[Pg vii]

From the abundant records and traditions dealing with the curious belief that certain men and women can transform themselves into animals I have collected a number of instances and examples which throw fresh light on the subject both from the point of view of folk-lore and occultism. The causes of transformation are various: contact with a wer-animal, touching what he has touched, wearing an animal skin, rubbing the body with ointment, slipping on a girdle, buckling on a strap, and many other expedients, magical and otherwise, may bring about the metamorphosis. Removing the skin, burning it, or piercing it with the stab of a knife, or the shot from a gun, so that blood is drawn, are among the best-known methods for causing the human shape to be resumed, but the stab should be on the brow or between the eyes, and the bullet should be made of silver and is all the better for having been blessed in a chapel of St. Hubert, otherwise the attempt to break the enchantment may fail. The penalty for being a wer-animal is death, but sentence is not passed until after some ordeal has been gone through, such as dipping the finger into boiling resin, innocence being established if the finger be drawn out unhurt. Any wound inflicted on the transformed[Pg viii] animal is simultaneously inflicted on the human body, and in many other characteristics the nature of the wer-animal is similar to that of the witch or wizard.

In "Balder the Beautiful" Dr. J. G. Frazer, after telling many typical stories, endeavours to establish a parallelism between witches and wer-animals, the analogy appearing to confirm the view that the reason for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the human being is in the animal, and that by burning you compel him to assume another shape. Since the sum of energy in the universe is held to be constant and invariable, the chain of transformation is thus continued, and form follows form, endlessly linked together. By some such theory the phenomena of life and death may be explained and the doctrine of immortality, usually applied only to the soul of man, can be reasonably extended to animals.

The belief that human and animal souls possess power and entity when externalised and apart from the living body is less widely held than that of persistence after death. It is one that bears strongly on the subject of animal transformation, as well as on the affinity which certain animals possess for some families, an affinity that is akin to totemism.

These preliminary suggestions will enable readers to grasp the scope of my book, which is intended to provide a comprehensive view of the subject and to familiarise them with the nature of the phenomena, even though it has been well-nigh impossible to classify and tabulate them fully, or to explain them satisfactorily.

[Pg ix]

I wish to express my thanks to Miss J. A. Middleton, author of "The Grey Ghost Book," for her kindness in reading my work in MS., and to her and others for suggesting interesting material.

FRANK HAMEL

London, 1915

[Pg x]

[Pg xi]

[Pg 1]

The belief that men can change into animals and animals into men is as old as life itself. It originates in the theory that all things are created from one substance, mind or spirit, which according to accident or design takes a distinctive appearance, to mortal eye, of shape, colour, and solidity. Transformation from one form to another then becomes a thinkable proposition, especially if it be admitted that plastic thought in the spirit world takes on changed forms and conditions more readily than in the world of matter. The belief of primitive races that all created beings have an immortal soul dwelling in a material body applies equally to the brute creation and to the human race. "In the beginning of things," says Leland, "men were as animals and animals as men."[1] The savage endows brutes with similar intelligence and emotions to his own. He does not distinguish between the essential nature of man, of various beasts, and even of inanimate objects, except where outward form is concerned; and he senses, even more clearly than his civilised brother, the psychic bonds which unite man and the animals. Folk-lore abounds in incidents which are based on the impermanence[Pg 2] of form and which tell of people changing into animals or animals changing into human beings.

The scientific problems of to-day which deal with the theory of breaking up matter into electrons may quite possibly have a bearing on this subject and may not be so far removed, as appears at first sight to be the case, from the intuitive beliefs of the savage.

Transformation was held to be accomplished in various ways, a sorcerer, a witch or the evil one himself being the agent through whom the change was effected. Certain people have had ascribed to them the power of self-transformation, a curious psychical gift which to this day appeals to imaginative people, and which may be regarded as a projection of mind in animal form.

Changes may be voluntary or involuntary, self-transformation belonging more frequently to the former class and transformation by sorcery, witchcraft or black magic more often to the latter class. The motives of a human being who wishes to change into an animal are naturally regarded with suspicion. Greed, cruelty, and cannibalism are accusations brought against those who were tried in the Middle Ages for the crime of lycanthropy, the transformation into a wolf or other wild beast. The desire to taste human flesh is a horrible but not improbable reason for the offence. The wish to inspire fear or to gain personal power over others are motives for impersonating wild and fearsome animals, as effective where superstitious people are concerned as the less common faculty of transforming actual flesh.

Savage races do not necessarily connect the idea of transformation with any thought of evil. They find the plan of impersonating an animal in its lair, for the sake of safety, say, extremely useful. They have also the best of reasons for developing a special attribute, such as the keen scent of the hound, the long sight of the eagle, the natural protective power against cold possessed by the wolf and so forth, imitative suggestion which occurs in many of their primitive customs. Thus the Cherokee Indian when starting on a winter's journey[Pg 3] endeavours by singing and other mimetic action to identify himself with the wolf, the fox, the opossum or other wild animal, of which the feet are regarded by him as impervious to frost-bite. The words he chants mean, "I become a real wolf, a real deer, a real fox, and a real opossum."[2] Then he gives a long howl to imitate the wolf or barks like a fox and paws and scratches the ground. Thus he establishes a belief in transformation by sympathetic or homœopathic magic, and starts forth on his difficult journey in perfect confidence, the power of auto-suggestion aiding him on his way. Such customs are closely allied with the superstitions of the dark ages, when it was assumed without question that bodily transformation took place.

Involuntary change into animal shape was thought to occur as a punishment for crime, and was looked upon as a judgment of the gods. Few beliefs are more common among savages than that reincarnation in a lower form is the result of sin in a previous existence. Bats especially are held to be the abode of the souls of the dead, and to some races they are sacrosanct for this reason. Most animals have been looked upon as a possible receptacle of man's soul, and many primitive tribes believe that man can choose in which animal body he prefers to dwell. In the Solomon Islands, for instance, a dying man informs the members of his family in what sort of animal shape he expects to live again. One among hundreds of similar superstitions is that if a cat jumps over a corpse, the soul of the deceased enters its body.

Murder of what is holy, and the offering of human sacrifices are two offences punishable by transformation, but once transformed, the soul-animal wins respect rather than contempt, and care is taken that no injury shall befall it, lest a relative or friend should suffer. A savage avoids harming his own family animal, but does not hesitate to kill the soul-animal into which a member of[Pg 4] a hostile tribe has entered. Should such an animal die, the soul is thought by many races to pass into another body of the same type, but other tribes, especially in Madagascar, believe that the death of the animal releases the human soul that had lodged within it.

A more original idea is that certain human beings possess animal doubles and that the soul-animal roams at large while the man remains visible in his ordinary form, and many of the vampire and wer-wolf stories are traceable to this belief. The Toradjas of Central Celebes believe that the inside parts only of the man take on the animal shape, a state which they term lamboyo. The lamboyo may be distinguished from an ordinary animal by being misshapen to some extent, for instance, a buffalo may have only one horn, or a dog may have a pig's snout. The lamboyo, like the vampire, has a preference for human victims, whom he grievously tortures and maims.

Far more beautiful is the myth of tanoana, the divine essence in man which goes forth from his body, as in sleep, and, being of the same nature as the soul of the animal, allows of interchange to take place between the human and the animal bodies.

Even amongst the most practical and enlightened people of to-day psychic experiences in which animals have played a part are of common enough occurrence, and a survey of the grounds on which man and animal shapes and spirits meet may help them to understand things which, to our limited human intelligence, appear at least strange, if not altogether inexplicable.

[Pg 5]

How did man come to change into an animal? Folklore and superstition describe a number of ways. The most common method appears to have been the wearing of the skin of the animal in question. One drew it over one's shoulders, mask and all, and awaited results. These were not always satisfactory, and if any delay occurred it was better to strip off the clothes, rub the limbs with a potent ointment and murmur a long incantation. Such things, if we may believe tradition, invariably did the trick. But there were many other ways of bringing about the desired state. According to Grimm,[3] transformation could be effected by tying a strap of human skin round the body; others say the skin must be a girdle made from the animal's hide.... It also sufficed to shift the buckle of a certain strap to the ninth hole. To drink water out of the footprint made by the animal, to partake of its brains, to drink from certain enchanted streams, to haunt the lair of a wer-wolf, to eat his food or come into personal contact with him or his belongings were all means of voluntary or involuntary transformation which, according to its nature, might be permanent or merely transitory. Livonian wer-wolves were initiated by drinking a cup of beer of a special character accompanied by a particular incantation. Other countries had magical procedure which differed in detail, if not in the main features. As a rule the devil was supposed to have had a hand in the transformation process, and one man accused of the crime declared that a female devil had[Pg 6] presented him with a belt and whenever he buckled it he was changed into a wolf spontaneously. This gentleman, when he was back in human shape, was always heard to remark in surprise that he had not the faintest idea where the bristles went which had adorned him when in wolfish form.

A return to human body was sometimes easy, sometimes extremely difficult. The girdle or skin being removed was often sufficient to remove the enchantment too. Plunging into water or rolling over and over in dew were said to be equally efficacious. A considerably slower method was to kneel in one spot for a hundred years, long enough, one would imagine to deter anyone from ill-judged ambitions to prowl around the world in animal shape. Other cures, however, were simpler, such as being saluted with the sign of the cross, or to be called three times loudly by the baptismal name, or to be struck three blows on the forehead by a knife, or to have three drops of blood drawn from some part of the body. In many cases one other person besides the transformed man was in possession of certain formulæ necessary for restoring him to a normal appearance, and if by any accident this person was killed or otherwise removed from the sphere of action, woe betide him in animal shape, for he probably had to retain it during the rest of his natural existence.

There is a legend in Lorraine that if stalks of grass are pulled up, blessed and thrown against a tree, wolves spring forth, being transformed from the men who threw the grass. To become a she-bear it is only necessary to put a slip of wood into one's mouth; when the wood is taken out human shape returns.

Another myth, mentioned by Grimm, is that at certain times of night wer-wolves turn into three-legged dogs and can only be freed by someone crying out "wer-wolf."

Seven and nine are important numbers in transformation. When seven girls are born of one marriage, one is[Pg 7] thought to turn into a wer-wolf and the seventh child of the seventh child is predestined to the same fate. The spell is said to last nine days. Anyone who puts on a wolf-shirt is transformed into a wolf for this period and returns to human shape on the tenth day. Grimm says the seal is supposed to doff his fishy skin every ninth day and for one day become a man, and there is a common saying that a cat twenty years old turns into a witch, and a witch of a hundred turns back into a cat.

Having taken the body of a beast, man becomes known as a wer-animal, wer being probably derived from the Latin vir.[4] He then assumes the characteristics of the natural animal, with additional strength, agility, and ferocity.

In mediæval times powers of transformation seem to have been sought after and were even regarded as a privilege. Although often acquired for evil purposes, among primitive peoples to change into an animal did not necessarily imply a descent in the scale of being. To them there is but a slight line of demarcation between the animal world and mankind. They are not influenced so much by the idea of human degradation as by a beautiful belief in the brotherhood and fellowship of all creation.

Lycanthropy is the technical name for the pathological condition of a man who believes he has become an animal. The word means literally wolf-man, the wolf being chosen as the most dangerous animal known in European countries, though the tiger, hyæna, or any other wild animal serves the purpose equally well.

The symptoms exhibited by the wer-animal are at first extreme restlessness and anxiety. He develops, sometimes instantaneously, sometimes by degrees, the instincts of the kind of creature into which he has been transformed, often acquiring enormous strength and the special characteristics of the animal. If it be carnivorous by nature he has a lust to kill, and he can do what the[Pg 8] animal does as well as what he was naturally capable of doing. His body is in the shape of an animal, but his eyes, according to some accounts, remain unchanged, and the human being looks out of these windows of his soul. His intelligence will probably, however, be darkened by the shadow of malignity or passion usual to the lower creation.

As early as 1579, Wierius described lycanthropia as a disease, and declared the Arabs called it Chatrap, after an animal. Another name was Tipule. (Latin race.) The victims had sunken eyes and could not see well, the tongue was dry and they were thirsty, the saliva being dried up. To cure them they had to be well-fed, much bathed, and given drugs which were used in melancholic diseases. Before an attack the head was rubbed with soporific herbs, opium was applied to the nose and the patient was dosed with a narcotic.

When under the delusion that he is changed into a wolf the wer-animal gives vent to a long howl and starts off with a rush to the nearest forest, where he prowls about through the night seeking his victims. These he kills in the ordinary manner of a wild beast, tearing asunder their limbs and feasting on their flesh. In some countries his method is more elaborate and it is supposed that the wer-wolf, having chosen his victim, exerts certain occult powers to numb his faculties and, cutting up the body, extracts the liver, which he eats and then joins the parts of the body together again so that the friends of the dead man know not how he came to lose his life.

Having satisfied his thirst for blood, the man-wolf, at the wane of his madness, once more seeks human shape, and then it is probable that he suffers for his abnormal appetites. Reaction leaves him weak and debilitated, with dry throat and tongue, feeble vision, hollow and discoloured cheeks, and sore places where he was hurt by his victim struggling for life.

Some subjects of lycanthropia, or imitative madness, endure still greater horrors, and the case of a patient[Pg 9] who trembled with terror at his own condition is quoted by M. Morel in his "Études Cliniques."[5] "See this mouth," he cried, touching his lips with his fingers, "it is the mouth of a wolf, and see the long hairs which cover my body and my paws. Let me bound away into the woods so you may shoot me there!" When his family endeavoured to caress him, he cried out that they were embracing a wolf. He asked for raw meat, the only food he could touch, but on tearing it apart he found it not to his liking as it had not been freshly killed. Thus he went through the tortures of the damned until released by death.

Another victim of the disease is mentioned by Fincelius in his second Book of Wonders. He says that "at Padua in the year 1541 a certain husbandman did seem to himself wolf, and did leap upon many in the fields, and did kill them. And that at last he was taken not without much difficulty, and did confidently affirm that he was a true wolf, only that the difference was in the skin turned in with the hairs. And therefore that, having put off all humanity and being truly truculent and voracious, he did smite and cut off his legs and arms, thereby to try the truth of the matter, but the innocency of the man being known, they committed him to the chirurgeon's to be cured, but that he died not many days after. Which instance is sufficient to overthrow the vain opinion of those men that believe that a man or woman may be really transubstantiated into a wolf, dog, cat, squirrel or the like without the operation of an omnipotent power."

In spite of the unpleasant consequences with which lycanthropy seems to be connected there is little doubt that transformation used to be regarded as a useful and sometimes even profitable relaxation. Those who were already initiated into its mysteries were generally willing to help others to obtain proficiency, and a draught from the hand of an expert was considered enough to produce[Pg 10] the desired condition in the novice.

Predestination to become a wer-animal is thought to be distinguished by some peculiarity in the appearance, such as the meeting of the eyebrows, and the tendency to transform is believed to wax and wane with the seasons and to be subject to the influence of the moon.

The head, claws, and hairy skin of a wer-wolf are like those of a real wolf, but the great test of identity lies in his lack of tail, and in his clothes, which are sure to be found not far from the scene of slaughter.

When doubt is felt whether a wer-wolf is a human being or a real wolf, steel or iron is thrown at the animal under suspicion. When this is done to a genuine wer-wolf the skin is said to split crosswise on the forehead and the naked man comes out through the opening. Sometimes the wer-wolf is frozen with the cold and then he is invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The only way to wound him is to shoot at him with balls of elder pith or bullets of inherited silver.

When the victim is attacked by a human animal the injured person's clothes are stripped from his body. The genuine animal tears them in shreds. If the wer-animal has been transformed by means of a strap of human skin, his tail is then certain to be truncated.

In the following Hessian folk-story, which concerns a poverty-stricken married couple, a large ring was used to bring about the metamorphosis.

The wife always contrived to have meat for every meal and the husband never knew how she managed it. After much questioning she agreed to tell him, and taking him to a field where sheep were grazing she threw a ring over herself and became a wer-wolf. She seized one sheep and was running off with it when the man, who had promised not to call her by name during the performance, cried out, "Oh, Margaret!" and as he did so the wolf disappeared and the woman stood there with no clothes on.

[Pg 11]

A very similar story is told of a nobleman who fell short of food while traversing a wide tract of country in Russia with a party of friends. He transformed himself into a wolf and caught several sheep, which provided an excellent meal for the travellers.

In India a story is current that there was once a man who was able to change himself into a tiger, but who found it very difficult to resume his normal shape. When he wished to become human again, it was necessary for a particular friend of his to cite a certain formula. The friend died and as this catastrophe limited the tiger-man's powers he determined to teach the proper formula to his wife.

A few days later, having enjoyed a glorious hunt and devoured several antelopes, he trotted up to his wife in the disguise of a tiger, hoping she would not forget how to work the spell. When she saw the dangerous monster approaching her she began to scream. The animal jumped round about her, trying to remind her by dumb show of what she had to do, but the greater efforts he made the more frightened she grew and the louder became her cries. So annoyed was the man-tiger by her aggravating stupidity that he thought, "This is the most irritating woman I ever saw," and, flying into a terrible passion, he attacked and slew her. Then to his regret he remembered that no other human being knew the incantation necessary for his release and that he would have to remain a tiger for the rest of his days. He grew to hate all human beings after that and killed men whenever the chance occurred.

In the Sanjor and Nerbudda territories there is a saying that if a tiger has killed a man he will never slay another, because the dead man's spirit rides on his head and forces him to seek more lawful prey.

Some African tribes believe that tailless tigers are transformed men, probably because the wer-animal is frequently said to have no tail.

In early Christian times the wer-wolf was often regarded as a victim of the evil machinations of a sorcerer.[Pg 12] There is a story in the seventh century of a man-wolf who defended the head of St. Edward the Martyr from the onslaught of other wild beasts. The apostles Peter and Paul, according to a Russian folk-tale, turned an evil-minded husband and wife into bears as a judgment for their sins.

An object which may have been an inducement to transformation was the hope of acquiring second sight, a gift with which many animals are thought to be endowed.

In the last century in France a connection of the old loup-garou existed in the person of the meneur des loups, who was said to have the gift of charming or taming wolves, which followed him across waste lands on midnight rambles after the style in which the rats followed the piping of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The loup-garou of the French is found in Italy under the name of the lupo manaro or versiero. The lupo manaro of the Middle Ages was a witch dressed as a wolf, but the same term was applied to a certain hobgoblin who was peculiar to the city of Blois and whose chief occupation seems to have been to inspire deadly fear in young children. The lupo marino, which might be thought to be another kind of wolf, is the name of a most ravenous fish, which does not appear to have had human attributes.

The great Gaston de Foix, known as Phœbus, who is famed for his book on the chase, expresses his opinion that the term garou in loup-garou is an ellipse of the phrase gardez-vous.

When wolves grew scarce in England it became the fashion for those who wished to be transformed to change into cats, weasels, or harmless hares; rather a mild amusement after the adventuresome exploits of the man-attacking beasts of prey, but one which led to some extraordinary proceedings akin to black magic.

In some old French Records the account is given of a man who buried a black cat in a box at a spot where four[Pg 13] cross-roads met. In the box he placed bread soaked in holy water and holy oil, sufficient to keep the animal alive for three days. His intention was to dig up his innocent victim, slay him, and make a girdle of his skin, by which means he expected to be able to transform himself into an animal and gain the gift of clairvoyance. Unfortunately for his projects, however, the buried animal was exhumed by hounds. The whole affair came to public knowledge and ended in the courts, where the guilty man was condemned for sorcery.

Another man whose friend threw doubts on his power to change into animal shape, quickly turned into a wolf to prove that his comrade was wrong and, being set upon by a pack of dogs, was deprived by them of one eye before he could resume his normal appearance.

A thief acted more cleverly. Being condemned to the gibbet, he saved his skin by taking the form of a wolf directly his would-be executioners opened the door of the cell in which he was imprisoned. During the panic of dismay which greeted the sight of him, he escaped into the woods.

One of the most marvellous stories of wer-wolves is related by Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Topography of Ireland."[6] A priest was journeying from Ulster to Meath accompanied only by a single youth when they were benighted in a wood.

They had kindled a fire when a huge wolf approached them and spoke, telling the travellers to fear nothing.

The priest adjured him by all that was sacred not to do them harm and begged him to say "what creature it was that in the shape of a beast uttered human words."

The story told by the wolf is as follows:—

"There are two of us, a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who, through the curse of one Natalis, saint and abbot, are compelled every seven years to put off their human form and assume that of wolves. At the end of[Pg 14] seven years, if they chance to survive, two others being substituted, they return to their former shape. Now, she who is my partner in this visitation lies dangerously sick not far from hence. I beseech you, inspired by divine charity, to give her the consolations of your priestly office."

The priest followed the mysterious speaker into the thicket and performed the rites of the Church over the dying she-wolf, as far as the last Communion. But the wolf was not satisfied, and begged him to complete his good offices. The priest said this was impossible as he was not provided with the wherewithal for giving the viaticum. Then the man-wolf pointed to the priest's neck, suspended round which he carried a missal and consecrated wafers, entreating him not to deny the aid provided by Divine Providence. To remove the priest's doubts he tore off the she-wolf's skin and exposed the body of an old woman. The last Communion having been given, the wolf replaced the skin and reverently thanked the priest for the benefit which he had conferred.

These representative incidents go far to show how deeply ingrained is the belief in transformation among primitive people, but it is necessary to go back still further into the origins of folk-lore to discover the bedrock of thought in which the human-animal theory takes its rise.

[Pg 15]

The animal which savage races take as a symbol of the family becomes their totem. Many believe that their ancestors were originally animals, fishes, or reptiles, and are so accustomed to this idea that transformation appears simple and natural to them. They hold that the souls of the dead pass into one or another animal form.

"Wise people," says the Bhagavad Gita, "see the same soul (Atman) in the Brahman, in worms and in insects, in the dog and the elephant, in beasts, cows, gadflies, and gnats."

"Nothing is more strikingly characteristic of primitive thinking than the close community of nature which it assumes between man and brute," writes Fiske. "The doctrine of metempsychosis, which is found in some shape or other all over the world, implies a fundamental identity between the two; the Hindu is taught to respect the flocks browsing in the meadow, and will on no account lift his hand against a cow, for who knows but it may be his own grandmother?"[7]

The primeval worship of ancestors and the savage customs of totemism are connected with this belief in transformation.

Primitive man cannot grasp the idea of death as final. He believes that the man who has passed away is still capable of communicating with the living, and the idea of the persistence of the dead is to him the reality. Even though a dead man has thrown off the body like a[Pg 16] mask, his appearance remains the same and he is still possessed of human powers, perhaps intensified by the experience he has undergone. He can show himself to his friends, and may do so preferably after nightfall. He is then wrapped to some extent in mystery, and connected with strange sights, movements, and sounds.

Gifted with new powers he may appear as an animal, perhaps in order to harm his enemies or warn people of evil. His howling may be heard above the sound of the tempest. Perhaps he rides on the night-wind, perhaps he comes in the form of a hound, as a messenger of death, and bays under the window of the sick a warning that death is at hand. Again, he may come as a ravening wolf to devour some victim of his greed. Thus the savage mind fails to distinguish between the real and the imaginative and, basing his beliefs on the stories about his own tribal totem, is convinced that his ancestors may career about his home in the form of lion, leopard, serpent or other tutelary genius. This curious mental process expands with what it feeds on until the shade of distinction between wolf-like ghosts and corporeal human wolves is obliterated and the metempsychosis is complete.

