the fantastic or magickal aspects of my novels are based on authentic medieval and Renaissance occult beliefs or practices; these are the real deal! (You can use them as recipe books, if you want. This is what people actually did if they wanted to use the supernatural to achieve their goals.) The books also incorporate local legends and history so that you get a taste of what it was really like in Central Europe or the Baltic States in the Middle Ages, the late 19th century, or now.

I’m currently working on Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes which is a novel about an Irish female vampire and the ghost of a witch who have kidnapped three high school boys from Waterford in August, 2002; their uncle, a professor of Irish folklore, and a graduate student try to rescue them from the vampire and the witch before they are lost forever in the Otherworld.

You can subscribe to my email list to get seasonal reading suggestions (who doesn’t need a good book for the beach? Or to curl up with in the winter as the snow falls outside?) as well as hear about my upcoming projects. See the spot over to the right? Where it says “Newsletter” and “Subscribe?” Just type your email in the box there and click “Subscribe.” Thank you for keeping in touch!

Now, you can HOP to the next blog on the tour! Or here.

Step #5 – Be sure you mark your calendar! As a Blog Hop participant, you will be responsible for checking your link and the Blog Hop once it is live to confirm it works.

The goal is to create a kind of “daisy chain” that readers can follow from site to site to B2BCyCon.com to site.