Chapter Weller to West Indian of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Were-Wolf, or Wehr-Wolf, a man-wolf, a man transformed into a wolf temporarily or otherwise. (See Loup-Garou, p. 629; Sologne, p. 1025.) This creature played a prominent part in German Christmas tales of the Middle Ages.

Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf’s bark.
   —Longfellow: The Skeleton in Armour.

Werner, the boy said to have been crucified at Bacharach, on the Rhine, by the Jews. (See Hugh of Lincoln, p. 510.)

The innocent boy, who, some years back,
Was taken and crucified by the Jews,
In that ancient town of Bacharach!
   —Longfellow: The Golden Legend (1851).

Werner or Kruitzner (count of Siegendorf), father of Ulric. Being driven from the dominions of his father, he wandered about for twelve years as a beggar, hunted from place to place by count Stralenheim. At length, Stralenheim, travelling through Silesia, was rescued from the Oder by Gabor (alias Ulric), and was lodged in an old tumbledown palace, where Werner had been lodging for some few days. Here Werner robbed the count of a rouleau of gold, and next day the count was murdered by Ulric (without the connivance or even knowledge of Werner). When Werner succeeded to the rank and wealth of count Siegendorf, he became aware that his son Ulric was the murderer, and denounced him. Ulric departed, and Werner said, “The race of Siegendorf is past.”—Byron: Werner (1821).

(This drama is borrowed from “Kruitzner, or The German’s Tale,” in Miss H. Lee’s Canterbury Tales, 1797–1805.)

Werther, a young German student, of poetic fancy and very sensitive disposition, who falls in love with Lo tte the betrothed and afterwards the wife of Albert. Werther becomes acquainted with Lotte’s husband, who invites him to stay with him as a guest. In this visit he renews his love, which Lotte returns. So the young man mewls and pules after forbidden fruit with sickly sentimentality, and at last puts an end to his life and the tale at the same time.—Goethe: Sorrows of Werther (1774).

The sort of thing to turn a young man’s head,
Or make a Werther of him in the end.
   —Byron: Don Juan, xiv. 64 (1824).

“Werther” is meant for Goethe himself, and “Albert” for his friend Kestner, who married Charlotte Buff, with whom Goethe was in love, and whom he calls “Lotte” (the heroine of the novel).

(In 1817 George Duval produced a parody on this novel, in the form of a three-act farce entitled Werther ou les Egarements d’un Cœur Sensible.)

Thackeray wrote a satirical poem called The Sorrows of Werther.

The Werther of Politics. The marquis of Londonderry is so called by lord Byron. Werther, the personification of maudling sentimentality, is the hero of Goethe’s romance entitled The Sorrows of Werther (1774).

It is the first time since the Normans, that England has been insulted by a minister who could not speak English, and that parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop.…Let us hear no more of this man, and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the Patriot of Humanity repose by the Werther of Politics?—Byron: Don Juan (preface to canto vi., etc., 1824).

Wertherism (th = t), spleen, megrims from morbid sentimentality, a settled melancholy and disgust of life. The word is derived from the romance called The Sorrows of Werther, by Goethe (1774), the gist of which is to prove “Whatever is is wrong.”