In "Life Amongst the Modocs,"[8] Joaquin Miller tells a poetic story of the descent of the Indians from the grizzly bear.

One severe spring-time many thousands of years ago there was a storm on the summit of Mount Shasta and the Great Spirit sent his fair daughter to speak to the storm and bid it stop, but he told her not to look forth from the hole in the top of the mountain lest she should be caught in the wind and come to disaster.

Curiosity, however, caused her to forget her father's instructions and she put her head out to look at the far-distant ocean, white with storm. As she did so the wind caught her long red hair and she was blown down[Pg 17] the mountain-side which was covered with ice and snow, so that she slid to the dark belt of firs below the snow rim.

This district belonged to the grizzly bears. They were not really beasts then, but lived in caves, walked on two legs, talked and used clubs to fight with, instead of their teeth and claws as they do now. An old grizzly found the red-haired girl and took her home, where she was reared with the bears' offspring. In time she was married to the eldest son of the family. Their children did not resemble either of their parents exactly, but partook somewhat of the nature and likeness of both. Thus was the red man created, for these children were the first Indians.

The legend goes on to tell how angry the Great Spirit was when he heard what had befallen his daughter and that he punished the grizzlies by making them walk on all-fours like other beasts, and on account of this legend of their origin, the Indians about Mount Shasta never kill a bear, and if a bear kills an Indian the latter's body is burnt and all who pass the spot cast a stone upon it till a large heap is gathered, and Indians will point out to this day that bears are more like men than any other animal.

The members of a totem clan call themselves by the name of the totem, and numerous clans are connected with various animals, such, for instance, as the Crane clan of the Ojibways who think they are descended from a pair of cranes which settled near Lake Superior where they became transformed by the Great Spirit into a man and a woman. The Osages are descended from the union between a snail and a beaver. The snail burst its shell, grew arms and legs and became a handsome human being who wedded a beaver maiden.

In Bechuanaland when a crocodile clansman sees a crocodile he spits on the ground and says, "There is sin," for fear the sight should give him inflammation of the eyes. Yet the crocodile is his father, and he[Pg 18] celebrates it at his festivals and marks his cattle with an incision in the ear that resembles the mouth of his totem animal.

The inhabitants of the Ellice Island in the South Pacific believe the island was first inhabited by the porcupine fish, whose offspring became men and women. The snake clan among the Moquis of Arizona say they are descended from a woman who gave birth to snakes, and they indulge in extraordinary snake dances to propitiate their tutelary genius.

In Indonesia many stories are told of women who have brought forth animals. Sometimes the woman gives birth to twins, one being a human being and one a beast.[9] At Balen in New Guinea a native told a missionary that his ancestress had given birth to a boy and also to an iguana, and since then he had had a great respect for iguanas.

The turtle clan of the Iroquois believe themselves to be descended from a fat turtle, which, burdened by the weight of its shell in walking, threw it off after great exertions and developed gradually into a human being.[10]

People of the cray-fish clan of the Choctaws were said to have lived originally underground as cray-fish, only coming to the surface of the mud occasionally. Some kindly Choctaws captured these fish, taught them to walk after cutting off their toe-nails and adopted them into the tribe.

The Masai race in Uganda have a theory that some of their ancestors return to earth after death in the shape of serpents, generally pythons or cobras, and when a Masai marries, he introduces his wife to the tutelary snake of the tribe, and she is told to recognise it and never harm it. The fetish snake is often consulted by people in trouble, because they think they will get[Pg 19] valuable advice based on the experience of their ancestors[11].

The people of Miri believe themselves to be related to large deer, and suppose that their dead relatives become deer. The Bakongs, another group of Mohammedan Malasians, believe their friends become bear-cats after death. The Papuans of New Guinea hold that at death souls of human beings pass into animals such as cassowaries, fish, or pigs. They do not eat these sacred creatures, which are taboo.

The taboos include all animals which must not be killed. They enjoy local sanctity, and are never eaten or even touched. Taboo animals are thought to give favourable and unfavourable omens. Death is sometimes foretold by their means.

These instances of the supposed connection between savage races and certain animals might be multiplied a hundredfold, and they lead to interesting developments of the transformation theory.

The belief that beasts are the dwelling-places of the souls of depraved men is a variation of the idea that depraved men were inhabited by demons.

In Australia and America it is customary for savages to have what is called "a medicine animal," something in the nature of a tutelary genius or second soul. The natives of Central America call this animal nagual, the Algonquins manitou, the Eskimo tornaq, and amongst the last-named people it is usually a bear. Others call it simply the bush-soul.

The young Tinkhlet Indian goes out hunting the otter, and when he has killed his prey he cuts out its tongue, which he uses as a charm, wearing it round his neck and believing that he now understands the language of all animals. In other races various animals are killed in order that part of their body may be used as a talisman. A nagual may be obtained in other ways, perhaps through dreaming of the right animal, or by having[Pg 20] it chosen by the magician of the tribe. It then becomes sacred, and should it die the man dies too.

The West African negroes believe that a man can have as many as four souls, one of which lives in animal form out in the bush, and is then called his bush-soul. If this animal soul is trapped or shot, the man himself dies. Nor will a native kill his bush-soul, for this would surely be the cause of his own end. Bush-souls are often regarded as an hereditary possession, generally passing from father to son and from mother to daughter. Among many primitive peoples the belief exists that the human being can and does actually change into this tutelary animal genius. In Iceland, for instance, it is believed that various members of a family have a kind of animal double called fylgja, in the shape of a dog or bird.

The Yakuts of Siberia believe that every wizard has one of his souls incarnate in an animal. "Nobody can find my external soul," said one famous wizard, "it lies hidden far away in the stony mountains of Edzhigansk." Once a year at the melting of the snow, these souls appear amongst the dwellings of men in the shape of animals, invisible to all but the wizards themselves. Strong ones hurry about noisily, but the weak ones move furtively as though afraid. Sometimes they fight, and the sorcerer whose soul is worsted in the battle falls ill and may even die. The souls of cowardly wizards are in the form of dogs, and they give their human double no peace, but gnaw at his heart and tear his body. Powerful wizards have souls incarnate in stallions, elks, boars, eagles, and black bears.

The Samoyeds in the Turukhinsk region believe that sorcerers have a familiar in the shape of a boar, and that they lead him by a magic belt. If the boar dies the sorcerer too must die. Sometimes battles occur between sorcerers who send forth their familiars to encounter one another before they themselves meet in the flesh.

The Melanesians of Mota in the New Hebrides, call the soul the atai, and they believe that every person has[Pg 21] a second self which is visible and is, in fact, the reflection in animal form of his own personality. He and his atai would rejoice or grieve, live and die together.

Some of the Melanesians also believe that they have special relation to some animal or reptile with which their life is bound up and which is named tamaniu. The tamaniu, like the atai, has an objective and material existence.

When its owner wishes to injure anyone he sends his familiar to do so; if an eel it would tear or bite, if a shark probably swallow him. If the owner falls ill, he examines his familiar to discover what is wrong. The imps or familiars of witches embody the same idea.

Dr. W. H. R. Rivers quotes the case of a man whose tamaniu was a lizard[12]. The owner was blind and asked a friend to help him with the ceremony of examination. He told his friend to go and see the animal, using the words "Look at me," referring to the lizard as himself. The man went alone to the banyan tree where the lizard was to be found, but when he came there he was too frightened to call upon the animal. He was sent a second time in the company of the sick man's son and others, and when they reached the tree the man called out the lizard's name, Rosasangwowut, and the tamaniu appeared. It was a very large animal, larger than the ordinary lizards in Mota. It appeared to be sluggish and walked as a sick man would walk. The blind man's son then asked the tamaniu if it was ill and the creature nodded its head and moved slowly back to the tree. They went back and told the man that his familiar was ill, and soon afterwards he died. At the same time the banyan tree fell, which was taken as a sign that the tamaniu died too. This is an uncanny story which brings out strongly the psychic connection between the man and his representative animal.

[Pg 22]

In Melanesia a native doctor was once attending a patient when a large eagle hawk soared past the house and a hunter was about to shoot it when the doctor called out in alarm, "Don't fire, that is my spirit! If you kill it I shall die." He also said, "If you see a rat to-night, don't drive it away, it's my spirit, or a snake may come to-night, which will be my spirit." Apparently the doctor had the power to send his familiar in animal form for the purpose of working a cure.

At Ongek in the Gaboon a French missionary spent the night in the hut of a Fan chief. He was awakened before daylight by the rustling of dry leaves and, lighting a torch, perceived a huge black poisonous serpent, coiled and ready to strike. He was about to shoot the horrible reptile when his arm was suddenly struck up by the chief, who, extinguishing the torch, cried, "Don't fire, I beg of you. In killing the snake you would kill me. That serpent is my elangela. Fear nothing!" Speaking thus he seized and caressed the noisome reptile, which showed emotions of delight rather than fear or anger. Then the chief bore away his serpent and laid it in another hut, lying down beside it, after exhorting the missionary never to speak of what he had seen.[13]

From this occurrence it will easily be gathered that it is highly dangerous to kill a tamaniu, nagual, or manitou.

The possibility of the soul existing temporarily apart from the body is believed by most savages, and civilised races, such as the Romans, have held identical ideas. "The nagual," writes W. Northcote Thomas in his valuable article on Animals,[14] "is the lineal ancestor of the genius of the Romans, no less than of the guides of modern spiritualism." This statement gives ample food for thought.

[Pg 23]

At all periods of the world's history and in every country people have believed in the "external soul" of a man appearing in animal form. For instance, in the island of Florida the natives tell the story of an alligator which used to come out of the sea and visit the village in which the man whose ghost it was had dwelt. It was known by his name and was on friendly terms with the natives, allowing children to ride on its back.[15]

In Syria there are stories of girls being carried off by bears and giving birth to human-animal offspring. The Creeks believe the offspring to be bears which later turn into men. Japan is famous for its white bear-god and the Tartars believe that earth spirits take the form of bears.

The Gilyaks believe that if one of their race is killed by a bear, his soul transmigrates into the animal's body. Californian Indians have been heard to plead hard for the life of a she-bear. They said its wrinkled face was like the withered features of a dead grandmother whose soul had entered into the animal.

One of the Omaha clans believe they are descended from bison and the males wear their hair in imitation of the animal which is their totem.

The Ewe negroes of Togoland ascribe to the souls of buffaloes and leopards the power of killing the hunter who slew them, or of misleading him in the chase so that he confuses men with animals and gets into difficulties[Pg 24] from being accused of murdering the former. The souls of these dangerous animals are thought to haunt and plague the hunter, perhaps by making him crazy, so that when he finds his way back into the town he loses all his property and is sold into slavery. A quaint ceremony is performed to prevent such power emanating from the dead prey.

The Baganda natives are in deadly terror of the ghosts of the buffaloes they have killed, believing that they may work harm to them.

The crocodile especially has played a large part in these beliefs about human and ghostly animals.

Natives in Simbang, in German New Guinea, are convinced that their relatives turn into crocodiles, and they recognise a certain crocodile known by the name of "Old Butong" as head of the family. They say he was born of a woman. Mary Kingsley tells a similar story in her "Travels in West Africa," describing human beings, who, disguised as alligators, swim in the creeks, attack the canoes and carry off the crew. The natives believe in the spirit of the man actually possessing the animal's body.

In New Guinea and the East Indies as well as in West Africa crocodiles are thought to be the abodes of the souls of ancestors, and the victim of this dangerous reptile is said to have incurred the vengeance of some human being who has taken the form of the animal, while those who kill crocodiles become themselves transformed after death. Spenser's "cruell craftie crocodile" was held to be sacred in Egypt, and the god Sebek was said to take its shape whenever he so desired.

The Malagasy view is that the crocodile is the ally of a magician during his lifetime, and that he can send him forth as a familiar to wreak harm upon his enemies.

The alligator is closely allied to the crocodile. Among the legends of the Arawak Indians of British Guiana is one about a half human beast of this species which received its extraordinary markings in the following[Pg 25] manner: Arawadi, the sun-god, coming to earth saw an alligator disporting himself on the banks of a stream which he had preserved specially for fish. To get rid of the enemy he seized and smote him with a hard club upon the head and tail, but the alligator, crying out to him to stay his hand, promised in return for clemency a beauteous water-sprite to be his bride. Arawadi agreed to the proposal.

The domestic animals, bulls, cows, horses, asses, cats, and dogs, have been regarded at one time or another as gifted with human powers, or as suitable vehicles for the reception of human souls. The Tlaxcallans believe that man can be transformed into a dog. The wild dog, the coyote, according to the ideas of the Navajos, may be a bad man transformed at death for his sins.

Armenians sacrifice an ass at the graves of people who owe them money, their belief being that if payment is not forthcoming the ancestor's souls will enter asses' bodies.

The Corn Spirit is supposed to take the form of a cat, and in some places in Germany children have been warned not to go into the corn-fields because "The cat sits there." In Silesia the reaper who cuts the last corn is called the "Tom-cat" and is dressed up in rye-stalks, wearing a long plaited tail. Sometimes another man accompanies him called "the female cat."

The Lapps of the North Cape are said to consult a black cat when in trouble, and they regard it more as a human being than as an animal.

The cat is among the soul-animals familiar to the inhabitants of the British Islands, who, owing to this country's immunity from wild beasts, are satisfied to[Pg 26] "humanise" the milder species of creatures such as the ant, butterfly, gull, moth, sparrow, and swan.

In the parish of Ballymoyer in Ireland butterflies are said to be the souls of grandfathers, whilst the Malagasy trace their descent from a moth, believing that a man was changed into a moth when he died. Many races believe that moths and butterflies are the souls of the dead.

In the Solomon Islands, if a native declared he intended to transmigrate into a butterfly, his children, on seeing one of these insects would cry "That is Daddy" and make some suitable offering of food. Witches have been known to have butterflies and moths as familiars.

In Cornwall ants are thought to be the souls of children who died without baptism. Hindus also associate this insect with the souls of the dead, and natives of New Guinea believe that a second death occurs after the first and that the soul is transformed into an ant.

The Athabascan Dog-Ribs believe that an ant inserted beneath the skin of the palm endows the owner of the hand with the gift of prophecy.

The Sudanese think that a wer-man has to approach an ants' nest before being transformed into a hyæna.

Besides the ant the bat is regarded as a mysterious creature, and this form was frequently assumed by Chamalcan, god of the Cakchiquels. Large bats abound in an island on the Ivory Coast in West Africa and are regarded as embodying the souls of the dead. In Tonga the same superstition holds good. Bats and birds appear so similar when flying at dusk that it is natural to find that birds also are often the form in which human spirits take wing.

The Warrar races of Guiana have a very poetical belief about the spirits of the departed. They visit the fair isle of Trinidad,

[Pg 27]

The Arawaks believe that vultures belong to a race which lives in a country above the sky. When at home the vultures cease to be birds and assume the shape and habits of human beings.

The Kalitas hold that when a man dies his soul is carried to spirit-land by a little bird, and if he has been an evil-doer during his lifetime, a hawk overtakes and swallows the bird.

In County Mayo swans are the souls of virgins who have been remarkable for the purity of their lives. This idea is as beautiful as the Bohemian tradition that children hop about the meadows in the form of frogs is quaint.

An old Hindu story that monkeys were originally men has a distinctly comic side to it. They contracted debts and when called upon to pay fled from their creditors by changing into monkeys and putting their tails between their legs. In this undignified position they made off at full speed into the jungle.

The stories of human souls in various animal bodies would fill a volume, and perhaps one of the most picturesque ideas of the kind is that of the Cornish fisherfolk who say they see the spirits of their drowning companions transformed into animal shapes as they pass away from this earth.

[Pg 28]

The ceremonial dances and festivals of primitive races in which animal masks and skins are used are closely connected with the idea of ancestor worship and with transformation. After careful study of the subject it will be regarded as certain that the performers, by means of mimic action, rhythmic and imitative sounds, as well as by narcotic drugs and pungent or penetrating perfumes, induce in themselves an hypnotic or excited state in which they believe they change into the actual animal they represent.

Some of the dances are infinitely elaborate in detail, and are so complicated in their various figures and their symbolic intention that primitive ideas are almost lost sight of, but a certain fundamental similarity can be found in them all which is based on root ideas of animal worship, the desire to propitiate animals in the chase, the belief in animal gods, or spirits of ancestors appearing in animal form and the desire to bring about, by sacrifice and offering, the fertility of the species.

Such exercises are both religious and magical, to secure charms against bodily ills, and for good hunting as well as for recreation. In special family dances the performers mimic the actions and cries of their totemic animals.

In its most primitive form the animal disguise was used by savages when acting in the capacity of a decoy, with the object of securing food and clothing. The early Indian when trapping buffalo went forth carrying a dress made of the skin of a buffalo, wearing its head[Pg 29] and horns over his own head. As soon as he had induced the herd to pursue him, he led them into a trap or ambush, or over a precipice which was fatal to many of them.

The Eskimo, when hunting the seal, wears a sealskin garment which makes him look so much like his prey that at a distance he is only distinguished from it with difficulty. When close to the animal he utters sounds like those of a blowing seal.

Also when hunting deer he imitates their grunt, and two hunters on the same track carry guns on their shoulders to resemble the animal's antlers. Zuni hunters after deer wear cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the back and front of the shirt being coloured so as to represent the animal's body, the arms stained to represent the deer's forelegs. Head and antlers are carried on the shoulders, and the stalkers approach the game, browsing as they go.

Out of the simple imitation of animal motions and cries for the purpose of decoy, the dance grew more complicated, with wild whirling figures and elaborate dresses and masks. From a useful and necessary disguise for purposes of obtaining food, the wolf-robe and mask became, in unscrupulous hands, an instrument for personal aggrandisement and gain through intimidation. The hideous animal-mask was first used as a shield or protection for the face in defence against the onslaught upon an opposing force. Then it became an instrument with which to inspire terror and fear in those who beheld it from the point of view of its ugliness or frightfulness, and finally it was worn as a device or symbol of superhuman agencies. At this stage it formed an integral part of the paraphernalia used in religious performances, and when worn during ceremonial the wearer became imbued in some mysterious manner with the spirit of the being represented by the mask.

To gain the characteristics of an animal a wizard attached crow and owl plumes to his head, that he might[Pg 30] have the eyes of a crow and quickly become aware of the approach of man, or of the owl that he might travel by night.

A Zuni man, hearing the hoot of an owl, yet recognising it as human, discovered one of his own race hidden in the thicket. "Ah," he cried, "why do you wear those plumes upon your head? Aha! you must be a wizard!"

The Omaha coyote dance is performed by warriors to keep up their spirits. Each dancer wears an animal skin, and imitates the action of a coyote, trotting and glancing round. In dance and song the performers imagine themselves to be transformed into the animal. In the Omaha buffalo dance, four men are attired in great shaggy skins, the horns above their heads and the hair hanging down below the chest. Other dances are in imitation of wolves, grizzly bears, horses or tigers.

Pawnees dance the bison dance in war habit and with bison skins and horns over their heads. The Creeks dance similarly, uttering sounds in imitation of the bison, their bodies bent almost double and two staffs being held to represent the animal's forelegs.

The initiation day has at its root the idea of transforming the man into a member of the kin by giving him a share of the nature of the animal. Dances may give magical power over the animal to be chased, and are performed before a hunting expedition. In the dance the animal goes down before the onslaught of the hunter, and so the real animal, it is hoped, will fall a victim to his weapons. Dances after hunting are of a protective nature, so that the soul of the slaughtered animal may have no evil effect upon the slayer. Another form of animal dance is performed with a view to increase the number of animals. Among the Mandan Indians, for instance, an animal festival is held, at which a man, painted black to represent the evil one, enters a village from the prairie, chases and terrifies the women and acts the part of a buffalo in a dance which is intended[Pg 31] to ensure a good supply of this valuable animal during the year to come. Other American tribes have a similar masquerade, in which males, dressed in buffalo skins, take the part of male buffaloes and the females personify the female animals, with a view to bringing about an increase of the species.

Legendary animals, or spirits, are also represented in the elaborate masked pantomimes of the Indian tribes in North West America. The explanation given by the natives is that the ceremonial was instituted in ancient days when man had still the form of an animal; and before the great transformer had given him a distinctive shape. This ceremonial, performed by man-animals, is a dramatised form of myth, in which the actors attempt to reproduce certain trance-states by sympathetic mimicry.

The Eskimos of Bering Strait perform remarkable dances in which curious mythological beasts, said to inhabit sea and land, become visible and occasionally play a part. Strange forms, probably of known animals modified and adapted, are conjured to appear. The dance is based on the old belief that in the early days all animate beings had a dual existence, choosing to be men or animals as the will prompted them. If an animal wished to be transformed into a man, the body was drawn erect and the foreleg or wing was raised so that it pushed up the jowl or beak, and thus changed the form and features into something more manlike. It is still believed by these races that animals have this power, and the form taken is called inua and represents the psychical part of the creature, at death appearing as its shade. The wizards are said to have the power of piercing the animal mask and recognising the human features it conceals.

Masks may also represent totemic animals, and the dancers are then transformed into these special creatures, or at least are moved by their spiritual essence.

Some of these masks are made with double faces, so that the muzzle of the animal fits over and conceals the[Pg 32] face of the inua and the outer mask is hinged on or held in place by pegs so that it may be removed at any minute. The psychological moment when actual transformation occurs is symbolised at a particular part of the ceremony.

The wearer of the mask then becomes imbued with the true spirit of the animal represented, and the dance turns into a species of thanksgiving for the hunter's success.[16]

Dancing is sometimes used as a form of exorcism.

In Abyssinia a disorder similar to that of being possessed by a bouda, or sorcerer, is called tigritiya, and is a supposed possession by the devil in which the victim, who is generally a woman, believes that she has been transformed into an animal. Whatever the patient demands must be procured, for else she becomes sulky and, covering up her head, remains for days without eating or speaking. Since the symptoms always include the wasting away of the attacked person, this state is very dangerous.

Ornaments of all kinds have to be borrowed in answer to her lightest whim. She asks for the lion's skin worn by a warrior, his silver ornaments, or other valuable articles difficult to procure. In some cases music is used as a means of charming away the tigritiya. Drums and other instruments strike up and the patient moves her body in time to the music and gradually increases her energy until the pace is furious and her motions so violent that it seems likely she will dislocate her limbs, if not her neck. Having lain on a bed of sickness, reduced to a mere bag of bones, such fatiguing exercises appear uncanny, but it is on this dancing and on her incantations that the ejection of the evil spirit depends.

Some of the dances imitate the antics of bush-hogs and other animals desirous of fun rather than of injury to human beings. In one of the Acawoio dances, each[Pg 33] dancer has a kind of trumpet to which a rudely carved figure of some animal or reptile is fixed, and he impersonates this animal for the time being.[17]

Musical instruments used in the dances are frequently made of animal skins, and the Indians attribute special virtues to the wolf-skin.

It is said that a tom-tom or drum made of this animal's skin can silence any similar instrument made of sheep's skin from which no man can emit a sound while the wolf-skin vibrates.

Real animals often play a part in the ceremonial, especially snakes in the serpent dances and sacred animals in such dances as are dedicated to their worship.

