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Updated: May 31, 2025
My old nurse, far off in Norway, used to tell me that were-wolves are ordinary men and women half their days, and that if, during that period, they become aware of their horrid transformation they may find the means to forestall it. May this not be the case with me?
"These were-wolves," says Verstegan, "are certain sorcerers, who having anointed their bodies with an ointment they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certain enchanted girdle, do not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves so long as they wear the said girdle; and they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying, and killing, and waste of human creatures."
His hallucinations since daybreak had taken a frightful form; he had seen poisonous snakes gliding in and out of the folds of the bedclothes; he had fancied every kind of hideous monster the winged reptiles of the jura formation the armour-plated fish of the old red sandstone everything that is grotesque, revolting, terrible skeletons, poison-spitting toads, vampires, were-wolves, flying cats they had all lurked amidst the draperies of bed or windows, or grinned at him through the panes of glass.
His book on "Myths and Myth-makers" gave early evidence of this fondness, and surely there is the very spirit of the lover of tales in the Dedication of the book, "To my dear Friend, William D. Howells, in remembrance of pleasant autumn evenings spent among were-wolves and trolls and nixies." Thus, besides the ability to see a story in all its bearings, Mr.
Now these people, whose faith in were-wolves is not a mere dying or dead superstition but a living, dreadful conviction, tell stories of were-wolves which conform to the type which we are examining.
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.
This explanation of the reason for burning a bewitched animal, dead or alive, is confirmed by the parallel belief concerning were-wolves. This belief is widely diffused; it meets us in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
For a close parallel may be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their mischievous pranks; and like were-wolves they can in their animal disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in drawing their blood.
The bright moonlight which figures in some of these were-wolf stories is perhaps not a mere embellishment of the tale but has its own significance; for in some places it is believed that the transformation of were-wolves into their bestial shape takes place particularly at full moon.
And terrible as had been the gathering of the were-wolves in the dark forests around Machecoul upon the night of the fight by the hollow tree, far more threatening and terrible was the uprising of the angry commons.
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