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Werewolf stories are among the most popular tales that Weird Tales has ever printed. The Phantom Farmhouse, The Ghost-Eater, Invaders From the Dark, The Werewolf of Ponkert—to name the werewolf stories that have appeared in this magazine would be listing the readers' favorites, for only the pseudo-scientific stories have called forth a more hearty chorus of enthusiasm.
Now comes H. Warner Munn, author of the best-liked werewolf tale we have ever published (The Werewolf of Ponkert), and puts his finger on what seems to be a serious flaw in most werewolf and vampire stories.
"I have always thought it was strange," he writes, "that almost every tale of werewolves that I have ever read depends upon charms, spells and incantations in which the cross figured prominently to combat the demons. But should we suppose that the belief of lycanthropy is comparatively recent? That it was unknown before the Christian Era began? Hardly. The belief is as old as man. In Dudley Wright's book, Vampires and Vampirism, there are many references to this belief as early as 6000 B.C., taken from Persian hymns to the sun, Babylonian records, etc. Then why should the mere brandishing of a cross hold such power? Did the werewolf delusion rage unchecked until the birth of Christ?"
Mr. Munn has incorporated some of this doubt into his startling new story, The Return of the Master, which will be published soon in Weird Tales. In this story, the cross proves valueless against the wiles of the Master (the same evil demon who appeared as a black wolf in The Werewolf of Ponkert), and more ancient religious symbols must be used, for this creature has been working his evil wiles (according to the story) since long before Christianity came to bless the world, and to him the cross has no occult power. We will tell you little about the story itself, except to say that it is fully up to the level of The Werewolf of Ponkert, and that the revolt of the Master's slaves (ancient Persians, Roman gladiators, British redcoats, and others) to oven turn the power of the werewolf, is one of the most thrilling incidents we have ever read.
Greye La Spina, another favorite writer of weird tales, seems to have been struck with the same thought that perplexed Mr. Munn; and in a thrilling occult serial which she has written for this magazine she explains the power of the cross as a talisman against occult evil which is older than Christianity: "It is not the thing in itself. It is what hundreds of years of reverence and adoration from human souls have made of it. It is the visible