In China a big dog is dressed up like a man and is carried round in a palanquin to break up a drought.

Masks and animal skins worn at dances are, of course, not confined to the use of primitive races, but have been employed since ancient days in every kind of masque, dance, and pantomime. Much might be written on their symbolic meaning, and attention may be drawn to the special instance of the festa asinaria of mediæval days at which dancers wore the heads of asses.

Besides the masks and animal skins, ordinary clothing was often made to represent special animals. For instance, at Athens, Artemis was worshipped in ceremonies at which young maidens attired in saffron gowns danced a particular movement and were called "bears."

The Royal family of Dahomey worship the leopard, and some of the king's wives are distinguished by the title of "leopard wives" and wear striped cloths to resemble the animal.

Many savages paint a rude picture of the animal they represent upon the clothes worn, and this is a special feature of some of the extraordinary snake dancers, especially amongst the Moquis.

These dances as well as those of the Hopis are expressions of clan totemism rather than of snake worship.[Pg 34] Several figures in the Maya codices represent human beings, evidently personifying deities and wearing the symbolic masks of animal gods. One of the human figures in the Codex Cortesianus wears the mask of a snake. The Hopi usually carries only the head of the animal personified, but the Mexican dresses in the skin. In some examples the head-dress is most elaborate, the head being painted green, with open mouth and red lips dotted with black, two pendant white, tooth-shaped projections hanging from the upper jaw. From the mouth a red tongue lolls. The eye is oval, with curved lines drawn upon the pupil, and the whole is capped by a crescentic figure towering above the head. Three triangular-shaped plumes extend from the cap, and over the nose a red-coloured flap hangs. Though usually green, the heads are sometimes painted white or brown, but none is red or yellow. In the Hopi folk-tales it is said that the waters of the world come from the breasts of the great snake, and sometimes a female figure, bearing a snake as a head-dress, is symbolised with water flowing from her breasts. Another symbolic figure has a snake's body with curious markings and a head practically drawn in identical lines with that of a human being. No doubt this represents a man transformed into, or personifying, a snake. At any rate, he wears the mask and represents the feathered snake ceremonially.

A number of animals are represented in Tusayan ceremonials and are then called Katcinas, which means the supernatural being personified, as well as the dance or act of personification. Besides the coyote, the wolf, the cougar, the bear, the antelope, and the badger, which figure largely among the supernatural beings found in the Sia ritual, the hawk, the man eagle, the bee, butterfly, mountain sheep, and owl all play an important part in Tusayan ceremonial. No women wear Katcina masks in a Hopi ceremony, the female Katcinas being invariably represented by men. The[Pg 35] masked dances amongst the Pueblos, in which animal personifications take place and masks are worn, are called Katcina dances. They take place between January and August.[18]

The following strange ceremony is practised by Mexicans and is not unlike the Hopi snake dance. It is celebrated once in every eight years about October or November.

After fasting for some days, says one who has seen the dance, the natives disguised themselves in all manner of animal and bird dresses, and came up dancing to the chosen spot where the rain-god had been placed before a pool of water in which live snakes and frogs were swimming. The Macateca, which may be rendered "those from Deerland," then seized upon the wriggling reptiles with the mouth, never touching them with the hand, and attempted to swallow them alive, dancing all the time. He who managed to swallow the first snake cried out, "papa, papa" and danced round about the temple. After two days of these extraordinary exertions a procession was formed and all marched slowly four times round the temple. Then came a feast of fruit and pastry which had been placed ready in baskets for the purpose, and the ceremonial was ended. The old men and women present, knowing that there would be no repetition of the dance for eight years, wept bitterly at the close of the performance.

In a festival in vogue among the Cholutecas, a slave of good figure, and no personal blemish, is dressed for forty days in the same animal skin and mask which represent the special god to be personified.

The dresses of the Moquis during their serpent dances are fashioned of painted cotton kilts, of a reddish-yellow colour, decorated with narrow bands of yellow and green, and bordered by a narrow black stripe. At the bottom is a fringe of small bells of lead or tin. A[Pg 36] snake is painted in the folds of the kilt, covered with white spots and bordered by narrow white lines. The arms and legs of the dancers are naked, but dangling to their heels behind they wear skins of the fox or coyote.

Marching solemnly round a sacred stone, they begin by shaking rattles and waving snake-wands to which eagle feathers are attached. After some chanting, a number of women, dressed in white and red mantles, come forward and scatter corn-meal from baskets with which they are provided. Presently the head priest, followed by a number of male performers, marching two and two, come forward towards the sacred rock, carrying live snakes in their mouths and hands. Some of the Indians tickle the heads, necks, and jaws of the wriggling serpents to distract their attention from those who are grasping their bodies firmly between their teeth.

When the snake-carriers reach the further end of the space cleared for the dance they spit the snakes out upon the ground and, facing the sacred rock, stamp the left foot twice, giving forth strange sounds, half grunt, half wail.

For nearly an hour this mad dance of wriggling snakes, rushing figures, and clouds of whirling corn-meal continues and then the snakes are released, the symbolic dance is over and the performers resume their ordinary clothes and, presumably, their natural human proclivities. The origin of this dance lies in the belief that the Moquis are descended from snakes and is told thus by the natives:—

"Many years ago the Moquis used to live on the other side of a high mountain beyond the San Juan River in Colorado. The chief thought he would take a trip down the big river, so he made himself a boat of a hollow cottonwood log, took some provisions and started down. The stream carried him to the sea-shore, where he found some shells. When he arrived on the beach[Pg 37] he saw a number of houses on the cliff in which lived many men and women who had white under their eyes, and below that a white mark on their cheeks. That night he took one of the women as his wife. Shortly after his return the woman gave birth to snakes, and this was the origin of the snake family or clan which manages the dance. When she gave birth to these snakes they bit a number of the children of the Moquis. The Moquis then moved in a body to their present villages and they have this dance to conciliate the snakes so they won't bite their children."[19]

Snake worship and ancestor or spirit worship seems here combined in the same rite, and the Moquis evidently believe in the transmigration of souls. The dancers belong to a Secret Society, a sort of Serpent Brotherhood.

The peculiar qualities said to distinguish departed relatives, reappearing in the form of snakes, from the ordinary reptiles are that they will frequent the huts, never eat mice and show no fear of man. "Sometimes," says Sir John Lubbock in his "Origin of Civilisation,"[20] "a snake is recognised as the representative of a given man by some peculiar mark or scar, the absence of an eye, or some similar point of resemblance."

The noiseless movement and the rapid action of the serpent, combined with its fascinating gaze and magnetic power, no doubt lead savages to view it as a possessor of wisdom and embodiment of spirits.

The Kobena and other Indians of Brazil perform masked dances in honour of their dead. They have a butterfly dance in which two performers represent large blue butterflies fluttering in the sunshine. Darting swallows are also mimicked by masked dancers, as well as vultures, owls, fish, jaguars, and, curiously enough, the sloth, in which dance a man hangs for a long time to the bough of a tree or the cross-beam of a hut. Another[Pg 38] strange sight is the sandfly dance, in which a swarm of masked men make the air dark with their antics.

All these performances are based on certain magical formulæ. A mysterious force permeates the dancer, beneath his mask, and for the time being he has become a mighty animal demon or spirit, capable of unlimited powers.

[Pg 39]

In remote ages man and animal were closely bound by a thousand ties. Under barbaric conditions human beings and animals lived, as it were, in touch with one another, they were next-door neighbours in the primeval forests, their necessities were the same to a large extent and their tastes did not widely differ. Both were actuated by the need of shelter, food, and protection against enemies. Is it surprising, then, that primitive man was closely allied to his less intelligent brothers, and that he believed them to be endowed with feelings and desires akin to his own?

Owing to his powers of mental growth, however, it was not long before man's instincts developed above those of the beasts. He was still, in reality, a savage animal, but he had more skill and ingenuity in the art of killing, as soon as he began to realise that a stick, a stone, or other weapons could be used to beat out the life of other animals.

Gradually he found out that he possessed higher qualities on the mental plane, and that he had the power of conscious spiritual development which was apparently denied to brute creatures.

Many writers have endeavoured to formulate the great kinship which exists amongst all created beings in this particular aspect of the evolution of soul.

"There is not any matter, nor any spirit, nor any creature, but it is capable of a unity of some kind with other creatures," writes Ruskin;[21] "and in that unity is its perfection and theirs, and a pleasure also for the[Pg 40] beholding of all other creatures that can behold. So the unity of spirits is partly in their sympathy and partly in their giving and taking, and always in their love; and these are their delight and their strength; for their strength is their co-working and army fellowship, and their delight is in their giving and receiving of alternate and perpetual good; their inseparable dependancy on each other's being, and their essential and perfect depending on their Creator's."

"Let us label beings by what they are," says a more modern writer,[22] "by the souls that are in them and the deeds they do—not by their colour, which is pigment, nor by their composition, which is clay. There are philanthropists in feathers and patricians in fur, just as there are cannibals in the pulpit and saurians among the money-changers."

The great seer, Prentice Mulford, believed that the spirit of an animal could actually be re-embodied in a man or woman, and he thought that its prominent characteristics would appear in that man or woman. The mother might attract to her the spirit of some more intelligent or highly developed savage animal. That spirit would then lose its identity as a quadruped and reappear in the body of the new-born child.

"Remember," he writes, "that as to size and shape the spirit of a horse need not be like the horse materialised in flesh and blood. Spirit takes hold of a mass of matter and holds that matter in accordance with its ruling desire and the amount of its intelligence. An anaconda is but the faint spark of intelligence only awakened into desire to swallow and digest. Such low forms of life as the reptile or fish have not even awakened into affection for their young. The reptile, as to spirit or intellect, is but a remove from the vegetable. Trees have life of their own; they are gregarious, and grow in communities. The spirit of the old tree reanimates the new one. There is in the vegetable kingdom the[Pg 41] unconscious desire for refinement, for better forms of life. For this reason is the entire vegetable kingdom of a finer type than ages ago, when the world's trees and plants, though immense in size, were coarse in fibre and in correspondence with the animal life about them."

The true evolution, then, is that of spirit, taking on itself through successive ages many re-embodiments and adding to itself some new quality with each re-embodiment.

The survival of the fittest implies that the best qualities so gathered do survive. The lower, coarse and more savage are gradually sloughed off. The best qualities in all animal forms of life eventually are gathered in a man. He has so gained or absorbed into himself courage from the lion, cunning from the fox, rapaciousness from vulture and eagle. You often see the eagle or vulture beak on one person's face, the bulldog on that of another, the wolf, the fox, and so on. Faces hang out no false sign of the character of the spirit. Man, unconsciously recognising this, uses the terms "foxy," "wolfish," "snaky," and even "hoggish," in describing the character of certain individuals.[23]

Most people are able to find physical similarities between human beings and animals. The equine man who moves his ears is not rarely to be met with. The person who uncovers his canine teeth in a snarl is an even more common type. Short women who flap their arms and waddle in the style of penguins; tall ones who have the graceful sliding movement of the giraffe; persons of either sex who jerk along with hops like feathered creatures on a lawn are all to be met with any day.

Mrs. Heron stalks in with solemnity and stateliness, and cranes her neck to find something she has mislaid. She has a prying face, sharp nose, and small projecting chin.

[Pg 42]

Lion faces, tiger faces, cat faces, fox faces, fish faces, bird faces, sheep faces, and rat faces meet us at every turn.

Sheep men are mild in appearance, beaming with amiability, truthfulness, and freedom from cant. Ox faces are more robust, with wider and broader features, and a certain flatness of face. People of this appearance have good dispositions, good appetite, are stubborn in bargains perhaps, but reliable and trustworthy.

Hercules was depicted with a powerful neck, a small head, short and curly hair, which bore a striking resemblance to a vigorous and untamable bull, whilst Herod was like a fox, with thin face, cunning eye, restless head and neck, artful and deceptive with highly strung nerves.

The weasel man is thin, tall, sharp-eyed, always in a hurry, and the nose that augurs badly is that which is strikingly similar to the beak of a parrot. The parrot-man is filled with a sense of his own importance and is an endless prattler. Those who have a high and narrow forehead and a nose that terminates like the beak of a crow are sure to be subject to vile passions.

Beaumarchais said wittily, "Boire sans soif et faire l'amour en tout temps, c'est ce que distingue l'homme de la bête."

Artists, too, have attempted to depict the animal spirit that dwells in human beings. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted two portraits of young girls, one holding a cage with a mouse in it, the other a kitten. The former is called Muscipula,[24] the latter Felina, and it may be surmised that he intended to show in their features the imitative sympathy young children have with young animals, for Muscipula's expression is that of the mouse.

Charles Le Brun, the artist, worked out the same idea in a less symbolic and more practical manner, from the physiognomical aspect, in his series of drawings illustrative of the relation between human physiognomy and brute creation which depict man's features transformed[Pg 43] in many animal countenances.

"Man is a talkative and religious ape," says J. Howard Moore in "The Universal Kinship,"[25] and goes on to point out that while man has expressed his opinion about animals constantly, he has never had the opportunity of hearing what animals have to say about human beings. Although we know what a lion looks like when painted by a man, "human eyes have never yet been illumined by the sardonic lineaments of a man painted by a lion."[26]

Emerson expressed something of the same idea when confronting the inmates of a stable or menagerie. "What compassion," he cries, "do these imprisoning forms awaken! You may sometimes catch the glance of a dog which lays a kind of claim to sympathy and brotherhood. What! somewhat of me down there? Does he know it? Can he, too, as I, go out of himself, see himself, perceive relations? We fear lest the poor brute should gain one dreadful glimpse of his condition, should learn in some moment the tough limitation of this fettering organisation. It was in this glance that Ovid got the hint of his metamorphosis; Calidasa of his transmigration of souls.

"For these fables are our own thoughts carried out. What keeps these wild tales in circulation for thousands of years? What but the wild fact to which they suggest some approximation of theory! Nor is the fact quite solitary, for in varieties of our own species where organisation seems to predominate over the genius of man, in Kalmuck or Malay or Flathead Indian, we are sometimes pained by the same feeling; and sometimes, too, the sharp-witted prosperous white man awakens it. In a mixed assembly we have chanced to see not only a glance at Abdiel so grand and keen, but also in other faces the features of the mink, of the bull, of the rat, and the barn-door fowl."[27]

[Pg 44]

The great Chinese Epic "A Journey to Heaven," depicts the gradual evolution of the beast into man and the transformation of character from unpromising materials into saints worthy of heaven. The monkey's ambition, the pig's love of ease and the horse's one talent of bearing burdens are all made to play their part in working out the salvation of man. One of the chief characters in the story is Sun Wu King, who personates the irrepressible human mind, an inventive genius full of resource who begins with monkey inquisitiveness to discover the reasons of things and presently develops into a man of science and an inventor.

The pig impersonates man's lower nature and demons represent the untamed passions of man. One demon having once been a clever, handsome man, became extremely ugly with a snout like a pig and long flapping ears. He tells his story thus: "Since I was born I have been stupid and loved ease night and day. I received the pill of nine Transformations and studied all the arts by which man could be united to the powers above and below, till at last I was able to fly with a light but strong body and was a guest in the celestial Court." Thence he was thrown out for misdemeanours and made to take the shape of a pig, but gradually he was weaned to better things and lost his animal propensities.

[Pg 45]

According to the tradition of the scapegoat, the evil or lower side of man can be transferred from him to an animal. In this process of removing disease or sin, the bad spirit is expelled from the human being and enters the form of some beast. In India the scape-animal may be a pig, buffalo, a goat or a black cock.

The Jews had the custom of bringing a goat to the door of the Tabernacle and the high priest laid the sins of the people upon the animal, sending it thereafter away with its burden into the wilderness.

In Thibet a human scapegoat, dressed in goat's skin, is kicked out of the community as soon as the people have confessed their sins, and wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables as a vehicle for the evil spirits to enter into which might otherwise injure their horses.

The Kaffirs sometimes take a goat in the presence of a sick man and confess sins over him. Then a few drops of the patient's blood are allowed to fall on the animal's head and the sickness is thought to be transferred, the animal being turned loose over the veld. The medicine-men of the Baganda races perform a similar operation, taking hold of the animal and tying upon it some herbs they have passed over the patient's body. Then the animal is driven away to waste land, and the sick man is supposed to recover. The Baganda people transmit the sins of a dead man to a calf, the animal being led three times round the bier and the hand of the dead man being placed on its head, by which act the calf takes upon[Pg 46] itself the evil done by the deceased. Then the scapegoat is driven on to waste land, where it cannot contaminate anybody.

Thus Christ, in the country of the Gadarenes, permitted devils to use swine as scapegoats when driving them out of two men possessed. The unclean spirits besought the favour of Him, and the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

St. Regulus, archbishop of Arles and Senlis, was once confronted by a man possessed of a devil. The devil besought him, saying, "If you cast me out suffer me to enter into the body of this ass," and the bishop said, "Go!" When the devil was about to enter into the ass, the animal, aware of his intention, made the sign of the cross on the ground with his fore-foot and the devil found it impossible to obtain his body and had to pass on, leaving the ass unmolested.

In another scapegoat story the devil leaves the possessed man in the form of two worms:

Jean de la Roque was a young nobleman of vicious habits. St. Francis of Paula hearing of the youth's evil ways sent a messenger to arrest him and had him locked up in a monastery. Roque was furious at this manner of tampering with his liberty and, vowing vengeance on those who detained him, beat on the door of his cell and uttered loud cries. At last, exhausted by passion, he lay down on the floor and slept. Then St. Francis entered the cell and, waking the young sinner, said to him coldly, "How now, friend, what thinkest thou? Pull from thine ear that which torments thee so." The young man, still half asleep, put his hand to his right ear and drew forth a hideous hairy worm of monstrous size. Then putting his hand to his left ear he drew forth another similar worm. Thus the devil by which he had been possessed came forth in the form of two worms, and the young man, returning to himself, threw himself at the saint's feet and prayed for pardon. He[Pg 47] was formally admitted to the monastery and remained there as a monk until 1520.

Birds, too, have been employed to carry away any evil,—from leprosy to freckles.

The idea of the scapegoat is closely bound up with, and typifies the substitution of the Christ for sinners and His eternal removal of their transgressions.

In the legends of the saints, also, animals take upon themselves the burden of sins committed and no human beings are more closely related to the brute creation than the holy men, who frequently treated them as though they were brothers. St. Francis of Assisi spoke to birds and animals in the same tone that he used to his friends, and he often went into solitudes and preached to the cattle of the field, the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the forest; dumb creatures which listened attentively to the words of wisdom which fell from his lips. One day when he was preaching at Alviano, the swallows were twittering so loudly that he grew annoyed. Breaking off suddenly in his discourse, he said, "My sisters, the swallows, please keep peace while I am preaching." After that they disturbed him no more.

There are many stories in which saints are assisted in their work by animals. St. Gentius made a wolf which had eaten one of his oxen help him with the ploughing. St. Maidoc, having neither ox, horse nor ass, ordered a sea-cow to come from the ocean, which she did and, being harnessed to the plough, she furrowed his fields. When St. Malo settled down near Saintes, the neighbours made him a present of an ass, which was one day killed by a wolf. St. Malo said to the wild beast, "Since you have killed my ass you must serve me instead." The wolf performed his duties admirably for many years without a grumble. A similar story is told about St. Santes of Urbino.

When St. Ronan was accused of being a vampire, Grallo, King of Quimper, horrified to hear of such a[Pg 48] monster, set dogs upon him to prove the truth of the statement. As the savage animals rushed towards him the saint raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross, and said, "Stop! in the name of the Lord." The animals became gentle at once and fawned on the saint.

There are legends of the souls of saints being borne away by animals, of the souls of saints taking flight in the shape of birds, of saints changing from one animal form to another, of saints being approached by the devil in the form of animals, and of saints being worshipped in animal shape.

At the moment of the death of St. Vincent Ferrer, the windows of his bedchamber opened of their own accord and a number of winged creatures no larger than butterflies, white in colour and very beautiful, flew into the house. As the saint drew his last breath these winged creatures disappeared suddenly, leaving a delightful perfume behind them. Everyone was convinced that the butterflies were angels who had come to carry away the pure soul of the saint to paradise.

The same saint was said to be able to assume wings, whenever he wished, and, in the form of a bird-angel, to fly through the air in the hope of consoling and comforting anyone who was in trouble and required his assistance.

St. Benedict (A.D. 480-543) was tempted by the devil in the form of a blackbird. The saint had retired to a cavern in Subiaco, about fifty miles west of Rome, and the evil one resolved to do away with a holy man who might prove a great enemy to his kingdom upon earth. Taking the form of a bird, he hovered around the hermit's dwelling-place, sometimes approaching so close that the saint had only to put out his hand to touch the bird. Becoming suspicious of the bird's motives, however, St. Benedict made the sign of the cross and the evil spirit vanished instantly.

St. Peter of Verona was also set upon by the devil, this time in the shape of a horse. The holy man attracted[Pg 49] large crowds to his church, and the devil, growing jealous, rushed into the midst of the congregation in the form of a black horse, stamping upon many present and causing a panic of fear among the rest. The saint made the sign of the cross and the phantom vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Sometimes the devil appears to saints in the form of a bull, and can work serious bodily harm, as in the case of St. Catherine of Sweden, daughter of prince Ulpho, who was brought up in the convent of Risburgh. The abbess was at matins one morning and the devil, assuming the form of a bull, tossed the child out of its cradle and left her half-dead in the middle of the floor. The abbess found her in this condition on her return, and the bull, addressing the holy woman, cried, "I should certainly have finished my work if God had permitted it," and then he vanished. The devil, according to tradition, has often been seen in the form of a dog,[28] and some of the saints were annoyed by such phantoms.

Simon Magus, the sorcerer, sent unto Peter the Apostle certain devils in the likeness of dogs to devour him. St. Peter, "not looking for such currish guests, consecrates certain morsels of bread and throws them to the dog-devils, and by the power of that bread they are all put to flight."[29]

When St. Stanislaus Kostka was preparing for admission into the society of Jesus he was taken ill and the devil appeared to him in the guise of a great black dog. The demon took the sick man three times by the throat and tried to throttle him, but Stanislaus after some difficulty succeeded in driving him away by making the sign of the cross.

Devils in the guise of rooks or crows annoyed St. Agnes of Mount Pulciano by attacking her with beaks, claws, and wings. The young girl with great presence of mind invoked the name of the Saviour and the whole flock[Pg 50] flew off.

St. Pascal Baylon, who lived from 1540-1592, was assailed by devils in the guise of various animals. Sometimes they rushed upon him in the form of lions and tigers seeking to devour him. As he withstood their attacks with wonderful courage they tried to get at him in another way, and offered to impress upon his body the marks of divine wounds, making crosses of blood on various parts of his body. Then Pascal, horrified at this form of deception, cried out to the evil one, "You ravening wolf, how dare you take upon yourself the clothing of a lamb? Away with you!" This speech acted as an exorcism, and the devil vanished.

