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The mediaeval belief in werewolves is especially adapted to illustrate the complicated manner in which divers mythical conceptions and misunderstood natural occurrences will combine to generate a long-enduring superstition. Mr.
and go forever it did till all the world of Paris seemed a heaving, throbbing vortex of werewolves and witches, things lower than animals in their topsyturvydom, drunken frenzy and frequent obscenity. The throng through which Henriette now directed her steps was verging on this madness, though not yet at the pitch of it.
There can be no doubt that the myth-makers transformed Lykaon into a wolf because of his unlucky name; because what really meant "bright man" seemed to them to mean "wolf-man"; but it has by no means been proved that a similar equivocation occurred in the case of all the primitive Aryan werewolves, nor has it been shown to be probable that among each people the being with the uncanny name got thus accidentally confounded with the particular beast most dreaded by that people.
Padraig, the scribe, sat listening intently while the company around the guest-house fire discoursed in monk-Latin of werewolves in Ireland. "In saecula saeculorum" "ab incunabilis horrendum" "quocunque nomine notandum" "coram diabolo" the sonorous many-syllabled phrases clattered like the noise of rooks in treetops. It was January, the "wolf-month" of old English shepherds.
Thorpe's treatise on "Northern Mythology," to realize how vast is the difference between our stand-point and that from which, in the later Middle Ages, our immediate forefathers regarded things. The frightful superstition of werewolves is a good instance. In those days it was firmly believed that men could be, and were in the habit of being, transformed into wolves.
The eerie and the fantastic had the same fascination for him as sacred story, and the lives of the saints, gnomes, elves, werewolves and sorcerers bewitched no less than martyrs, miracle-workers and angels.
I answered, much exasperated, and deliberately pushed the skull till it rolled into the bottom of the gravel pit below. "Cover it up," said I; "bury the scroll with it too, if you insist, but I think you ought to send it to Paris. Don't look so gloomy, Fortin, unless you believe in werewolves and ghosts. Hey! what the what the devil's the matter with you, anyway?
For the belief that the soul can temporarily quit the body during lifetime has been universally entertained; and from the conception of wolf-like ghosts it was but a short step to the conception of corporeal werewolves. In the Middle Ages the phenomena of trance and catalepsy were cited in proof of the theory that the soul can leave the body and afterwards return to it.
There was no answer for the demons there, not anywhere, perhaps, except among werewolves, basilisks and Mrs. Austens. These monsters did not occur to him. The monstrous letter sufficed.
I thought I had three werewolves in the house with me, and I was glad when at last they took themselves off." When Torarin heard this he told the charcoal-burner what he himself had witnessed at the parsonage. "So it was true enough that this night they whetted knives at Branehog," said Torarin, laughing.
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