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Updated: June 3, 2025
The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales, 300 sq.; burnt sacrifices of animals in Scotland, 301 sq.; calf burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on the herd, 302 sq.; mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break the spell, 303-305; in burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself, 305; practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of Man, 305-307; by burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear, 307; magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal, 308; similar sympathy between a were-wolf and his or her human shape, wounds inflicted on the animal are felt by the man or woman, 308; were-wolves in Europe, 308-310; in China, 310 sq.; among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, 311-313 sq.; in the Egyptian Sudan, 313 sq.; the were-wolf story in Petronius, 313 sq.; witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into animals, and wounds inflicted on the transformed animals appear on the persons of the witches, 315 sq.; instances of such transformations and wounds in Scotland, England, Ireland, France, and Germany, 316-321; hence the reason for burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch herself or at all events to compel her to appear, 321 sq.; the like reason for burning bewitched things, 322 sq.; similarly by burning alive a person whose likeness a witch has assumed you compel the witch to disclose herself, 323; woman burnt alive as a witch in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, 323 sq.; bewitched animals sometimes buried alive instead of being burned, 324-326; calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd, 326 sq.
For a similar reason it is a rule with the Toradjas of Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter on the ladder of a house where there is a pregnant woman, for such delay would retard the birth of the child; and in various parts of Sumatra the woman herself in these circumstances is forbidden to stand at the door or on the top rung of the house-ladder under pain of suffering hard labour for her imprudence in neglecting so elementary a precaution.
The Toradjas of Central Celebes stand in very great fear of werewolves, that is of men and women, who have the power of transforming their spirits into animals such as cats, crocodiles, wild pigs, apes, deer, and buffaloes, which roam about battening on human flesh, and especially on human livers, while the men and women in their own proper human form are sleeping quietly in their beds at home.
The man drew the bamboo from the fire, but a moment afterwards he put it in the fire again, and again the human were-wolf on the roof looked down and cried, "Don't do that." But this time the man kept the bamboo in the fire, and when it blazed up, down fell the human were-wolf from the roof as dead as a stone. Again, the following story went round among the Toradjas not so very many years ago.
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