The evil one has often been likened to a ravening wolf, which has led to the symbolic form of transformation from a wolf to a lamb being found in many legends—a mental change as extreme in its effects as any physical change could be. Andrew Corcini, afterwards Bishop of Fiesole, was converted in this figurative sense from a wolf into a lamb. He was the son of wealthy parents in Florence, and, shortly after his birth, in 1302, his mother dreamt that she had brought forth a wolf and that her wolfish offspring ran into a church and became transformed into a lamb. As the boy grew, his wolfish character was clearly apparent; he was cruel, selfish, and untamable. One day his mother said to him, "Andrew, you are in very truth the child of my dream," and then she told him what she thought of him. He was greatly struck by her story and spent the night in solitude and prayer. The next day he went to the church of the Carmelites and, prostrating himself before the image of the Virgin, he said, "Glorious Virgin, see the wolf full of iniquity at thy feet. Thy offspring, oh mother, was a Lamb without blemish. Make me also a lamb of God, and receive me into the fold." For three hours he prayed without ceasing, and then the prior found him and acceded to his request to be taken into the Carmelite order, when[Pg 51] he became a changed man.[30] He died in 1373.

St. William of Acquitaine was also "converted from a wolf to a lamb" (A.D. 1157). He was Count of Poitou and Duke of Guyenne, a giant in stature and a wild beast in disposition. Through the holy offices of St. Bernard he became changed, and calling himself "the chief of sinners" repented of his evil ways in sackcloth and ashes.[31]

These cases of spiritual transformation from animal-man to man-animal, though interesting psychologically, do not awaken the intense curiosity which material metamorphosis arouses, and which centres especially in the subject of the wer-wolf.

Bodin[32] accumulated a large amount of evidence in favour of actual transformation. He quotes one Pierre Mamor, who, whilst in Savoy, deposed to having seen a man change into a wolf and described how he did it. Henry of Cologne, author of a treatise, "de Lamys," vouched for the truth of similar statements. Ulrich le Meusnier, who dedicated a treatise to the Emperor Sigismund, gave numerous examples of the veritability of transformation, and swore to having seen a wer-wolf at Constance, who was accused of and executed for this crime. Germany, Greece, and Asia were much infested by these pests. In 1542, under the rule of Sultan Suleiman, a number of wer-wolves were found at Constantinople. The Emperor called out the guard and, marching forth at its head, freed the city of one hundred and fifty of these terrors in full view of the people.

Paracelsus, one of the greatest occultists the world has known, was positive that men could change into animals. Gaspar Peucerus, who had long been sceptical and thought such ideas were a fable, was constrained to believe there was truth in certain stories brought to him by merchants trading in Livonia, who had seen victims[Pg 52] of lycanthropia executed for their misdeeds.

In the history of Johannus Trithemius, it may be read that in the year 970 there was a Jew called Baian, son of Simeon, who was not only able to turn into a wolf at pleasure, but could also render himself invulnerable, and Sigebertus, the historian, wrote that one of the Kings of Bulgaria was able to transform himself into all kinds of animals.

Boguet, if anything, erred on the side of credulity. He asserted that in 1148 a huge man-wolf was seen at Geneva, which killed thirty people.[33]

In July, 1603, in the district of Douvres and Jeurre a great storm of hail fell and damaged all the fruit trees, and three mysterious wolves were seen. They had no tails, and they passed harmlessly through a herd of cows and goats, touching none of them except one kid, which one of the wolves carried to a distance without in any way injuring it. This unnatural conduct made it fairly evident that these were not real wolves, but sorcerers who had brought about the hail-storm and wished to visit the scene of the disaster. It was said that the biggest wolf that led the pack must be the evil one himself.

The two stories which follow show that transformation was sometimes regarded as an instrument of divine punishment for sins committed.

Albertus Pericofcius in Muscovy treated his subjects with gross cruelty, and extorted herds and flocks from them. One night he was away from home and all his cattle were killed. When informed of his loss he swore a round oath, saying, "Let him who has slain, eat; if the Lord chooses, let him devour me as well."

At his words some drops of blood fell to the ground, he was transformed into a wild dog, and rushing upon his dead cattle began to devour the carcases.

Another gentleman in the vicinity of Prague who had robbed his tenants right and left took the last cow from a widow who had five children to support. As a judgment[Pg 53] he lost all his cattle, at which misfortune he broke into horrible curses. He was there and then transformed into a dog which had a human head.

These incidents, however, throw no light on the real nature of the wer-wolf or wer-dog, which remains as much a mystery as that of the vampire. In some points a similarity may be said to exist between them, both being destructive forces, of an evil and self-seeking character. Those afflicted become subject to trance-like states and hysterical phenomena.

A certain kind of vampire (which is really a bloodsucking ghost) is said to have the power of assuming animal shape, and Bulgarian vampires appear to be especially gifted with this peculiarity.

It is believed in a certain district of Germany that unless money is placed in the mouth of a corpse at the time of burial, or if the dead man's name is not cut from his shirt, he will become a vampire and his ghost will issue from his grave in the form of a pig.

A gruesome story is told of a witch who chose to wander in animal shape. She died in 1345 and her body was cast rudely into a ditch, but instead of resting quietly she roamed at night in the form of various unclean beasts, leaving havoc and death in her tracks. On exhumation she was found to be a vampire, and a stake was driven through her breast, which, however, failed to have the desired effect. She still prowled around in the dark, using the stake as a weapon with which to slay her victims, nor did she cease her nefarious deeds until her body had been reduced to ashes.

Camden says that jilted maidens or deserted wives used to bribe witches to get their faithless men consigned to prison for lycanthropy, the usual term being seven years, but, judging from the trials which are on record, death by burning was more frequently resorted to.

[Pg 54]

In Poitou the peasants have a curious expression, "courir la galipote," which means to turn into a wer-wolf or other human-animal by night and chase prey through the woods. The galipote is the familiar or imp which the sorcerer has the power to send forth.

In the dark ages sorcerers capable of this accomplishment were dealt with according to the law, and hundreds were sent to trial for practising black arts, being condemned, in most instances, to be burnt alive or broken on the wheel. One of the most notorious historical cases was that of Pierre Bourgot, who served the devil for two years and was tried by the Inquisitor-General Boin.

Johannus Wierius[34] gives in full the confession of Bourgot, otherwise called Great Peter, and of Michael Verding. The prisoners, who were accused of wicked practices in December, 1521, believed they had been transformed into wolves.

About nineteen years before Pierre's arrest at Pouligny a dreadful storm occurred which scattered the flock of sheep of which he was shepherd, and while he went far afield to search for them he met three black horsemen, one of whom said to him, "Where are you going, my friend? You appear to be in trouble."

Pierre told him that he was seeking his sheep, and the horseman bade him take courage, saying that if he would only have faith, his master would protect the straying sheep and see that no harm came to them.

[Pg 55]

Pierre thanked him and promised to meet him again in the same place a few days later. Soon afterwards he found the stray sheep.

The black horseman, at their second meeting, told Pierre that he served the devil, and Pierre agreed to do likewise if he promised him protection for his flock. Then the devil's servant made him renounce God, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints of Paradise, his baptism and the tenets of Christianity. Pierre swore that he would do so, and kissed the horseman's left hand, which was as black as ink and felt stone-cold. Then he knelt down and took an oath of allegiance to the devil, and the horseman forbade him thenceforth to repeat the Apostles' creed.

For two years Pierre remained in the service of the evil one, and during that time he never entered a church until mass was over, or at least until after the holy water had been sprinkled.

Meanwhile his flock was kept in perfect safety, and this sense of security made him so indifferent about the devil that he began to go to church again and to say the creed. This went on for eight or nine years, when he was told by one Michael Verding that he must once more render obedience to the evil one, his master. In return for his homage Pierre was told that he would receive a sum of money.

Michael led him one evening to a clearing in the woods at Chastel Charlon, where many strangers were dancing. Each performer held in his hand a green torch which emitted a blue flame. Michael told Pierre to bestir himself and that then he would receive payment, so Pierre threw off his clothes and Michael smeared his body with an ointment which he carried. Pierre believed that he had been transformed into a wolf, and was horrified to find that he had four paws and a thick pelt. He found himself able to run with the speed of the wind. Michael had also made use of the salve and had become equally agile. After an hour or two they resumed human shape, their respective masters giving them another salve[Pg 56] for this purpose. After this experience Pierre complained that he felt utterly weary, and his master told him that was of no consequence and that he would be speedily restored to his usual state of health.

Pierre was often transformed into a wer-wolf after this first attempt, and on one occasion he fell upon a boy of seven with the intention of killing and eating him, but the child screamed so loudly that he beat a hasty retreat to the spot where his clothes lay in a heap, rubbed himself hurriedly with the ointment and resumed human form to escape capture. Another time Michael and he killed an old woman who was gathering peas, and one day whilst in the shape of wolves they devoured the whole of a little girl except for one arm, and Michael said her flesh tasted excellent, although it apparently gave Pierre indigestion. They confessed also to strangling a young woman, whose blood they drank.

Among other disgusting crimes, Pierre murdered a girl of eight in a garden by cracking her neck between his jaws, and he killed a goat near to the farm of one Master Pierre Lerugen, first by setting on it with his teeth and then by gashing its throat with a knife. The latter operation leads to the belief that he had resumed his ordinary shape at the time.

A peculiar point worth noticing about the case of Michael and Pierre was that the former was able to transform himself at any moment with his clothes on, while the latter had to strip and rub in ointment to achieve the same result. At the time of his confession Pierre declared that he could not recollect where the wolf's fur went to when he became human again.

He also deposed that an ash-coloured powder was given to him, which he rubbed upon his arms and left hand and thus caused the death of every animal he touched. Here there would seem to be some discrepancy, for he declared that in many instances he strangled, bit, or wounded his victims!

[Pg 57]

Garinet[35] gives a good account of the important trial in 1573 of Gilles Garnier, who was arrested for having devoured several children whilst in the form of a wer-wolf.

The prisoner was accused of seizing a young girl aged ten or twelve in a vineyard near Dôle, of killing her and dragging her into a wood, and of tearing the flesh from her bones with his teeth and claws. He found this food so palatable that he carried some of it away with him and offered to share it with his wife. A week after the feast of All Saints he captured another young girl near the village of La Pouppé, and was about to slay and devour her when someone hastened to her rescue and he took flight.

A week later, being still in the form of a wolf, he had killed and eaten a boy at a spot between Gredisans and Menoté, about a league from Dôle. He was accused also of being in the shape of a man when he caught another boy of twelve or thirteen years of age and carried him into the wood to strangle him, and, "in spite of the fact that it was Friday," he would have devoured his flesh had he not been interrupted by the approach of some strangers, who were too late, however, to save the boy's life. Garnier, having admitted all the charges against him, the judge pronounced the following sentence:—

"The condemned man is to be dragged to the place of execution and there burnt alive and his body reduced to ashes."

The account of the trial, which took place on the 18th day of January, 1573, was accompanied by a letter from Daniel d'Ange to the Dean of the Church of Sens which contained the following passage:—

"Gilles Garnier, lycophile, as I may call him, lived the life of a hermit, but has since taken a wife, and having no means of support for his family fell into the way, as is natural to defiant and desperate people of rude habits, of wandering into the woods and wild places. In this state he was met by a phantom in the shape of a man, who[Pg 58] told him that he could perform miracles, among other things declaring that he would teach him how to change at will into a wolf, lion, or leopard, and because the wolf is more familiar in this country than the other kinds of wild beasts he chose to disguise himself in that shape, which he did, using a salve with which he rubbed himself for this purpose, as he has since confessed before dying, after recognising the evil of his ways."[36]

The affair made such a stir in the neighbourhood, and the dread of wer-wolves had risen to such a pitch, that it was found necessary to ask the help of the populace in suppressing the nuisance. A legal decree was issued which empowered the people at Dôle to "assemble with javelins, pikes, arquebuses, and clubs to hunt and pursue the wer-wolf, and to take, bind, and kill it without incurring the usual fine or penalty for indulging in the chase without permission."

Boguet is the authority who cites the following cases of lycanthropy:[37]

A boy called Benedict, aged about fifteen, one day climbed a tree to gather some fruit, when he saw a wolf attacking his little sister, who was playing at the foot of the tree.

The boy climbed down quickly, and the animal, which was tailless, let go of the little girl and turned upon her brother, who defended himself with a knife. According to the boy's account, the wolf tore the knife out of his hand and struck at his throat. A neighbour ran to the rescue and carried the boy home, where he died a few days after from the wound. Whilst he lay dying he declared that the wolf which had injured him had fore-paws shaped like human hands, but that its hind feet were covered with fur.

After inquiry it was proved that a young and demented girl called Perrenette Gandillon believed herself to be a[Pg 59] wolf and had done this horrible deed. She was caught by the populace and torn limb from limb. This case occurred in the Jura mountains in 1598.

Soon afterwards Perrenette's brother Pierre was accused of being a wer-wolf, and confessed that he had been to the witches' Sabbath in this form. His son George had also been anointed with salve and had killed goats whilst he was in animal shape. Antoinette, his sister, was accused of sorcery and of intercourse with the devil, who appeared to her in the form of a black goat. Several members of the Gandillon family were arrested, and in prison Pierre and George conducted themselves as though they were possessed, walking on all fours and howling like wild beasts.

Not long after the Gandillon family had been disposed of, one Jeanne Perrin gave evidence that she was walking near a wood with her friend Clauda Gaillard, who disappeared suddenly behind a bush, and that the next moment there came forth a tailless wolf which frightened her so much that she made the sign of the cross and ran away. She was sure that the hind legs of the wolf were like human limbs. When Clauda saw her again she assured Jeanne that the wolf had not meant to do her harm, and from this it was thought that Clauda had taken the shape of the wolf.

One of the best known of the wer-wolf trials concerns Jacques Rollet, the man-wolf of Caude, who was accused of having devoured a little boy.

He was tried and condemned in Angers in 1598. Rollet came from the parish of Maumusson, near to Nantes, and he carried on his practices in a desolate spot near Caude, where some villagers one day found the corpse of a boy of about fifteen, mangled and blood-bespattered. As they approached the body three wolves bounded into the forest and were lost to sight, but the men gave chase, and following in the animals' tracks, came suddenly upon a half-naked human being, with long hair and beard, his hands covered with blood and[Pg 60] his teeth chattering with fear. On his claw-like nails they found shreds of human flesh.

This miserable specimen of man-animal was hauled up before the judge, and under examination he inquired of one of the witnesses whether he remembered shooting at three wolves. The witness said he remembered the incident perfectly. Rollet confessed that he was one of the wolves and that he was able to transform himself by means of a salve. The other wolves were his companions, Jean and Julian, who knew the same means of acquiring animal shape. All the particulars he gave as to the murder were accurate, and he confessed to having killed and eaten women, lawyers, attorneys, and bailiffs, though the last-named he found tough and tasteless. In other respects his evidence was confused, and he was judged to be of weak intellect, and though condemned to death was sent finally to a madhouse, where he was sentenced to two years' detention.

There was an epidemic of lycanthropy throughout this year, and on the 4th of December a tailor of Châlons was burnt in Paris for having decoyed children into his shop, a cask full of human bones being discovered in the cellar. For the space of a few years no notorious wer-wolf trials appear to have taken place, but the year 1603 was almost as prolific in this respect as 1598.

Information came before the criminal court at Roche Chalais that a wild beast was ravaging the district, that it appeared to be a wolf, and that it had attacked a young girl called Margaret Poiret in full daylight.[38]

A youth of thirteen or fourteen in the service of Peter Combaut deposed to the fact that he had thrown himself upon the said Margaret, whilst transformed into a wolf, and that he would have devoured her had she not defended herself stoutly with a stick. He also confessed to having eaten two or three little girls.

[Pg 61]

Evidence was given on May 29th, 1603, by three witnesses, one of whom was Margaret herself. She said she had been accustomed to mind cattle in the company of the boy, Jean Grenier, and that he had often frightened her by telling her horrible tales about being able to change into a wolf whenever he wished, and that he had killed many dogs and sucked their blood, but that he preferred to devour young children. He said he had recently killed a child, and after eating part of her flesh had thrown the rest to a companion wolf.

Margaret described the beast which had attacked her as stouter and shorter than a real wolf, with a smaller head, a short tail, and reddish hide. After she struck at it, the animal drew back and sat down on its haunches like a dog, at a distance of about twelve paces. Its look was so ferocious that she ran away at once.

The third witness was Jeanne Gaboriaut, who was eighteen years old. She gave evidence that one day, when she was tending cattle in company with other girls, Jean Grenier came up and asked which was the most beautiful shepherdess amongst them. Jeanne asked him why he wanted to know. He said because he wished to marry the prettiest, and if it was Jeanne he would choose her.

Jeanne said, "Who is your father?" and he told her that he was the son of a priest.

Then she replied that he was too dark in appearance for her taste, and when he answered he had been like that for a long time, she asked him whether he had turned black from cold or whether he had been burnt black.

He said the cause was a wolf's skin he was wearing, which had been given to him by one Pierre Labourant, and when he wore it he could turn into a wolf at will or any other animal he preferred, and he went on with details similar to those he had disclosed to Margaret Poiret.

It was proved, however, that Grenier was not the son of a priest, but of a labourer, Pierre Grenier, and that he[Pg 62] lived in the parish of St. Antoine de Pizan.

When questioned as to his crimes, he confessed to the assault upon Margaret Poiret as described by her, and also that he had entered a house in the guise of a wolf, and finding no one there but a babe in its cradle he seized it by the throat and carried it behind a hedge in the garden, where he ate as much of the body as he could and threw the remainder to another wolf.

At St. Antoine de Pizan he attacked a girl in a black dress who was tending sheep, and he killed and devoured her, a strange point being that her dress was not torn, as happens in the case when real wolves make the assault.

When questioned as to how he managed to turn into a wolf, he said that a neighbour, called Pierre la Tilhaire, had introduced him in the forest to the Lord thereof, who had given wolf-skins to both, as well as a salve for anointing themselves. When asked where he kept the skins and the pot of ointment he replied that they were in the hands of the Lord of the Forest, from whom he could obtain them whenever he wished.

He declared that he had changed into a wolf and gone coursing four times with his companion Pierre la Tilhaire, but they had killed no one. The best time for the hunt was an hour or two a day when the moon was on the wane, but he also went out at night on some occasions.

When asked whether his father knew of these proceedings, he replied in the affirmative, and declared that his father had rubbed him three times with the ointment and helped him into the wolf's skin.

The inquiry into Jean Grenier's case was a very lengthy one and was adjourned several times, but eventually he was sentenced to imprisonment for life at Bordeaux on September 6th, 1603, his youth and want of mental development being pleaded in extenuation of the crimes of infanticide he had undoubtedly committed. The president of the Court declared that lycanthropy was a form of hallucination and was not in itself a punishable crime. Jean's father was acquitted of[Pg 63] complicity, and allowed to leave the court without a stain on his character, and Jean was sent to a monastery.

In 1610, after Jean had been at the Monastery of the Cordeliers in Bordeaux for seven years, De Lancre, who relates his story, went to see him. He was then about twenty years of age and of diminutive stature. His black eyes were haggard and deep-set, and he refused to look anyone straight in the face. His teeth were long, sharp, and protruding, his nails were also long and black, and his mind was a mere blank.

He told De Lancre, not without pride, that he had been a wer-wolf, but that he had given up the practice. When he first arrived at the monastery he had preferred to go on all fours, eating such food as he found on the ground. He confessed that he still craved for raw human flesh, especially the flesh of little girls, and he hoped it would not be long before he had another opportunity of tasting it. He had been visited twice during his confinement by the Lord of the Forest, as he called the mysterious person who had given him the wolf-skin, but that both times he had made the sign of the cross and his visitor had departed in haste.

In other respects his tale was identical with the experiences he had related before the court.

De Lancre thought that the name Grenier or Garnier was a fatal name in connection with wer-wolves.

Evidence was given as to the times, places, and number of murders, and many of the facts were proved incontestably.

Jean's evidence as to the part his father had played in his misdeeds was hazy. He said that on one occasion his father had accompanied him, also wearing a wolf-skin, and that together they had killed a young girl dressed in white, and that they had devoured her flesh, the month being May of 1601.

He also added curious details regarding the Lord of the Forest, who had forbidden him to bite the thumbnail of his left hand, which was thicker and longer than[Pg 64] the others, and that if he lost sight of it while in the form of a wolf he would quickly recover his human shape.

When confronted with his father Jean altered some of the details of his story, and it was agreed that long imprisonment and extended cross-examination had worn out his already feeble intellect.

It is worth pointing out that in the cases of Rollet, the tailor of Châlons, and the Gandillon family, the prisoners were accused of murder and cannibalism, but not of association with wolves, and that in the trial of Garnier evidence was given as to the depredations of the wolf rather than of the accused. There was doubtless a difficulty in proving the identity of the perpetrator of the murders.

A new era in these trials begins with that of Jean Grenier, for from that time onward medical men became more enlightened, and the belief spread that lycanthropy was a mental malady, with cannibalistic tendencies which had developed under diseased conditions.

In his "Dæmonologie," 1597, a reply to Reginald Scott's "Discovery of Witchcraft," James I of England declared that wer-wolves were victims of a delusion induced by a state of melancholia, and about the same period wolves became practically extinct in England, and only harmless creatures such as the cat, hare, and weasel were left for the sorcerer to change into with any possibility of a safe and natural disguise.

For many years afterwards the confessions of witches, who were executed for their crimes, bore striking resemblance to those made by wer-wolves, and many strange facts which were published at these trials have never been, and may never be, satisfactorily explained on a purely materialistic basis.

[Pg 65]

An extraordinary story about a wer-wolf comes from Ansbach in 1685:

The supposed incarnation of a dead burgomaster of that town was said to be ravishing the neighbouring country in the form of a wolf, devouring cattle as well as women and children. At last the ferocious beast was caught and slaughtered, and its carcass was encased in a suit of flesh-coloured cere-cloth, while its head and face were adorned with a chestnut-coloured wig and long white beard, after the animal's snout had been cut off and a mask resembling the dead burgomaster's features had been substituted. This effigy was hanged, its skin stuffed and put in a museum, where it was pointed out as a proof of the actual existence of wer-wolves. This incident appears to prove that the belief in wer-wolves had been shaken at that date, but it has never been finally eradicated, and it is only natural that a theme which has had such world-wide credence should occur again and again in mythology and literature. It is dealt with in the story of the festival of the god Zeus, which was held every nine years on the Wolf mountain in Arcadia. During the banquet a man, having tasted of a flowing bowl in which human and animal flesh were mixed, was turned into a wolf and remained a wolf nine years. If he had abstained from eating human flesh in the interval he became once more a man. The tradition appears to have originated in the existence of a society of cannibal wolf-worshippers, a member of which perhaps represented the sacred animal for nine years in[Pg 66] succession.

This compares in some degree with the practices of the Human Leopard Society, which is of comparatively recent origin.

Lycaon, the King of Arcadia and father of Callisto, was turned into a wolf because he offered human sacrifices to Jupiter, or, in the version given by Ovid, because he tried to murder Jupiter, who was his guest. Others believe that Lycaon is the Constellation of the Wolf, and that in him were the united qualities of wolf, king, and constellation.

Pliny points out that the origin of transformation into wolves was due to Evanthes, a Greek author of good repute, who tells the story of Antheus, the Arcadian, a member of whose family is chosen by lot and then taken to a certain lake in the district, across which he swims and is changed into a wolf for a space of nine years. So, too, Demæntus, during a sacrifice of human victims, tasted the entrails of a boy who had been slaughtered, upon which he turned into a wolf, but ten years later he was victorious in the pugilistic contests at the Olympic games.

The following quaint story is taken from Petronius, being told by one Niceros, at a banquet given by Trimalchio.

"It happened that my master was gone to Capua to dispose of some second-hand goods. I took the opportunity and persuaded our guest to walk with me to our fifth milestone. He was a valiant soldier, and a sort of a grim water-drinking Pluto. About cock-crow, when the moon was shining as bright as midday, we came amongst the monuments. My friend began addressing himself to the stars, but I was rather in a mood to sing or count them; and when I turned to look at him, lo! he had already stripped himself and laid his clothes near him. My heart was in my nostrils, and I stood like a dead man; but he made a mark round his clothes and on a sudden became a wolf. Do not think I jest, I would not[Pg 67] lie for any man's estate. But to return to what I am saying. When he became a wolf he began howling and fled into the woods. At first I hardly knew where I was, and afterwards, when I went to take up his clothes, they were turned into stone. Who then was more like to die from fear than I? Yet I drew my sword, and cutting the air right and left came thus to my sweetheart's house. When I entered the courtyard I was like to breathe my last, perspiration poured from my neck, and my eyes were dim. My Melissa met me to ask where I had been so late, and said, 'Had you only come sooner you might have helped us, for a wolf came to the farm and worried our cattle; but he had not the best of the joke, for all he escaped, as our servant ran a lance through his neck.' When I heard this I could not doubt what had happened, and as the day dawned I ran home as fast as a robbed innkeeper. When I came to the spot where the clothes had been turned into stone I could find nothing except blood. But when I got home I found my friend, the soldier, in bed, bleeding at the neck like an ox, and a doctor dressing his wound. I then knew he was a turnskin; nor would I ever have broken bread with him again, no not if you had killed me."

The expression turnskin or turncoat is a translation of the Latin versipelles, a term used to describe a wer-wolf.

Another story in which the human being suffers from the wound inflicted on the wer-wolf concerns a fine lady of Saintonge, who used to wander at night in the forests in the shape of a wolf. One day she caught her paw in a trap set by the hunters. This put an end to her nocturnal wanderings, and afterwards she had to keep a glove on the hand that had been trapped, to conceal the mutilation of two of her fingers.

Eliphas Levi, the occultist, has endeavoured to explain this sympathetic condition between the man and his animal presentment.

[Pg 68]

"We must speak here of lycanthropy, or the nocturnal transformation of men into wolves, histories so well substantiated that sceptical science has had recourse to furious maniacs, and to masquerading as animals for explanations. But such hypotheses are puerile and explain nothing. Let us seek elsewhere the solution of the mystery, and establish—First, that no person has been killed by a wer-wolf except by suffocation, without effusion of blood and without wounds. Second, that wer-wolves, though tracked, hunted, and even maimed, have never been killed on the spot. Third, that persons suspected of these transformations have always been found at home, after the pursuit of the wer-wolf, more or less wounded, sometimes dying, but invariably in their natural form....

"We have spoken of the sidereal body, which is the mediator between the soul and the material organism. This body remains awake very often while the other is asleep, and by thought transports itself through all space which universal magnetism opens to it. It thus lengthens, without breaking, the sympathetic chain attaching it to the heart and brain, and that is why there is danger in waking up dreaming persons with a start, for the shock may sever the chain at a blow and cause instantaneous death. The form of our sidereal body is conformable to the habitual condition of our thoughts, and in the long run it is bound to modify the features of the material organism. Let us now be bold enough to assert that the wer-wolf is nothing more than the sidereal body of a man whose savage and sanguinary instincts are represented by the wolf, who, whilst his phantom is wandering abroad, sleeps painfully in his bed, and dreams that he is a veritable wolf. What renders the wer-wolf visible is the almost somnambulistic over-excitement caused by the fear of those who see it, or their disposition, more particularly among simple country-folk, to place themselves in direct communication with the astral light which is the common medium of dreams and visions. The blows inflicted on the wer-wolf really wound the[Pg 69] sleeper by the odic and sympathetic conjestion of the astral light and by the correspondence of the immaterial with the material body...."[39]

This peculiarity of the wound dealt to the wer-wolf being reproduced in the human being is emphasised by an incident which occurred about 1588 in a tiny village situated in the mountains of Auvergne. A gentleman was gazing one evening from the windows of his castle when he saw a hunter he knew passing on his way to the chase. Calling to him, he begged that on his return he would report what luck he had had. The hunter after pursuing his way was attacked by a large wolf. He fired off his gun without hitting the animal. Then he struck at it with his hunting knife, severing one of the paws, which he picked up and put in his knapsack. The wounded wolf ran quickly into the forest. When the hunter reached the castle he told his friend of his strange fight with a wolf, and to emphasise his story opened his knapsack, in which to his horror and surprise he saw, not a wolf's paw as he had expected, but the hand of a woman which had a gold ring on one of the fingers.

The owner recognised the ring as belonging to his wife, and hastening into the kitchen to question her he found her with one arm hidden beneath the folds of a shawl. He drew it aside and saw she had lost her hand. Then she confessed that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter. She was arrested and burnt to death soon afterwards at Ryon.

In another variation of the wer-wolf story, the human being retains a material object acquired by his animal replica and is freed thereby from his obsession.

A man, who from his childhood had been a wer-wolf, when returning one night with his wife from a merrymaking, observed that the hour was at hand when the transformation usually took place. Giving the reins to his wife, he got out of the cart and said, "If anyone comes to thee, strike at it with thy apron." Then he went away[Pg 70] and a few minutes later the poor woman was attacked by a wolf. Remembering what her husband had told her, she struck at it with her apron, and the animal tore out a piece and ran off. Presently the man himself returned holding in his mouth the torn fragment of the apron. Then his wife cried out in terror, "Good Lord, man! Why, thou art a wer-wolf!" "Thank thee, mother!" replied he, "but now I am free!" and after this incident he kept human form until the day of his death.[40]

In "William of Palermo," the old romance known as "William and the Wer-Wolf," translated from the French at the command of Sir Humphrey de Bohun about A.D. 1350,[41] the wer-wolf appears as a sort of a guardian angel. The brother of the King Apulia, envious of the heir-apparent, bribes two women to murder the king's son. While the boy William is at play a wer-wolf runs off with him, swims across the Straits of Messina, and carries him into a forest near Rome, where it takes care of him and provides him with food. The wer-wolf in reality is Alphonso, heir to the Spanish throne, who has been transformed by his stepmother Queen Braunde, who desires her own son Braundinis to wear the crown of Spain.

While the wer-wolf seeks provender, a cowherd finds William and takes him to his hut, where the Emperor meets him when out hunting. Placing him behind him on his horse he takes him to Rome and gives him in charge of his daughter Melior, to be her page.

[Pg 71]

William and Melior fall in love with one another, and to avoid the Emperor's wrath devise an escape, disguised in the skins of white bears, helped by Melior's friend Alexandrine. When Melior asks whether she makes a bold bear, Alexandrine answers, "Yes, Madame, you are a grisly ghost enough, and look ferocious." Together the lovers wander out of the garden on all fours and making their way to the forest hide in a den. Meanwhile the wer-wolf has followed William's fortunes, and finding the wanderers in need, he sets on a harmless passer-by who carries provisions, and seizing bread and boiled beef out of his bag, lays it before the lovers, then runs off and, attacking another traveller, secures two flagons of wine.

Being pursued, the lovers escape to Palermo, led always by the wer-wolf, Alphonso, half-brother to Braundinis, who was destined by Melior's father to become his son-in-law. William does battle with the proposed suitor and, still helped by the wer-wolf, whose symbol is painted on his shield, overcomes his rival, takes the King and Queen of Spain prisoner and refuses to let them go until Queen Braunde promises to transform the rightful heir from a wolf back into a human being. "Unless she disenchants you, she shall be burnt," he says forcibly. Braunde takes her stepson, the wolf, into a private chamber, draws forth a magic ring with a stone in it that is proof against all witchcraft and binds it with a red silk thread round the wolf's neck. Then she takes a book out of a casket and reads in it a long time till he turns into a man. The wer-wolf is delighted, but apologises to his stepmother for having no clothes on, and she commands him to choose who shall fetch his clothes. He answers that he will take his attire and the order of knighthood from the worthiest man alive, William of Palermo. William, being called, enters the chamber, where he sees a man who is an utter stranger and is only satisfied when he hears Alphonso's explanation, "I am the wer-wolf who saved you from many perils." William and Melior are married, all ends happily[Pg 72] and William becomes Emperor of Rome.

The Bretons give the name of Bisclavaret to the wer-wolf, or wer-fox, which throws itself upon the hunter's horse and terrorises it. The same thing is called Garwal by the Normans. Bisclavaret is supposed to be a wizard, and if in olden times an unknown lady offered food to the hunters at the moment the animal appeared she was thought to be a witch.

Marie de France in her "Lay of the Bisclavaret" used the idea of a wer-wolf, and again in this case the animal has no savage instincts except against his enemies, a faithless wife and her perfidious lover.

A gallant knight of Brittany, a favourite with the king, weds a fair lady whom he loves tenderly. Only one cloud darkens the wife's horizon. Her husband leaves her invariably three days a week and she does not know where he goes. One day she has the temerity to ask him, and he warns her that the information may be dangerous, but when she pleads with him he says:

"Learn then that I become a wer-wolf during my absence. I go into the forest, hide in the thickets and seek my prey."

"But, my dear, tell me whether you take off your clothes," says the wife, "or whether you keep them on?"

"I am naked when the transformation occurs, Madame."

"And where do you leave your clothes?"

"I must not tell you, because if I were seen when I take them off I should remain a wer-wolf for the rest of my life. I can only recover human form at the moment I put them on again. After that you will not be surprised if I say no more." But she urges him to tell her, and finally he says that he hides his clothes under a bush near an old stone cross in the corner of a chapel, and there he puts them on when he wishes to resume his original shape.

Frightened by his awful story the wife decides to live with him no more and immediately sends for a young[Pg 73] man who is in love with her, tells him the story and enjoins him to go and take away her husband's clothes. Thus she betrays her husband, the wer-wolf, who does not return and is given up for dead, and some time after she marries her false lover.

About a year later the king goes on a hunting expedition in the forest. There he comes across the wer-wolf, and the hounds immediately take up the scent and give chase the whole day long. Wounded by the hunters and wearied nigh unto death, the wolf seizes the bridle of the king's horse and licks his majesty's foot. The king, in great fear, calls his companions to look at the extraordinary wild beast that is capable of this humble action. He refuses to allow the wolf to be slaughtered and takes it back, in his train, to the castle. There the wolf lives in great comfort like a domestic pet and harms no one.

Presently a great function is held at the court and the wer-wolf's former wife comes there with her new husband. The moment the wolf sets eyes on him he springs at his throat, and would surely have killed him had not the king beaten him off with a whip. For the rest of the gentleman's visit the wolf is kept under strict discipline.

Some time afterwards, the king, accompanied by his faithful wolf, pays a visit to the lady, and the animal springs at her ferociously and bites off her nose. Then the courtiers say that the matter must be inquired into, for the wolf only turns savage when in the presence of this lady and her new husband. The king decides to have the couple arrested and the lady has to confess what happened, saying she thinks the wer-wolf must be her transformed husband. After hearing her story the king orders the wer-wolf's clothes to be placed where he can get them privately, and after waiting outside the room in which the metamorphosis is to take place, for some time, he enters and finds the former knight, his old friend whom he thought dead, lying quietly asleep. He restores all his honours and has his faithless wife[Pg 74] chased out of the kingdom in company with her false lover. All their daughters are born without noses as a punishment for the wicked fraud practised on the wer-wolf.[42]

Olaus Magnus[43] declares that although the inhabitants of Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania suffer considerably from the depredations of wolves as far as their cattle are concerned, their losses are not so serious in this quarter as those they suffer at the hands of wer-wolves.

On Christmas Eve multitudes of wer-wolves gather at a certain spot and band together to attack human beings and animals. They besiege isolated houses, break in the doors and devour every living thing. They burst into the beer-cellars and there empty the casks, thus proving their human tastes. A ruined castle near Courland appears to have been their favourite meeting-place, where thousands congregate in order to test their agility. If any of them fail to bound over the castle wall they are slain by the others, as they are considered in that case to be incompetent for the work in hand.

It is believed that a messenger in the person of a lame youth is sent round the neighbourhood to call these followers of the devil to a general conclave. Those who are reluctant to attend the meeting are beaten with iron scourges. When the gathering is assembled the human forms vanish and the whole multitude become wolves. The troops follow the leader, "firmly convinced in their imagination that they are transformed into wolves." The sorcery lasts for twelve days, and at the expiration of this period the human forms are resumed.

Referring further to these Courland wer-wolves, it is said of them that Satan holds them in his net in three ways. Firstly they execute certain depredations, such as mangling cattle, in their human shapes, but in such a state of hallucination that they believe themselves to be[Pg 75] wolves and are regarded as such by others in a like predicament. Though not true wer-wolves they hunt in packs. Secondly they leave their bodies lying asleep and send forth their imagination in a dream that they believe they have injured the cattle, but that it is the devil who does what is suggested to them by their thoughts, and thirdly that the evil one induces real wolves to do the horrid deeds, but impresses the scene so vividly on the mind of the sleeper that he considers himself to be guilty of the act.

The following stories exemplify these conditions. The first is told of a man who when starting on a journey saw a wolf attacking one of his sheep. He fired and it fled wounded into the thicket. On his return he was told that he had fired at one of his tenants, called Mickel.

Mickel's wife, when questioned, said that her husband had been sowing rye and had asked her how he could get some meat for a feast. She said on no account was he to steal from the master's flock as it was well guarded by dogs. Mickel ignored her advice and had attacked the sheep. He came home limping badly and in a passion had fallen upon his own horse and had torn its throat. It seemed as though he were bewitched or in a trance.

In 1684 a curious incident occurred to a man who had gone hunting in a forest. At dusk a pack of wolves had rushed towards him, and as he levelled his gun with the intention of aiming at the leader a voice arose from their midst, saying, "Don't fire, Sir, for no good will come of it." Then the phantom pack rushed onwards and he saw it no more.

The third story is about a man-wolf who was accused of sorcery of the most flagrant kind. Finding a difficulty in getting evidence against the criminal, the judge sent a peasant to his cell who was charged with the unpleasant task of forcing a confession. The prisoner was told that he might avenge himself upon another peasant to whom he owed a grudge, by destroying his cow secretly, and if possible when in the shape of a wolf himself. After[Pg 76] much persuasion the supposed wer-wolf undertook to carry out the suggested plan. The next morning the cow in question was found to be fearfully mangled, but the strange part of the story is this, that although witnesses were set to watch the man in his cell, they swore unanimously that he had never left it and had passed the whole of the night in deep sleep, only at one time making slight movements of his head, his hands and his feet.[44]

Just as the man who thinks he changes into a wolf suffers from lycanthropy, so the one who believes he changes into a dog is suffering from kynanthropy, and those who change into kine from boanthropy. Every part of the world chooses a special animal as being the most suitable for disguise, and naturally enough the animal is one which is common to the district. Thus we find the tiger chosen for India and Asia, the bear for Northern Europe, the lion, leopard, and hyæna for Africa, the jaguar for South America, and so forth.

Many superstitions surround the tiger. Besides being the abode of the soul of a dead man it may be the temporary or even the permanent form of a living human being. In India it is said that a certain root brings about the metamorphosis and that another root is used for the antidote. In Central Java powers of transformation are believed to be hereditary, no shame is attached to it, and the wer-tiger is looked upon as a friendly animal, and if his friends call upon him by name he behaves like a domestic pet and is believed to guard the fields. In the Malay Peninsula faith in the genuine wer-tiger persists, and it is thought there also that the soul of a dead wizard enters the animal's body. During the process of transformation the corpse is laid in the forest, and beside it a supply of rice and water is placed, sufficient for seven days, in which time transmigration, resulting from a compact made by the pawang's ancestors,[Pg 77] is complete. A ceremony is also gone through by the son of a pawang who wishes to succeed his father in tiger's form.

A wer-tiger belief exists in India, and the Garrows think the mania is produced by a special drug which is laid on the forehead. First the wer-tiger pulls the earrings out of his ears and then wanders forth alone, shunning the company of his fellow-man. The disease lasts about fourteen days, and patients are said to have glaring red eyes, their hair dishevelled and bristled, and a peculiar convulsive manner of moving the head. When taken by fits of this kind they are believed to go forth in the night to ride on the backs of tigers.

Another form of the belief is the wizard in the shape of a tiger, and the Thana tradition is that mediums are possessed by a tiger spirit. The Binuas of Johore think that every pawang has an immortal tiger spirit.

The belief that lion form is assumed by wizards is found near the Luapula and on the Zambezi, where a certain drink is supposed to effect the transformation. Among the Tumbukas people smear themselves with white clay, which gives them a certain power of metempsychosis. Not only can men take lions' shape but lions can change into men.

[Pg 78]

The rooted idea in the savage mind that animals may be invested by human souls, and that men may at will transform themselves into animals, has been largely strengthened throughout the ages by the teachings of the "Medicine men" or wizards, who have no doubt found it profitable and conducive to their own acquisition of power to work on the superstitions and foster the weaknesses of the people to whom they minister.

Stories about lion- and tiger-men, hyæna-women, and other strange monsters gifted with human qualities are found in the Books of Travel in every part of the world.

The way the sorcerer sets to work on the imagination of primitive people has often been described. Firstly he declares that he is about to change himself into a tiger and tear the people to pieces, and he no sooner begins to roar than the frightened natives, acting under the spell of suggestion, take to their heels, but they dare not go beyond the reach of those terrible sounds. "Look," cry the fear-stricken women, who cannot really see what is going on, "his body is covered with spots like a tiger! Horrible! his nails are turning into claws."

All the time the sorcerer is hidden in his tent, carrying on a kind of magical performance which inspires the people with a dread of the unknown, so that they fall a prey to the imagination and almost lose their reason. When asked to explain this unholy dread, they declare that it arises from being unable to see and to kill the fearsome tiger-image which threatens them.

[Pg 79]

Africa is vastly rich in stories of wer-lions, wer-leopards, and wer-hyænas, and the language of Bornu has a word "bultungin," which means "I change myself into a hyæna." It is even said that in the village of Kabutiloa every native possesses the faculty of transformation.

The wizards of Abyssinia are said to be able to become hyænas at will, and in "The Life of Nathaniel Pearce"[45] the story is told of a man called Coffin who was asked by a servant for leave of absence. No sooner had he granted the request than one of the other servants called out, "Look, look, he has turned himself into a hyæna!" Coffin gazed in the direction in which the first servant had disappeared, and there he saw a large hyæna bounding across the open plain. The next morning the servant returned, and when asked about the matter asserted that such a transformation had actually taken place. Coffin brought himself to believe in these native stories, and quoted in evidence of their truth that he had often seen a certain kind of earring in the ears of hyænas shot, trapped and speared by himself or his friends, identical with those which were commonly worn by the native servants. A natural explanation has been sought in the suggestion that the sorcerers themselves adorned the hyænas with the gems in order to encourage a superstition which they found profitable for their own purposes, but no proof of any such thing has been discovered. Abyssinia is a hotbed of strange happenings of this character, some of which are quite beyond understanding.

The trade of blacksmith is hereditary there and is regarded with more or less suspicion, from the fact that blacksmiths are, with few exceptions, believed to be sorcerers and are opprobriously given the name of Bouda. They are said to have the power of turning themselves into various kinds of animals. "I remember," says[Pg 80] Mansfield Parkyns in "Life in Abyssinia,"[46] "a story of some little girls, who, having been out in the forest to gather sticks, came running back breathless with fright; and on being asked what was the cause, they answered that a blacksmith of the neighbourhood had met them, and entering into conversation with him, they at length began to joke about whether, as had been asserted, he could turn himself into a hyæna. The man, they declared, made no reply, but taking some ashes, which he had with him tied up in the corner of his cloth, sprinkled them over his shoulders, and to their horror and alarm they began almost immediately to perceive that the metamorphosis was actually taking place, and that the blacksmith's skin was assuming the hair and colour of the animal in question. When the change was complete he grinned and laughed at them, and then retired into the neighbouring thickets. They stood rooted to the spot from sheer fright; but the moment the hideous creature withdrew, they made the best of their way home."

Parkyns tells another Bouda story[47] which is fully credited by the natives. In the neighbourhood of Adoua there was said to be a woman who had one human foot and in the place of the other the hoof of a donkey. Several persons assured Parkyns that they had seen this human monstrosity, and others firmly believed the following account of the affair:

The woman was said to have died, and was buried with ceremony in the churchyard. The following day a man came to one of the priests and offered him a sum of money for the body, pledging himself to strict secrecy. The bargain was concluded and the unscrupulous priest allowed the stranger, who was a blacksmith, to disinter and carry off the corpse. On the way to the market the blacksmith passed the house where the deceased lady's family lived, and he usually rode or drove a remarkably fine donkey which, strangely enough, on passing the house, or any of the old woman's children, brayed loudly[Pg 81] and endeavoured to run towards them.

At first no notice was taken of this odd behaviour on the part of an ass, but at last one of the sons grew suspicious and exclaimed, "I am sure that ass is my mother!"

Accordingly Bouda, ass and all were seized and brought to the hut, much to the apparent satisfaction of the animal, which rubbed its nose against the young men and was even said to shed tears of joy on the occasion.

On being charged with the offence of sorcery the Bouda tried to make light of it and denied the accusation, but at last by dint of threats and promises he was induced to confess that he had turned the old woman into a donkey, she having been not really dead but in a trance, into which he had purposely thrown her. His power, he asserted, was sufficient to change the external appearance, but not to alter the mind of his victim. Hence it was that the old woman, or rather donkey, possessed human feelings, which she had displayed in her endeavours to enter her former habitation and in her recognition of her children. The Bouda, moreover, agreed to restore her human appearance, and began his exorcism. As he proceeded she by degrees assumed her natural form, and the change was almost complete, when one of the sons, blinded by his rage, forgot the promises of pardon which the Bouda had exacted, and drove his spear through his heart. The incantation not being entirely finished, one foot remained in the shape of the hoof of an ass and continued so until her death, which was not till many years afterwards.

Still another story belonging to the same class concerns two brothers who lived in Gojam. One of them having transformed himself into a horse, ass or cow, was sold in the market and driven out of town by his purchaser. Directly night had closed the eyes of his new master in sleep the Bouda took on human form again and walked quietly home. The brothers were known to sell cattle in the market so frequently that people became suspicious, because they did not know where their stock was kept,[Pg 82] and they often had no beasts in their yard even the very day before the sales. Besides, it soon leaked out that every animal sold make its escape the same night and was never heard of again. Then a purchaser who had been twice taken in by the brothers, determined to discover how the fraud was carried out. One market day he bought a fine horse from one of the brothers and rode off upon it, but no sooner had he left the market town behind him than he dismounted and drove a knife through the animal's heart. Then he walked back to the market-place and meeting the vendor told him that he had killed the beautiful animal he had just bought in a fit of passion. The Bouda gave a start, but managed to conceal his grief till he entered his house, when he burst forth into lamentations and rubbed the skin off his forehead, as the custom is when a near relative dies. To his inquisitive neighbours he declared that his favourite brother had been robbed and murdered in the Galla country, whither he had travelled in order to purchase horses. It was said, however, that he afterwards sent no more animals to the market-place for sale.

According to Livingstone's account[48] the Makololo also believe that certain people can transform themselves into animals, and they call such persons "Pondoro." Livingstone came across a Pondoro in the Kebrasa hills, and heard that this gentleman was in the habit of assuming the shape of a lion which he retained for days and sometimes even for a month, during which time he wandered in the woods where his wife had built a den for him and took care that he was provided with food and drink. No one was allowed into the den except the Pondoro and his wife, and no strangers were permitted even to lay a gun against any of the trees in the neighbourhood of the den, or against any shanty owned by the Pondoro. The wer-lion used his gift to go hunting in the village. After a few days had passed his[Pg 83] faithful spouse scented her returning husband and provided him with a certain kind of medicine or ointment by which it became possible for him to change into a man again. But she had to hurry over this duty, so that the lion might not catch sight of her and, falling upon her, devour even her.

After the Pondoro was once more human he returned to the village and asked the inhabitants to help him carry home his prey. One of the odd things about this wer-lion was that he always trembled if he smelt gunpowder, and he sometimes overacted his part. Livingstone asked the natives to make him show off while he was watching, offering a reward for the performance, but they refused, saying, "If we ask him to do so, he may change while we are asleep and kill us." It was owing to his distaste for the smell of gunpowder that it was made punishable to rest muskets against his den.

In the same district the belief is also current that the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions "and render them sacred." Thus when a hungry lion prowled round the camp where a freshly killed buffalo lay, a native servant harangued him loudly in between his roars, saying, "What sort of a chief do you call yourself, sneaking round here in the dark trying to steal our buffalo meat? You're a pretty chief, you are! You've no more courage than a scavenger beetle. Why don't you kill your own dinner?" The Pondoro took no notice except to roar the louder, so a second native took the matter up and expostulated in more dignified terms as to the impropriety of the conduct of "a great chief like him" prowling round in the dark, "trying like a hyæna to steal the food of strangers."

A piece of meat dipped in strychnine brought the lion-chief to his senses and he took his departure. It is not to be wondered at that such things occur in a country where the natives regard their chiefs as almighty and infallible. The extent of their faith in him appears from the story of one Chief Chibisa, who placed a powerful[Pg 84] "medicine" in the river and told his people they might safely enter the water as it was a protection against the bite of crocodiles. Thereupon the people bathed there without fear of these dangerous reptiles.

Du Chaillu, in "Ashango Land,"[49] tells the story of a young lad, Akosho, who declared that he had been turned into a leopard, and feeling a craving for blood had gone forth into the forest where he had killed two men. After each murder he said he had taken on human shape. His chief Akondogo could not believe the story, but Akosho led him to the scene where lay the mangled bodies of the victims. It appears that the boy suffered from lycanthropia, and he was burnt to death in full view of the tribe.

Theophilus Waldmeier mentions a similar case of possession in which the patient thought herself to be a hyæna.[50] One evening when he was in his house at Gaffat a woman began to cry fearfully and run up and down the road on her hands and feet like a wild beast, quite unconscious of what she was doing. The natives said to him, "This is the Bouda, and if it is not driven out of her she will die." A crowd gathered round and everything possible was done to relieve her condition, but without avail. She howled and roared in an unnatural manner and most powerful voice. At last a blacksmith, who was said to have secret connection with the evil one, was called in to see what he could do. The woman obeyed his orders at once. He took hold of her hand and dropped the juice of a white onion or garlic into her nostril, and then he questioned the evil spirit, by whom she was supposed to be possessed, as follows:

"Why did you possess this poor woman?"

"I was allowed to do so," came the answer through her lips.

"What is your name?"

"Gebroo."

[Pg 85]

"And your country?"

"Godjam."

"How many people have you already taken possession of?"

"Forty people—men and women."

"You must now leave this woman's body."

"I will do so on one condition."

"What is it?"

"I want to eat the flesh of a donkey."

The long cross-examination being concluded the evil spirit was granted his strange request. A donkey was brought and the possessed woman ran hastily upon the animal and bit the flesh out of the creature's back, and though the donkey kicked and started off, she clung to it as though fastened by leather thongs.

After the performance had continued for some time the man recalled the woman, and a jar of prepared liquid with which much filth had been mixed was set down in a hidden spot where she could not see it. When, however, the exorcist exclaimed, "Go and look for your drink," she started off on all fours to the place where the jar stood and drank the whole of its contents.

When she returned, the blacksmith said, "Take up this stone." Although the stone in question was too large for her to move under natural conditions, she placed it on her head with ease and began spinning round, until the stone flew off on one side and she fell on to the ground. Then the exorcist said to the people round, "Take her away to bed, the Bouda has left her."

In a similar case the woman's symptoms began in a sort of fainting-fit; her fingers were clenched in the palms of her hands, the eyes were glazed, the nostrils distended and the whole body stiff and inflexible. Suddenly a hideous laugh, like that of a hyæna, burst from her and she began running about on all fours. The cure was brought about in much the same way as in the preceding case.

Mr. Parkyns also tells the tale of a servant who was said to have been bewitched by a blacksmith-hyæna.[Pg 86] He evidently attempted to lure her into the forest with the intention of devouring her.

One evening the howls and laughter of a hyæna were clearly heard from the hut in which the sick woman lay bound and closely guarded. Her master happened to be present, when he saw to his astonishment that she rose "like a Davenport brother" freed from her bonds, and made an effort to escape from the hut in answer to the call of the wild animal without.

That such proceedings were sometimes carried out for vicious ends not unconnected with the slaying of human victims is proved by the existence of the mysterious Human Leopard Society which Mr. T. J. Alldridge writes about in "The Sherbro and Its Hinterland." The society was founded for the purpose of obtaining the human fat used in the preparation of a certain "medicine" mixed with Borfinor, the resulting material being regarded as an all-powerful fetish.

Victims at first were relatives of the members of the society selected at committee meetings, who were afterwards waylaid and slaughtered by a man in the guise of a leopard. He plunged a three-pronged knife into the unfortunate person's neck from behind, separated the vertebræ and caused instant death. More victims were required, outsiders were made to join the society by the expedient of giving them a dish in which, without their knowledge, human flesh was cooked. Afterwards, on being informed of the unpleasant fact, they were persuaded to join the society and told they must furnish a victim as part of the initiation ceremony.

The members of the society rapidly increased in number but great secrecy was observed, and it was impossible to bring the criminals to justice. When questioned the victims declared that they had seen nothing. The leopard sprang from the bush, and it merely seemed as though a great wind had rushed by.[51]

[Pg 87]

Before seizing their victims the human leopards cover themselves with the skin of the animal and imitate its roars. In the paws of the leopard skin are fixed sharp-pointed knives shaped like a leopard's claws, which are intended to inflict similar wounds, the better to avoid unpleasant disclosure.

Many of the Indians in Guiana believe that "Kanaima" tigers are possessed by human spirits who, as men, devote themselves to deeds of cannibalism. Taking the shape of the jaguar they approach the lonely sleeping-places, or waylay Indians in the forests. No superstition causes more terror.

A legend exists among the natives about an old man who lurked in the forest in the shape of a Kanaima tiger. His son, who was hunting, shot the tiger down. His arrow, which was one of the old-fashioned sort, tipped with bone, entered the animal's jaw. The tiger raised its paw, broke off the weapon and vanished into the forest. The young huntsman picked up the splintered arrow-head and returned home. Next day his guilty father came back groaning, and cried out that his mouth was "all on fire." The son drew from his cheek a bone which, oddly enough, fitted into his splintered arrow-head. Then the son was very sorrowful and said to his father that he must leave him and take his young wife away too, for neither of them would be safe from the dread Kanaima charm. This is a specimen of the "repercussion" stories, in which the wound inflicted on the wer-animal appears in the human form.

[Pg 88]

Even more elaborate in detail and richness of lore than the lion-, tiger- and hyæna-transformations, are those of the wer-fox; and a curious point to be noted is that it is quite as easy for the animal to become human as for a man or woman to become a fox. In Japanese folklore the fox is regarded as more skilful than any other animal in taking human shape.

In China the belief exists that foxes and wolves attain to an age of eight hundred years, and "when more than five hundred years old they are able to metamorphose themselves into beings shaped liked men."[52]

De Groot tells several stories about wer-foxes.[53] A man runs away from home and is found in an empty grave. His shape is quite that of a fox, and does not in any respect correspond to the human form. The only sound he utters is O-tsze (meaning red) which is the name for foxes. For ten days this wer-fox remains in a state of semi-consciousness, and then he awakens and gives the following account of himself: "When the fox came to me for the first time it assumed the shape of a lovely woman standing in a fowl-house in a hidden corner of my dwelling. She called me to her and told me she bore the name of O-tsze.[54] When she had called me many times I followed her and she became my wife. At night I frequently accompanied her to her dwelling, and we[Pg 89] met without being perceived by the dogs."

No human animal is as seductive as the wer-vixen. Numerous stories occur in Eastern folklore of women in the shape of foxes and foxes in the shape of women leading men on through passion to their doom. Even male foxes take the shape of women to seduce men, but other harm than this they do not do them.[55]

Ono, an inhabitant of Mino (says an ancient Japanese legend of A.D. 545), spent the seasons longing for his ideal of female beauty. He met her one evening on a vast moor and married her. Simultaneously with the birth of their son, Ono's dog was delivered of a pup which as it grew up became more and more hostile to the lady of the moors. She begged her husband to kill it, but he refused. At last one day the dog attacked her so furiously that she lost courage, resumed vulpine shape, leaped over a fence and fled.

"You may be a fox," Ono called after her, "but you are the mother of my son and I love you. Come back when you please; you will always be welcome."

So every evening she stole back and slept in his arms.[56]

The wer-fox has a strange manner of bringing about transformation. Roaming over a grassy plain, the animal picks up a skull, puts it on his head and, facing towards the north star, worships silently. At first he performs his religious genuflections and obeisances slowly and circumspectly, but by and by his motions become convulsively rapid and his leaps wondrously active. Yet, however high he jumps towards the star, he endeavours to keep his skull-crown immovable, and if after a hundred acts of worship he succeeds, he becomes capable of transforming himself into a human being. But if he desires to assume the shape of a beautiful maiden he must live in the vicinity of a graveyard.[57]

A monk who passed a moonlight night in a graveyard saw a fox placing withered bones and a skull upon its[Pg 90] head, and as soon as the animal succeeded in moving its head without dropping its burden, it covered its body with grass and leaves, and changed into a beautiful woman. She sat by the roadside, and presently a man came riding by to whom she told a pitiable story about herself. Charmed with her appearance and sympathising with her forlorn condition, he was about to ask her to mount his horse with him, when the monk appeared from behind a gravestone and warned him that the woman was not what she appeared to be. Making the sign of the cross and uttering an incantation, the holy man caused the woman to fall down, and she turned into an old vixen and expired. Nothing remained but the dry bones with the skull, and the grass and the leaves on the dead body of the fox.

De Groot quotes the old Chinese saying that the wild fox bears the name of Tsze (Red). At night he strikes fire out of his tail. When he desires to appear as a spook he puts on a human skull and salutes the Great Bear constellation, and the transformation is brought about as soon as the skull ceases to fall.

One of the commonest stories of the fox, found in China and Japan, is that the fox as usual assumes the form of a lovely maiden, and weds a man. She dies and all that remains is the dead body of the fox. No more is heard of the woman.

The Eskimos have a similar story.

A bachelor coming home in the evening finds his hut tidied. One day, returning prematurely, he sees a woman at work straightening his things. He falls in love with her and marries her, only to discover that she is a fox in disguise, and when his jealous cousin mentions the tabooed subject of the smell of a fox, she runs away, never to return.

Under the T'ang dynasty the belief in wer-vixens, who changed into fascinating women to tempt men, was prevalent.

[Pg 91]

"When a fox is fifty years old, it can transform itself into a woman; when a hundred years old, it becomes a beautiful female or sorceress termed wu. Such enchanted beings possess a knowledge of what is happening more than a thousand miles away. They can poison men by sorcery or possess and bewilder them so that they lose their memory or even their reason. When a fox reaches the age of a thousand it goes to paradise and becomes a celestial creature."[58]

The wer-vixen in the next story had not attained to this privilege, she belonged to a far different region.

A captain in the Imperial Guard met a beautiful lady in the moonlight and began to talk to her. While she was speaking to him she kept her face hidden behind a fan. As they came to the palace the man remembered that wer-vixens were dangerous beings to deal with and he wanted to find out whether the woman was genuine or an animal in human shape, so he drew his sword, seized her by the hair, pushed her against one of the pillars in front of the palace and threatened to kill her. She struggled and jumped about violently, sending forth so pungent an odour that he could not hold her, and as he let her go she turned into a fox and ran off shrieking "ko, ko!" The captain did not in the least regret the rough handling he had given the supposed beautiful lady; he only wished he had killed her on the spot.

Fox demons are said to cause disease and madness, and sometimes they act in a spirit of revenge, more often from unprovoked malice. The "Huen Chung ki" mentions that foxes sometimes take the shape of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. Another mystic idea about wer-foxes is that they are believed to possess a mysterious pearl which represents their soul. They hold this pearl in their mouths and any man who gets possession of it becomes a favourite throughout the world. In Japan some people think that foxes have a luminous pearl in their tail. Whether this is connected with the soul or[Pg 92] whether it is a talisman of power it is difficult to say.

Wer-foxes in the shape of human beings can be made to resume their animal forms by wounding or slaying them or by setting dogs upon them. Incantations, argument if they appear in the shape of scholars, poisonous food, written charms, or cutting off the caudal appendage if they show signs of one, are also effective means of making them declare themselves in their true colours.

If a person is possessed by a wer-fox he can have the evil spirit transferred to a woman in a similar manner to that practised by the Boudas of Abyssinia in the case of those possessed by hyænas. In one instance the evil spirit spoke from the scape-woman's mouth as follows:—

"I am a fox. I have not come to do evil, but only to have a look round, because I thought there was plenty of food at a place like this. Then I found that I (the patient) was kept indoors." Thus speaking, she took from her bosom a white gem, the size of a small orange. Throwing this into the air, she caught it again, and those who saw it said, "What a strange gem; she keeps it in her pocket for the purpose of deluding people." A young man cleverly caught the gem as the woman threw it up and put it in his pocket. The demon fox begged him to give it back to her but he refused. She then burst into tears and said, "My gem is of no value to you for you do not know how to use it. If you do not give it back to me I will be your enemy for ever, but if you do, I will be your friend and protect you like a god." At these words the young man returned the gem.

When the sorcerer had exorcised the fox spirit it was discovered that the gem had disappeared, which was taken as a proof that it belonged to the wer-fox, and was connected with some mysterious power.

The fox kept its promise, for when the young man was going home late one night in the dark, he became suddenly very frightened and called the fox to help him. The animal appeared and led him by a narrow[Pg 93] footpath instead of by the usual road. Afterwards he discovered that highwaymen were hidden in ambush near the road, and if he had passed that way he would surely have been killed.

The cunning of the fox turns to learning in a man, for intellectuality appears to be regarded as a fox-like trait by the Japanese, and many tales tell of scholars becoming animals and vice-versa.

A learned old man called Hu suddenly disappeared from the college in which he held a professorship, and was found by his students in the shape of a fox explaining logic out of an old book to a pack of foxes who were drawn up in ranks before him in an empty grave.

Two foxes, in another story, were over a thousand years old and lived in the tomb of a king. They transformed themselves into students, giving proof of extraordinary learning, and having fine personalities and handsome, open countenances. Mounted on horseback they rode to the house of a talented minister to argue with him on theological questions connected with the spirit of the glorification tree which stood before a tomb. The minister could not get the better of them in discussion, and after three days he became suspicious and set his dogs loose upon them, but they showed not the slightest fear. "To be sure," he exclaimed, "they are spectres of the true sort. If a hundred years old, they must change their shape at the sight of hounds; if they are spooks of a thousand years, they must change when they see the glow of fire produced from a tree of the same age." Reasoning thus, the minister sent some servants to the tomb in order to fell the glorification tree. The spirit of the tree was a young child dressed in blue garments, and he was sitting in a cleft in the side of the tree. When the child was told of the matter he wept, and lamented the ignorance of the old foxes and his own fate. Then he vanished. When the servants felled the tree, blood gushed forth from it. They took the wood home and set fire to it, and as soon as it was[Pg 94] kindled the foxes resumed their original shape. Then the minister had them captured and cooked.

The power possessed by the fox of bewitching men is clearly shown in the following story quoted by Dr. Visser in "The Fox and Badger in Japanese Folklore."[59]

In the eighth year of the Kwambei era (896) a man called Kaya Yoshifuji resigned the post of a high official in the Bizen province and went to live in Hongo Ashimori. His wife ran away to the capital and he kept house quite alone. One day he went out of his mind and began to recite love poems to an imaginary woman. After a month passed in this manner he disappeared and his relatives searched high and low but could find no trace of him, so they concluded that he had committed suicide, and vowed they would make an image of the eleven-faced Kwannon if they found the unhappy man's corpse. They cut down an oak tree and began to carve the life-size image of Yoshifuji, bowing before the unfinished statue to repeat the vow they had taken. This went on for about a fortnight, when to their intense surprise Yoshifuji crept from under his go-down as thin and pale as though he had passed through a serious illness. The floor of the go-down was only half a dozen inches from the ground, so that it was held to be impossible that a man could have been beneath it. When he had recovered his senses sufficiently to give an account of his adventures, he said that a beautiful girl had come to him, bringing love letters and poems from a princess, and that he had replied to them in the same vein in which they were written.

"At last," he continued, "the girl came with a magnificent carriage and four postilions to take me to the princess.

"After a drive of about ten miles we arrived at a splendid palace, where an exquisite meal and a very hearty reception from the princess soon made me feel quite at ease. There I lived with her as inseparably as two branches[Pg 95] growing together on the same tree. She gave birth to a son, a very intelligent and beautiful child, whom I loved so much that I thought of degrading my son Jadasada and putting this child in his place as son of my principal wife—this in view of the high rank of the princess. But after three years a Buddhist priest suddenly entered the room of Her Highness, carrying a stick in his hand. The effect of his appearance was astonishing. Chamberlains and Court ladies all fled left and right and even the princess hid herself somewhere. The priest pushed me from behind with his stick and made me go out of the house through a very narrow passage. When I looked back I discovered that I had just crept from under my own go-down!"

The curious point of this story is that those who listened to it rushed to the go-down and demolished it without delay. As they did so, twenty or thirty foxes came from beneath it and scattered in all directions, hastening to the mountains. Yoshifuji, bewitched by these wizard-foxes, had been lying under the go-down for a fortnight, believing in his trance that he was spending three years in a palace. The priest who broke the spell was a metamorphosis of Kwannon.

That the wer-vixen superstition is deeply engrained in the minds of travellers is proved by the story of a bishop who once passed the night in a house which was so desolate in appearance that his companions begged him to read a sutra for the purpose of driving away evil influences. Two of them went to a wood close to the house, where they saw a mysterious phantom, large and white, which they took to be a wer-vixen. They rushed in to tell the bishop, who, greatly excited, cried, "I have often heard of foxes haunting people, but I have never set eyes on a ghost of this kind," and he hastened to the spot, full of eagerness, only to discover a harmless, ordinary girl—or so he said!

Another wer-vixen attempted to steal a child. The nurse was out in the grounds with her charge of two[Pg 96] years old when her master, the father of the infant, heard her crying for help. Seizing his sword he ran to the spot, when to his astonishment he found that two nurses exactly alike were pulling at his son and heir, one on one side and one on the other. He could not say which was the genuine nurse, and in great terror brandished his sword, making feints at both. Thereupon one of the nurses vanished and the other swooned, the child still in her arms. A priest was sent for and by means of incantations brought the nurse to her senses. She then said that her double had appeared and laying hold of the babe had claimed it as her own. Nobody knew whether the phantom was a fox or a spirit.[60]

Here is a story of a vindictive wer-fox, taken from the "Uji shui monogatari":—

"A samurai was on his way home one evening when he met a fox. Pursuing the animal, he sent an arrow into its loin. The fox howled loudly and limped quickly away through the grass towards the samurai's house. When the man saw the animal was breathing fire he hastened to overtake him, but was too late. The fox, on arriving at the house, assumed human shape and set fire to the building. Then the samurai pursued the culprit, whom he took to be a real man, but, resuming vulpine form, the animal disappeared into the thicket."

A number of fox legends, which have been rendered into English by Dr. Visser, are found in the "Kokon chomonshu."

The house of a Dainagon was haunted by a number of foxes, and was so impossible to live in that the owner decided to hold a battue. The very night he gave orders to this effect he saw a vision of a grey-haired old man, with the figure of a tall boy, wearing a green hunting dress, and seated under an orange tree in the garden. The owner asked the apparition's name, and he replied, "I have lived in your house for two generations and[Pg 97] have a great number of children and grandchildren. I have always tried to keep them out of mischief but they never would listen. Now I am sorry because they have made you angry. If you will forgive the things my family have done, I will protect you and let you know whenever good luck is coming your way."

Then the owner of the house awoke from his strange dream, rose and opened the door of the verandah. There he discovered in the dim morning light an old hairless fox, shyly trying to hide himself behind a bamboo bench.

The tanuki, or badger, shares with the fox the reputation for powers of transformation. This animal appeared in Japanese folklore later than the fox, but is often coupled with it in stories of animal sorcery. An old mountain lake was frequented by many water birds, but it was well known that whoever tried to shoot them was drowned in the lake. At last a man, who had more courage than the others, decided that this mysterious matter must be looked into. He went alone in the dark, armed with bow, arrows, and a sword, and when he reached the lake he sat down under a pine tree, bent his bow and waited. Suddenly the surface of the lake was disturbed, waves dashed on the shore and he saw a faint light in the centre. The ball of light moved about, coming closer and closer, and circling round him. He was about to shoot at it when it flew back over the lake. Presently it came close to him again, and in the centre he saw a grinning old hag, upon whom he seized. She tried to pull him into the lake, but could not manage to do so, for he stood like a rock and, having thrown down his bow, stabbed at her with his sword. She grew weaker and weaker and the light disappeared. Then she died, and he took home the animal shape which was left on his hands, and which proved to be an old tanuki.

Another story of the tanuki is more like a ghost story than that of a wer-animal, and concerns a captain of the guards called Sukeyasu. When he was hunting in the province of Tamba he passed the night in an old chapel[Pg 98] which the villagers warned him was haunted by a monster. As a snowstorm was raging he preferred to face the strange risk inside the chapel to a certain wetting in the open.

He was half asleep when he heard a noise outside the chapel and peeping through a chink in the sliding door he saw a pitch-black priest, so tall that his head appeared to reach the eaves. The priest stretched a thin hairy arm through the chink in the door and stroked Sukeyasu's forehead, afterwards withdrawing his hand. The captain was too frightened to move, but when the same thing was repeated he plucked up courage to grasp the hairy hand and hold it firmly. Then ensued a struggle and the door gave way. Sukeyasu came down on the top of the priest and as he pressed upon him with all his might he found his opponent growing smaller and smaller, and his arms thinner and thinner. The captain called his servants to his assistance and when a light was obtained it was found that the huge spook was in reality a tanuki. Next day the animal's head was shown to the villagers, and from that time the chapel was no longer haunted.

An unsuccessful transformation into animal shape is the subject of another wer-fox story. A man left his house one evening in order to do some business in a neighbouring city, but to his wife's surprise he came back accompanied by a servant long before he was due, saying that he had accomplished his business satisfactorily. He was very tired and went to bed at once, but an old woman-servant in the house warned her mistress, saying that she had noticed something odd about the returned traveller, who was blind in the left eye, while her master was blind in the right eye. The wife then called to the sleeping man, saying she was ill, and asking him to get her some medicine. He did so, grumbling, and to the wife's astonishment, she saw that what the old woman said was true. Then when he lay down to sleep again she stabbed him to death, and he cried out like a fox, "kon, kon, kwai—kwai." Then they beat to death the servant the wer-fox had brought with him, and found he was[Pg 99] also a fox. The one who had taken the shape of the master had not trained himself carefully enough in the art of transformation.

A very uncanny fox and badger story comes from an old Japanese source.[61] Kugano Kendo was a clever doctor who lived in Yeddo. One day he was asked to go and see a patient in the country, and when he reached the house in question, which he had never before visited, he found that the master had gone out and he was asked to wait. A page-boy offered him some refreshments after his long journey, and when he was about to thank him for his attentions the boy turned away and, to the doctor's astonishment, he saw the page's face had utterly changed, becoming enormously long and narrow, with a small nose and big mouth and only one eye in the centre of the forehead. Suddenly the apparition vanished. Though courageous by nature this struck the doctor as so extraordinary that he felt inclined to leave the strange house at once. However, he mastered his fears and soon the owner of the house returned. The doctor told him what he had seen and the master burst out laughing and said, "Oh, that boy has been at it again, has he? He always frightens strangers. Did he pull a face like this?" and suiting his actions to his words the man imitated the horrible expression, his face taking the same deformity of one eye in the centre of his forehead, and a foxy snout.

This was too much for the doctor's equanimity. He ran to the front door and called his servants to prepare for the journey home. Then he found that all the servants had run away except one, and outside it was pitch-dark. The remaining servant said he could find a lantern, and presently he appeared out of the darkness with a light in his hand which fell full upon his features. To Kendo's intense horror he noticed the same transformation had taken place in the servant's countenance as had appeared in the faces of the others,[Pg 100] and this additional strain being too much for his nerves, he cried out and fell into a swoon.

In the meantime the doctor's friends, growing anxious about his long absence, despatched a search party to find him, and among those who were sent were some of the servants who had accompanied him earlier in the evening. To their surprise, instead of the fine house they had already visited, they found only an old, dirty, tumbledown cottage, which the neighbours told them was always desolate and only inhabited by foxes and tanuki. Nobody dared to pass that way by night. After a long search Doctor Kendo was found lying face downwards in a bamboo grove. Weeks passed before he recovered from his adventure. This story seems to throw a light on what may be called "the workings of transformation," as though a partial change were brought about by some hidden occult force glimmering through the human shape.

The "Roo chawa"[62] describes three kinds of strange wer-animals. Firstly thin ones, with emaciated features, red eyes, long trunks, legs the length of a horse, and a loud cry "like the tone of a bell." These are tanuki. The second variety has a round face, sharp nose, spotted skin and is blind in one eye. Thirdly, there are foxes with large ears, round eyes, pointed cheeks, wide mouths, but without a right arm! This sounds as though the description had been taken during the process of metamorphosis.

The one-eyed beasts seem the most fearsome to encounter in the dark. An ancient monastery was haunted by them. An old man, blind in one eye, arrived there as the priest was murmuring his prayers. He came near enough to stroke the devout man's face, but as he put out his hand to do so the priest protected himself with a knife and chopped off the arm, which proved to be the hairy leg of an old fox.

[Pg 101]

Another man who passed the night in the same monastery was disturbed by a number of puppy-dogs which ran in and out of the cloisters. Looking through a crack in an old door he saw a woman standing outside. He pierced her through the breast with his sword and she fled, bleeding profusely. A moment later a ball of light fell onto the ground, and when the man ran to see what it was, he found the same old witch. Again he struck at her with his sword and she fled, leaving another pool of blood.

Next day an old one-eyed woman came to the monastery accompanied by a little girl and asked the abbot to read a mass at the funeral of her elder sister.

The abbot, believing all was not right with these people, chased away the woman and child by threatening to strike them with a bamboo cane. That night the village was lit by burning torches and a crowd assembled to pray and read sutras. Temple gongs and kettle-drums resounded, and everyone knew that some mysterious ceremony was being held. The following morning the abbot sent to discover what had taken place and an old dead tanuki, as big as a calf, was dug out of the ground. It was found to be the witch that had been wounded in the monastery. This may be compared with the witch-cat stories of England in the following chapter.

Fox-possession and fox-familiars are common beliefs among the Japanese; women, weak men, and even children suffering from the idea of having been transformed into animals. They are cured by being made to snuff up smoke from a heap of burning refuse, or by drinking weak tea, or swallowing roasted leaves of a certain plant; all these things being detested by foxes, and incidentally no doubt useful in cases of ordinary hysteria. Foxes which take the form of men and women soon resume vulpine shape when fumigated, bathed, or attacked by dogs. Even in the present day, fox-possession has as great a hold on the imagination as in earlier centuries, but it is more widely ascribed to human sorcery. Certain sacred temples in Japan still attract crowds of[Pg 102] pilgrims who believe that they are possessed by foxes and who come to these holy places to be cured. The bone of a tortoise's foot held in the left hand is prescribed as a talisman against this fearsome spell—probably also many other of the formulæ useful in cases of witchcraft would be found efficacious.

[Pg 103]

Amongst the powers with which witches have been credited from time immemorial are those of transforming themselves into various kinds of animals, of transforming other people into animals and of sending forth so-called familiars in various animal shapes. Whether witches can change human beings into animals through sorcery is a question which has exercised the minds of hundreds of writers on demonology and witchcraft, amongst them, to mention a few at random, Bodin, Boguet, James I, Glanvill, Dr. Webster, Reginald Scott, his more famous namesake Sir Walter, and Charles Lamb. The last-named, in his essay on the subject, tells us that he was extremely inquisitive from his childhood about witches and witch-stories, and that it should cause no wonder if the wicked, having been symbolised by a goat, should come sometimes in that body and "assert his metaphor."[63]

In the Middle Ages witches who were condemned to the stake, confessed to having taken the shapes of cats, hares, dogs, horses, and many other animals, being prompted to such changes by the devil, with whom they were in league.

A witch trial took place at Lancaster on the 10th of February, 1633, in which a batch of witches was accused of such dealings.

Evidence was given by Edmund Robinson, son of Edmund Robinson, of Pendle forest, eleven years of age, at Padham, before Richard Shuttleworth and John[Pg 104] Starkey, Justices of the Peace, "who upon oath informeth, being examined concerning the great meeting of the witches of Pendle, saith that upon All Saints-day last past, he, this informer being with one Henry Parker a near door-neighbour to him in Wheatley Cave, desired the said Parker to give him leave to gather some bulloes, which he did. In gathering whereof he saw two greyhounds, namely a black and a brown; one came running over the next field towards him, he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutter's and the other to be Mr. Robinson's, the said gentlemen then having suchlike. And saith the said greyhounds came to him, and fawned on him, they having about their necks either of them a collar, unto which was tied a string: which collars (as this informant affirmeth) did shine like gold. And he was thinking that some either of Mr. Nutter's or Mr. Robinson's family should have followed them, yet seeing nobody to follow them, he took the same greyhounds thinking to course with them. And presently a hare did rise very near before him. At the sight whereof he cried 'Loo, Loo, Loo,' but the dogs would not run. Whereupon he being very angry took them and with the strings that were about their collars, tied them to a little bush at the next hedge, and, with a switch that he had in his hand, he beat them. And instead of the black greyhound Dickenson's wife stood up, a neighbour whom this informer knoweth. And instead of the brown one a little boy whom this informant knoweth not. At which sight this informer being afraid, endeavoured to run away; and being stayed by the woman, namely Dickenson's wife, she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled forth a piece of silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give it him to hold his tongue and not tell: which he refused saying, 'Nay, thou art a witch.' Whereupon she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out a thing like unto a bridle that jingled, which she put on the little boy's head; which said boy stood up in the likeness of a white horse, and in the brown greyhound's[Pg 105] stead. Then immediately Dickenson's wife took the informer before her upon the said horse and carried him to a new house called Hearthstones, being about a quarter of a mile off." Here the boy, Edmund Robinson, was witness to the extraordinary incidents of a feast of witches, all of which he recounted before the judges, and then his father, being called, gave evidence that he had sent his son to fetch home two kine, and as he did not return he went to seek him, finding him eventually "so affrighted and distracted that he neither knew his father, nor did he know where he was, and so continued very nearly a quarter of an hour before he came to himself, when he told the above curious happenings."[64]

The seventeen Pendle forest witches condemned in Lancashire obtained a reprieve and were sent to London, where they were examined by His Majesty himself and the Council.

A witch called Julian Cox, aged about seventy years, was indicted at Taunton, in Somerset, in 1663, for transforming herself into a hare and for other sorcery.

The evidence given to prove that she was a witch was embodied in a narrative deposed to by Mr. Pool, a servant and officer in the court to Judge Archer, then Judge of Assizes at Taunton.

"The first witness was a huntsman, who swore that he went out with a pack of hounds to hunt a hare, and not far from Julian Cox her house, he at last started a hare. The dogs hunted her very close, and the third ring hunted her in view, till at last the huntsman perceiving the hare almost spent, and making toward a great bush he ran on the other side of the bush to take her up, and preserve her from the dogs. But as soon as he laid hands on her, it proved to be Julian Cox, who had her head grovelling on the ground and her globes (as he expressed it) upward. He knowing her, was so affrighted that his hair on his head stood on end, and yet spake to her and[Pg 106] asked her what brought her there; but she was so far out of breath, that she could not make him any answer. His dogs also came up with full cry to recover the game and smelt at her, and so left off hunting any farther. And the huntsman went home presently, sadly affrighted."[65]

In a report dated in the latter half of the nineteenth century on the state of the county prison at Dingwall, a statement was made by a fisherman who was imprisoned for assaulting a woman of sixty, whom he accused of bewitching everything he had. She prevented him from catching fish and caused his boat to upset. The other fishermen then refused to work with him as a companion. "She is known in all the neighbourhood to be a witch," he deposed. "She has been seen a hundred times milking the cows in the shape of a hare, though I never saw her do it myself."

"People believe that if anyone gets blood from a witch she can do them no more harm, and that is the reason I cut her with a knife, so that it might go into her as short a way as possible. All I wanted was to get blood," was his quaint way of putting it.

The hare has always been closely associated with witches, and for this reason seems to be of evil augury, though in some parts of the country its foot, and sometimes its head, are used as a protection against sorcery, perhaps on the homeopathic principle.

The cat runs the hare very close in its association with witches, and is a handy animal for transformation purposes, being so frequently met with in this country.

One of the most celebrated Scottish witch-cat trials took place at Caithness when Margaret Nin-Gilbert was interrogated on February 8, 1719, by William Innes, minister of Thurso, and confessed that she was travelling one evening when she was met by the devil in the likeness of a man who "engaged her to take on with him," which she agreed to do. From that time she became[Pg 107] familiar with him, and sometimes he appeared to her in the likeness of a huge black horse, sometimes riding a horse, sometimes like a black cloud, and again in the shape of a black hen. She apparently obtained the powers of a witch with the help of this apparition, and the use she made of them appears in the following story told by one William Montgomery, a mason, whose house was invaded by cats in such numbers that his wife and maidservant could not endure to remain in the place.

One night on Montgomery's return he found five cats by the fireside, and the servant told him they were "speaking among themselves."

The cat-witch on the preceding November 28 had climbed in at a hole in a chest, and Montgomery watched his opportunity, intending to cut off her head when she should put it out of the hole. "Having fastened my sword on her neck," he continues, "which cut her, nor could I hold her; having (at length) opened the chest, my servant, William Geddes, having fixed my durk in her hinder quarters by which stroke she was fastened to the chest; yet after all she escaped out of the chest with the durk in her hinder quarter, which continued there till I thought, by many strokes, I had killed her with my sword; and having cast her out dead, she could not be found next morning." Four or five nights after, the servant cried out that the cats had come again, and Montgomery "wrapped his plaid about the cat and thrust the durk through her body, and having fixed the durk in the ground, I drove at her head with the back of an axe until she was dead, and being cast out could not be found next morning."

He further declared that no drop of blood came from the cats, also that they did not belong to anyone in the neighbourhood, although one night he saw eight of them and took this to be witchcraft for certain.

On February 12, Margaret Nin-Gilbert, who lived about half a mile from Montgomery's house, was seen by some of her neighbours to drop one of her legs at her[Pg 108] own door, and she being suspected of witchcraft the leg, black and putrefied, was taken before the deputy Sheriff who immediately had the maimed woman arrested and imprisoned. By her own confession she admitted that she was bodily present at Montgomery's house "in the likeness of a feltered cat" and that Montgomery had broken her leg either with his durk or axe, which leg since had fallen off from the other part of her body. Also that one Margaret Olsone was also there in the likeness of a cat, and several other women, and that they were invisible because "the devil did hide and conceal them by raising a dark mist or fog to screen them from being seen."[66]

Sometimes the apparition of a witch as a cat foretells death.

In 1607 a witch of the name of Isobel Grierson was burnt after being accused and convicted of entering the house of Adam Clark, in Prestonpans, in the likeness of his own cat and in the company of a mighty rabble of other cats, which by their noise frightened Adam, his wife, and their maid, the last-named being dragged up and down the stairs by the hair of her head, presumably by the devil in the shape of a black man. Isobel also visited the house of a certain Mr. Brown in the shape of a cat, but once being called upon by name she vanished, but Brown himself died of a disease she had laid upon him.

In 1629 another Isobel, wife of George Smith, was indicted as follows:—

"Item she resett Cristian Grinton, a witch in her house, whom the pannel's husband saw one night to come out at one hole in the roof, in the likeness of a cat, and thereafter transform herself in her own likeness, whereupon the pannel told her husband that it should not fare well with him, which fell out accordingly, for next day he[Pg 109] fell down dead at the plough."[67]

The witches of Vernon frequented an old castle in the shape of cats. Three or four brave men determined to pass the night in the stronghold, where they were assailed by the cats and one of them was killed, several of the others being hurt, and many of the cats received wounds. Afterwards the women were found to have returned to human shape and suffered from corresponding gashes.

The witches of Vernon had their imitators in three witches of Strasburg who, in the disguise of huge cats, fell upon a workman. He defended himself courageously and chased away the cats, wounding them. They were found instantaneously transformed into women, badly hurt and in their beds.

Another story describes how several cat-witches tormented a poor labourer, who, wearying of their persistence, drew his broadsword and sent the animals flying. One less nimble than the rest received a cut from the sword which severed one of its hind legs, when, to the labourer's amazement, he discovered on picking up the limb that it was human in shape, and next morning one of the old hags was discovered to have only one leg left. Similar stories of the "repercussion" variety will be found in Chapter XVIII, but they have never been satisfactorily explained.

M. Henri Gelin tells a good story of a witch who transformed herself into a dog.[68]

One winter evening dogs were barking all round a lonely house in Niort far more loudly than usual. The farmer rose from his bed and carefully opened the shutters. In the middle of the yard he saw a black and white greyhound, which apparently was enjoying itself molesting the other dogs, knocking them over with its paws without the least difficulty, and then picking them up[Pg 110] in its jaws and throwing them to some distance as soon as they ventured within reach. The farmer drew on his trousers, into the seat of which his wife had sown a horse-chestnut as a talisman against witchcraft, loaded his gun and fired on the animal which fell dead. The next day he rose at an early hour to go and examine the corpse of his prey, and was greatly astonished to see the body of a beautiful woman dressed in gorgeous clothes lying in the very spot on which the dog was shot. Round her neck there hung a rich chain made of five strings of jewels bearing enamelled medallions beautifully chased, and on her fingers were a profusion of precious gems. In order to cover all traces of his involuntary murder, he quickly dug a hole in a corner of the yard and made a pile of faggots above the newly replaced earth. He had only just finished his task when a gentleman came into the yard, and asked whether he had seen a lady pass that way. From the particulars given, the farmer soon felt certain that the woman in question was the witch he had killed. Tremblingly he replied that he had not seen the lady. But a little dog that followed the gentleman ran to the heap of faggots and began turning them over, howling piteously. "You have killed my poor wife," cried the gentleman. "I am certain she came here." But he did not insist on looking into the pile, and presently withdrew, followed by the still whimpering dog.

A sheep is sometimes, but not frequently, chosen as a medium for transformation.

A man who was returning late from the market at Verrières in Poitou, met a lamb, which followed him bleating loudly, at the turn of a footpath crossing a lonely heath. "Poor thing," he said, "you might be devoured by a wolf," and, seizing the lamb by its four legs, he hoisted it on to his shoulders, so as to carry it conveniently. As he approached his house he found the animal began to weigh very heavily. At last he arrived in a perspiration and put down his burden[Pg 111] amongst the sheep which had already been penned in the fold. At dawn the next day, he went to look at his new lamb. But in the spot where he had placed it the evening before he found a huge demon, busy stitching straw soles into his shoes. The sorcerer had resumed human shape and, looking very foolish, begged that he would say nothing about his little adventure. But the man seized him by the shoulders, kicked him from behind and chucked him out of the pen, crying, "Get out of this, you evil being." "If only he had made the slightest scratch from which the blood flowed," added the old lady who was telling the story, "the sorcerer would have been cured, and would no longer have been able to transform himself into an animal."

Although witches are able to transform themselves into horses if they wish, they usually prefer to use their powers for transforming other people, and getting the benefit by riding their victims to death.

Margaret Grant, a Scottish witch of the nineteenth century, believed that she was able to transform herself into various animals, and "avers that she was, at times, actually changed by evil-disposed persons into a pony or a hare and ridden for great distances, or hunted by dogs as the case might be."

Joseph Glanvill in his "Sadducismus Triumphatus," tells the story of a "great army of witches" who were charged with performing a feat of horse-transformation on a large scale at Blocula in Sweden in 1669.

A man may be transformed by a woman throwing a magic halter over his head while he is in bed. Then she mounts the horse, and rides to the witches' tryst. If, however, the man-horse can manage to slip the magic bridle off and throw it over her, she becomes a mare, and her victim mounts her and rides till she is exhausted.

At Yarrowfoot a witch-mare, according to one story, was shod in the usual manner and afterwards sold to her own husband. To his surprise, when he removed the bridle, his wife stood before him in human form, wearing[Pg 112] horseshoes on her hands and feet.

There are many variants of this story, another woman having been found in bed with horseshoe attachments, and it is difficult to trace the origin of this fantastic idea.

In the neighbourhood of Ostrel in Denmark a man served on a farm, the mistress of which, unknown to him, was a witch. Although she gave him good and wholesome food he never thrived, but became thinner every day. At this, being much troubled, he went to a wise man, to whom he communicated his case. From this man he learnt that his mistress was a witch and that at night, while he slept, she transformed him into a horse, and rode upon him to Troms Church in Norway; so that it was not to be wondered at that his strength decreased. The wise man at the same time gave him an ointment with which to rub his head at night, and said when he fell asleep he would have a violent itching on his head, and then he would wake up and see that he was standing outside Troms Church.

The man did as he had been told, and on waking up the following night, he found that he was standing by the church, holding in his hand a bridle which he had torn off whilst scratching his head. Behind him he saw many horses bound together by each other's tails. Presently his mistress came out and cast a friendly look at him, but he nodded for her to come nearer, and when she stood by, he cast the bridle over her head and she became a handsome mare on the spot. He mounted and rode her home. On the way he called at a farrier's, and made him shoe the mare. When he reached home he told his master that he had been out to buy a fine mare, which would go handsomely in harness with one already in the stables. The master paid him a good round sum for the animal, but when he took off its bridle, there stood his wife with horseshoes on her hands and feet. He turned her straight out of doors, but she never managed to get rid of the horseshoes.

[Pg 113]

When St. Macarius encountered a poor old woman who had been changed into a horse, he restored her to human shape by sprinkling holy water over her. The same saint acted mercifully in another case of transformation.

A young girl refused to do the bidding of the man who asked her to be his wife. He was so infuriated by her refusal that he arranged with a wizard to turn her into a stoat. A wise man, endeavouring to explain this incident, says, "This was not a genuine transformation, but was an illusion of the devil, who so affected the imagination of the girl and the bystanders, that she appeared to them in the form of a stoat, although she was still a woman in reality."

The victim of the enchantment was then taken before the holy man of the name of Macarius, who, on account of his saintliness, could not suffer deception of the devil's wiles. He looked upon the maiden and saw that she was a human being and no stoat, and thus, uttering a prayer, freed her from the spell. This cure is of the hypnotic variety, in which several people are under the mental spell of one other.

Reginald Scott tells the story of a woman who sold an egg to a man who, when eating it, speedily turned into an ass. For three years she rode the animal to market. It was in the city of Salamin in Cyprus where a ship arrived laden with merchandise. Many of the sailors went ashore in the hope of procuring fresh provisions. A certain sturdy young Englishman went to a woman's shop some little way from the town, to see whether she could let him have some new-laid eggs. She promised to do so and went off to fetch them, but she was away so long that the young sailor called out that she must please make haste, as the tide was going out and he might be left behind when his ship set sail. At last she came out with the eggs and told him to come back to her house if the ship had gone. The sailor made the best of his way back to the vessel, but being hungry, ate an egg on the way. He was then struck dumb and his wits[Pg 114] seemed to have left him. When he reached the side of the vessel and tried to go aboard, the mariners beat him back with cudgels crying, "What lacks the ass?" and "Whither the devil does the ass want to come?" Then the sailor realised that he had been bewitched by the woman's eggs he had eaten, and had turned into a donkey. Finding it impossible to board the ship and remembering the witch's words, he went back to her house and there served her for the space of three years, carrying the burdens she laid on his back.[69] Here no doubt the egg is used merely as an instrument for inducing a certain frame of mind in the victim. It may be presumed that the witch's words of suggestion were equally necessary in bringing about the transformation.

The sorceress Meroc in "The Metamorphosis or Golden Ass of Apuleius," had the power to change, by one word only, her lover into a beaver. "She likewise changed into a frog an innkeeper who was her neighbour and of whom she was on that account envious, and now that old man, swimming in a tub of his own wine, and merged in the dregs of it, calls on his ancient guests with a hoarse and courteously croaking voice."

"She likewise changed one of the advocates of the court into a ram because he had declaimed against her, and now that ram pleads causes."[70]

M. Henri Gelin, whose researches on Poitevin legends and folklore are very valuable,[71] discusses the conditions under which metamorphosis takes place, saying it is entirely involuntary and is the result of an agreement entered into with infernal powers. The soul of the sorcerer is supposed to remain in a state of distinct entity. But the narrators of these stories have done little to make clear the actual process which takes place when the transformation occurs of a man into a wolf, a sheep, or a colt, or a woman (who seems to be credited[Pg 115] with gentler characteristics) into a goat, a bitch, or a hind. Perhaps the human body remains temporarily deprived of its soul, which, entering a new shape, substitutes itself for the obscure and undeveloped soul of the animal, or perhaps the wizard's body enjoys the faculty of anatomically modifying its organs, and varying its aspects something in the manner of the caterpillar which turns into a moth. Who shall say?

A shepherdess in the district of Niort noticed when driving her flock home that it had become augmented by the presence of a black sheep, the origin of which she could not trace. She penned up the extra animal with her own in the shed, and bolted the door, rejoicing at the addition to her flock. But as soon as night had fallen, a woman's voice was heard singing in the sheep's shed. The tune was a plaintive one, interspersed now and again with strident and prolonged laughter. Not one of the servants or neighbours dared to open the shed and face the flock to see who could be singing like that. In hushed voices they said "It's a witch!" The next day at the usual hour of departure, the shepherdess, in great dread of what she might see, partly opened the shed door. The black sheep rushed like a whirlwind into the open and was gone. Now and again, however, the apparition returned to the farm in the shape of a woman, clapping her hands and laughing loudly as though to mock at the people who had allowed her to escape so easily.

The following legend of a white hind comes from the same district, Souché, two miles from Niort. Its peculiar characteristic is that the young girl, who complains to her mother about the hounds chasing her, appears to be quite aware of what is happening to her in her dual personality of woman and hind at the same moment, an important detail when regarded in the light of scientific occultism.

The story is told by Gelin and is very popular in Poitou. The heroine is a girl by day and a white hind[Pg 116] by night. The pack of hounds belonging to her brother Renaud chase her in the forest. She complains of this to her mother who begs Renaud to call back the pack. But it is too late. The white hind is captured and killed. Her palpitating flesh is stripped from the carcase and prepared as a dish of venison, and next day when the guests sit down to the feast, they are terrified to hear a woman's voice which they recognise as that of their absent sister, murmuring, "Alas! my breasts are lying on platters of gold." Then, raising her tone, she announces that Renaud's soul is forfeit and that his name is written up on the gates of hell. At the sound of her words Renaud falls down dead and his mother goes off in a swoon.

"La Blanche Biche," as the story is called in the original, is told in verse which may be rendered roughly as follows:—

This is a far more harrowing story than the Yorkshire legend of a woman who turns into a white doe, which is found in Wordsworth's "The White Doe of Rylstone."

Burke has a very different version of the famous and spotless White Doe of Rylstone,[72] the animal being gifted with human faculties rather than appearing in human form, and the story having some affinity with those of the fairy-godmother class. This beautiful white doe belonged to Emily, the only daughter of Richard Norton of Rylstone, who had nine warrior sons. The youngest[Pg 118] of them, Edward by name, had made a present of the doe to his sister and the animal was called Blanche on account of her spotless white skin. She followed her young mistress everywhere and was like a human companion. So great was her intelligence that she was thought to be a benevolent witch or fairy, perhaps rather a sprite bewitched in animal form.

One day she leads her mistress a long way from home, to a spot beside a brooklet which is held by the people of the neighbourhood to be haunted. Having reached the desired destination, the doe lies down to rest and Emily does likewise. Presently she falls into a kind of dream, in which it seems to her that the brook boils and bubbles up and a wraith of mist rises on the surface which gradually takes the shape and outlines of a beautiful woman.

This spirit warns Emily in a vision of coming disaster to her beloved father and eight of her brothers. She sees them done to death by the axe. Meanwhile the doe lies immovable in a kind of trance and it may well be thought that her real womanly self is seen by Emily in its natural shape.

Soon afterwards Emily is informed by Edward that her father and eight of her brothers are on the point of breaking out into open rebellion against the Sovereign of England and that it is necessary for him to join them, although doing so goes against his convictions, as he is loyal to Queen Elizabeth. Nothing that Emily can do or say dissuades him from his decision, and she parts from him in great grief.

At first the rebels succeed in their projects, but presently their attacks fail and they are forced to retreat. A rumour reaches Emily that all the Nortons have been captured and condemned to death and that the rebellion is over.

In the hope of saving her father and brothers, Emily sets out, accompanied by Blanche, to sue Queen Elizabeth for pardon on behalf of her relatives. On the long[Pg 119] and perilous journey to Court, Blanche again acts as her adviser, and gives her almost human help in moments of difficulty, and so charmed is the Queen by the beauty of the suppliant and her intelligent animal comrade, that she sends Lord Leicester post-haste to York with a reprieve for the Nortons.

Unfortunately the messenger arrives too late to save any member of the family except the youngest son, Edward, Emily's favourite, and thus the beautiful human doe is instrumental in saving him, at least, from the scaffold.

[Pg 120]

From witch stories it is only a short step to stories about witches' familiars, for nearly all sorcerers are gifted with the power of sending out a spirit or second soul to do the work of the evil one. A distinction has therefore to be made between the witch in animal form and the external soul of the witch sent forth in the shape of an animal while she retains her human appearance.

The "familiar" or "imp," whether a real animal or spirit in animal form, stands ever ready at the sorcerer's elbow waiting to do his bidding. The "life" of the familiar is bound up with that of the witch, and if the former be wounded, the latter will suffer from an injury in a corresponding part of the body. Death to the familiar means death to the witch, and the way to get rid of the spell is to kill the double of the witch. To this class belong some of the most interesting phenomena, as well as the most inexplicable, dealing with the human animal theory.

In one case a blue butterfly was seen to flutter over a certain farm, and as affairs there had not been going at all well, it was looked upon with dread and suspicion as the bringer of evil. For three weeks the insect hovered about and during that period "no butter came." Then the farmer decided to take steps to break the enchantment. Armed with a wet towel he sallied forth to chase the alleged familiar and, cleverly flapping his cloth, he brought down the butterfly at a swoop. Precisely at that moment a woman, who was suspected of being a witch, was found lying dead outside the door of her house close[Pg 121] by, and after the double event there was no further trouble with the churning.

Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, Essex, a witch-finder of ill-fame, was the cause of bringing thousands of supposed witches to judgment and so to the stake. He was paid 20s. in each town he visited and managed to rid of its suspicious characters, and he appears to have found his profession extraordinarily lucrative. In 1644 he was commissioned by Parliament to make a circuit through several counties with a view to discovering witches. He travelled in the company of several boon companions for three years and was instrumental in having sixteen persons hanged at Yarmouth, forty at Bury and at least sixty in other parts of Suffolk, Norfolk and Huntingdonshire.

During a notorious trial of a number of witches at Chelmsford, Essex, on July 29th, 1645, Hopkins made a deposition about an alleged witch, Elizabeth Clarke, who confessed that she had known the devil intimately for more than six years and that he visited her between three and five times a week. She invited Hopkins and his companions, one of whom was a man called Sterne, to stay at her house for a time until she could call up one of her white imps for them to see. Presently there appeared on the scene an imp like a dog, white and with sandy spots, which seemed to be very fat and plump, with short legs. The animal forthwith vanished away. The said Elizabeth gave the name of this imp as Jarmara. And immediately afterwards there appeared another imp, which she called Vinegar Tom, in the shape of a greyhound with long legs. The said Elizabeth then remarked that the next imp should be black in colour and that it should come for Master Sterne (the other witness already mentioned), and it appeared as she promised, but presently vanished without leaving a sign. The last imp of all to come before the spectators was a creature in the shape of a polecat, but the head somewhat bigger. The said Elizabeth then disclosed to the[Pg 122] informant that she had five imps of her own. And two other imps with which she had dealings belonged to a certain Beldame Anne West.[73]

The said Matthew Hopkins, when going from the house of a Mr. Edwards of Manningtree, to his own house, one night between nine and ten o'clock, accompanied by his favourite greyhound, noticed the dog give a sudden leap and run off as though in full course after a hare. Hastening to see what the greyhound pursued so eagerly, he espied a white thing about the size of a kitten, and the panting dog was standing aloof from the creature. By and by the imp or kitten began to dance about and around the said greyhound and, viciously approaching him, bit or tore a piece of flesh off the dog's shoulder.

Coming later into his own yard, the informant saw a black thing proportioned like a cat, only that it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry bed and fixing its luminous eyes on him. But when he went towards it, it leaped suddenly over the palings and ran towards the informant as he thought, but instead, it fled through the yard with his greyhound in hot pursuit after it to a great gate which was "underset with a pair of tumbrell strings," and it did throw the said gate wide open and then vanished. And the said greyhound returned again to the informant shaking and trembling exceedingly.

Sterne gave evidence on the same day, and much to the same effect, but said that the white imp was like a cat but not so big, and when he asked Elizabeth whether she was not afraid of her imps she answered, "What! do you think I am afraid of my children?" and she called the imp Jarmara as having red spots, and spoke of two more called Sack and Sugar. Four other witnesses confirmed the story practically in its entirety.

Elizabeth Clarke herself gave evidence then, and said Anne West had sent her a "thing like a little kitlyn," which would obtain food for her. Two or three nights[Pg 123] after this promise, a white thing came to her in the night, and the night after a grey one spoke to her and said it would do her no hurt and would help her to get a husband. After various charges against the said Elizabeth Clarke and her accomplice, Elizabeth Gooding, Anne Leech, a third woman accused of witchcraft, deposed on April 14th that she and the other two accused sent their respective grey, black and white imps to kill cattle belonging to various neighbours, and that later they had sent them to kill neighbours' children and she added that her imps spoke to her in a hollow voice which she plainly understood, and that these accused witches had met together at the house of the said Elizabeth Clarke, when a book was read "wherein she thinks there was no goodness."

Another woman suspected of witchcraft was Helen Clark who confessed on April 11th that the devil had appeared to her in the likeness of a white dog, and that she called her familiar Elimanzer and that she fed him with milk-pottage and that he spoke to her audibly and bade her deny Christ.

With the witch Anne West was implicated her daughter Rebecca West, who, however, was acquitted, and the notorious Matthew Hopkins deposed that she had told him of visiting the house of Clarke with her mother, and that they had found Leech, Gooding, and Helen Clark, and that the devil had appeared in the shape of a dog, afterwards in the shape of two kittens, then in the shape of two dogs, and that the said familiars did homage in the first place to the said Elizabeth Clarke and slipped up into her lap and kissed her, and then went and kissed all that were in the room except the said Rebecca, who was then made to swear on a book that she would not reveal what she saw or heard—on pain of the torments of hell, and that afterwards the devil came and kissed her and promised to marry her, and she sent him to kill a neighbour's child, of the name of Hart, who died within a fortnight.

[Pg 124]

Susan Sparrow, who gave her evidence on the 25th of April, said that the house in which she lived with one Mary Greenleif, was haunted by a leveret which usually came and sat before the door, which, when coursed by a dog, never stirred, "and just when the dog came at it, he skipped over it and turned about and stood still, and looked on it, and shortly after that the dog languished and died."

Another of the witches, called Margaret Moone, had a familiar "in the likeness of a rat for bigness and shape, but of a greyer colour." She confessed to two of the witnesses that she had twelve imps and called these by such names as Jesus, Jockey, Mounsier, Sandy, Mrs. Elizabeth, and Collyn, etc. Moone was a "woman of very bad fame," who confessed to many crimes, especially of causing the death of animals and children.

Rose Hallybread, who died in gaol before execution, was accused of being implicated with Joyce Boanes in sending four familiars to the house of a carpenter, Robert Turner, whose servant was then taken sick and "crowed perfectly like a cock, sometimes barked like a dog," sang tunes, groaned, and struggled with such strength that five strong men were needed to hold him. Boanes confessed that her imp made the victim bark like a dog, Hallybread's imp caused him "to sing sundry tunes in great extremity of pains," and Susan Cork compelled him to crow. The torture was inflicted because Turner's servant had refused to give Susan Cork a sack full of chips.

Anne Cate, another of the witches who was executed at Chelmsford, said she had three familiars like mice and a fourth like a sparrow. They were called James, Prickeare, Robyn, and Sparrow, and she sent them to kill both cattle and human beings.

It was thought impossible to kill these familiars, and one Goff, a glover and very honest man of Manningtree, confessed to passing Anne West's house about four o'clock on a moonlight morning and seeing her door was open, he looked into the house. "Presently there[Pg 125] came three or four little things in the shape of black rabbits leaping and skipping about him, who, having a good stick in his hand, struck at them thinking to kill them, but could not, but at last caught one of them in his hand, and holding it by the body, he beat the head of it against his stick, intending to beat the brains out of it; but when he could not kill it that way, he took the body in one hand and the head in another and endeavoured to wring off the head, and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wool." Then he tried to drown it in a spring, but kept falling down. At last he crept to the water on hands and knees, holding the familiar under the water for a good space. But as soon as he let go it sprang out of the water up into the air and so vanished.

He went and asked Anne West why she had set her imps on him to molest and trouble him, but she said "they were sent out as scouts upon another design."[74]

Joan Cariden, widow, examined September 25, 1645, said, that about three-quarters of a year ago, as she was in bed about twelve or one of the clock in the night there lay a rugged soft thing on her bosom which was very soft, and she thrust it off with her hand; and she said that when she had thrust it away she thought God forsook her, for she could never pray so well as she could before, and further she said that she verily thought it was alive. Examined further, she said the Devil came to her in the shape of a black rugged dog in the night-time and crept into bed with her and spoke to her in mumbling language. The next night he came again and required her to deny God and lean on him.

Jane Hott, widow and associate of the above, also examined on September 25, 1645, confessed that a thing like a hedgehog had usually visited her, and when it lay on her breast she struck it off with her hand, and that it[Pg 126] was as soft as a cat.

In 1664 one Elizabeth Style, a widow, of Bayford, was examined at Stoke Trister, Somerset, before Robert Hunt, for witchcraft.

One of the witnesses, Nicholas Lambert, examined on January 26 of that year, deposed to having watched the prisoner in company with William Thick and William Read of Bayford. The informant sat near the prisoner by the fire at three o'clock in the morning and was reading "The Practice of Piety," when he noticed "there came from her head a glistening bright fly about an inch in length, which pitched at first in the chimney and then vanished. In less than a quarter of an hour after, there appeared two flies more, of a less size and another colour, which seemed to strike at the informant's hand in which he held his book, but missed it. He looked steadfastly at the prisoner and perceived her countenance to change and to become very black and ghastly, the fire also at the same time changing its colour; whereupon the informants, Thick and Read, conceiving that her familiar was then about her, looked at her poll, and seeing her hair shake very strangely, took it up, and then a fly like a great Millar flew out from the place and pitched on the table board and then vanished away." When asked what it was that flew out of her poll the accused said it was a butterfly, and asked them why they had not caught it. She confessed that it was her familiar and that was the usual time when her familiar came to her.[75]

One Alice Duke, alias Manning, of Wincanton, in Somerset, who was tried in 1664 for witchcraft, confessed that her familiar visited her "in the shape of a little cat of a dunnish colour, which is as smooth as a want," and that "her familiar doth commonly suck her right breast about seven at night," when she fell into a kind of trance.

[Pg 127]

Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower, were tried for witchcraft near Belvoir Castle and executed at Lincoln on March 11, 1618, on the most extraordinary charges.[76]

Phillip Flower, examined on the 4th of February previously, said that her mother and sister "maliced" the Earl of Rutland, his Countess and their children, because her sister Margaret was put out of the ladies' service of laundry. Phillip thereupon brought from the Castle the right glove of the Henry Lord Ross and gave it to her mother, "who presently rubbed it on the back of her spirit Rutterkin, and then put it into hot boiling water, afterwards she pricked it often and buried it in the yard, wishing Lord Ross might never thrive, and so her sister Margaret continued with her mother, where she often saw the cat Rutterkin leap on her shoulder and suck her neck."

Margaret corroborated the story, and added that after the sorcery Lord Ross fell sick within a week. She also said that her mother and she and her sister agreed to bewitch the Earl and Countess so that they might have no more children, being angry with the Countess for telling her she was no longer to live at the Castle, and who, giving her forty shillings, a bolster and a mattress, bade her sleep at home.

Then she took wool from the mattress and a pair of gloves given her by one of the Castle servants and put them into warm water, mingling them with some blood and stirring it together. Then she took the wool and gloves out of the water and rubbed them on the body of Rutterkin, the cat, saying the Lord and Lady should have no more children or it should be long first.

She further confessed that her mother told her to bring a piece of Lady Katherine's—the earl's daughter's—kerchief, and her mother put it in hot water and taking it out rubbed it on Rutterkin, "bidding him fly and go."[Pg 128] Whereupon Rutterkin whined and cried "mew," and she said Rutterkin had no power to hurt Lady Katherine.

Examined on the 25th of February, before Francis Earl of Rutland, Francis Lord Willoughby of Eresby, Sir George Manners, and Sir William Pelham, Phillip Flower confessed to having a familiar spirit in the form of a white rat, and gave her soul to it, and it promised to do her good and cause one Thomas Simpson to love her.

The mother of these girls, Margaret Flower, being examined at the same time and place, confessed to two familiar spirits, one white and the other spotted black.

She further said she had been visited in Lincoln gaol by four devils, between eleven o'clock and midnight, about the 30th January. One stood at the foot of her bed, with a black head like an ape, and spoke to her, though she could not understand his meaning. The other three were the cat Rutterkin, Little Robin, and Spirit. She confirmed what her daughters had said about Lord Ross, and said that after she rubbed the glove on the spirit Rutterkin she threw it into the fire and burnt it.

One of the witnesses, Anne Baker of Rothsford, who was concerned in the case of the death of Lord Ross, son of the Earl of Rutland, when examined on March 1st, 1618, by the Earl and Sir George Manners and Samuel Fleming, Doctor of Divinity, made the following curious statements in the course of her confession of witchcraft.

She said she saw a hand appear to her and heard a voice in the air say "Anne Baker, save thyself, for tomorrow thou and thy master must be slain," and the next day her master and she were in a cart together and suddenly she saw a flash of fire, and said her prayers, and the fire went away, and shortly after a crow came and perched upon her clothes, and she said her prayers again and bade the crow to go to whom he was sent, and the crow went to her master and did beat him to death, and she[Pg 129] with her prayers recovered him to life, but he was sick a fortnight after, and if she had not had more knowledge than he, both of them, and the cattle, would have been killed.

Another witness at the same trial, Joan Willimott, confessed to having a spirit she called Pretty, and she declared that a shepherd, Gamaliel Greete, had a spirit like a white mouse put into him in his swearing; and that if he did look upon anything with an intent to hurt it it should be hurt, and she said further that in the home of the Flowers she had seen two spirits, one like a rat and the other like an owl.

The basic belief that it is possible to send forth a familiar to wreak harm on others is found fully developed in black magic, and to such occult powers no doubt many strange phenomena may be attributed.

A peculiarly uncanny story about a witch and her familiar comes from Poitou. A young man who lived near Champdenois, went to spend the evening with some friends. He was jumping over a stone fence which separated the neighbouring estates, when a familiar settled on his back. The young man caught hold of the demon with all his strength and strangled him, flinging him on the ground, where he lay apparently lifeless. Curiosity induced the young man to lift the inert body on to his shoulders, as he wished to look at it by candlelight and show it to his friends.

When he arrived at his friends' house the inmates were sitting in a circle about the hearth and the mistress of the house was spinning, surrounded by her maids. They all looked wonderingly at the demon, but the mistress appeared to be strangely ill at ease.

"I believe," said the young fellow, "it's a sorcerer. There's only one way of finding out. We'll put it in the fire, then we shall know what sort of being it is."

When she heard this cruel suggestion the mistress gripped the arms of her chair in obvious anxiety and let her spindle drop to the ground, saying she was feeling[Pg 130] very ill. When the demon was put on to the glowing cinders she shrieked out and was forced to confess, in a shamefaced manner, that she had been wandering in the woods that evening in the shape of an animal, and that the young man had captured her double. Whether this witch intended to work harm is not divulged.

The Kaju wizards make familiars by digging up a corpse and giving it medicine, which restores it to life. They run a hot needle up the back of the head and slit the tongue. The familiar then speaks with inarticulate sound and is sent out by them to do harm. This is probably another form of ritual akin to black magic.

A beautiful enchantress and priestess lived among the natives of Nicaragua and was served by many animals over whom she had extraordinary powers. She also had in her service an old man and woman. She transformed them into youthful beings, with large expanding pinions, and clothed them in tiger- and deer-skins, adorned with richly coloured plumage.

Another and more exalted form of the familiar was the Daemon or Genius, a kind of spirit which, according to the beliefs of the ancients, presided over the actions of mankind. Man was thus said to have a good and an evil presiding spirit. The genius of Socrates, for instance, constantly gave him information and kept him from the commission of crime or impiety.

[Pg 131]

In folk-lore and mythological legends all animals are originally human and most human beings are able to turn into animals. Women who married tigers, women who gave birth to serpents, men who became goats, cows or sheep, frog-princes and monkey-servants, abound in the standard fairy-tales of almost every country.

Grecian women are said to change their cold lovers into donkeys, Persian princesses, on the contrary, cause their too passionate adorers to metamorphose into numerous animal shapes and Circe, disgusted with the depraved conduct of the companions of Ulysses, changed them into swine and shut them up in sties. The story of Circe typifies, of course, the fact that man's lower nature is the animal part of him, and the story of Malec Muhammed, which follows, points the same moral.

A repetition of the well-known Circe story needs no apology in a book which deals at length with the subject of transformation. Circe was the daughter of Sol and Perse, and was celebrated for her skill in magic. She married a prince of Colchis, and then murdered him to obtain his kingdom. Being expelled by her subjects for her crime, she was carried away by her father to Aea, an island on the coast of Italy, which Ulysses visited on his return from the Trojan War. His companions, giving way to excess, were changed into swine by Circe's magic potions. Ulysses was himself made immune from her spells by a herb called Moly, given to him by the god Mercury, and he demanded that his companions should[Pg 132] be restored. Circe complied with his request. Eurylochus and his companions found Circe's palace in an open space in a wood, and Ulysses had the following account from the lips of Eurylochus:—

"All about were wolves and lions," he said, "yet these harmed not the men, but stood up on their hind-legs, fawning upon them, as dogs fawn upon their master when he comes from his meal, because he brings the fragments with him that they love. And the men were afraid. And they stood in the porch and heard the voice of Circe as she sang with a lovely voice and plied the loom. Then said Polites (who was dearest of all his comrades to Ulysses), 'Someone within plies a loom, and sings with a loud voice. Some goddess is she, or woman. Let us make haste and call.'

"So they called to her, and she came out and beckoned to them that they should follow. So they went, in their folly. And she bade them sit, and mixed for them a mess, red wine, and in it barley meal and cheese and honey, and mighty drugs withal, of which, if a man drank, he forgot all that he loved. And when they had drunk she smote them with her wand. And lo! they had of a sudden the heads and the voices and the bristles of swine, but the heart of a man was in them still. And Circe shut them in sties, gave them mast and acorns and cornel to eat."

And Eurylochus fled back to the ship to tell Ulysses what had befallen his comrades.[77]

Circe also changed Picus into a bird, when he did not respond to her advances.

[Pg 133]

Geti Afraz, the heroine of a typical Eastern transformation story, on the other hand, changes Malec Muhammed the moment he grows too ardent in his caresses.

One day when Malec was on his travels, he arrived at the city of Ekbalia and took up his lodging in a caravanserai.[78]

At dusk that evening he saw a remarkable illumination in the sky and heard intoxicating music. Presently a procession of beautifully dressed people passed by, and he caught a glimpse of a lovely princess. "Who is she?" he asked of the neighbours. "Geti Afraz, daughter of the King of the Peris, is riding through the city," they answered. "Her palace is close by."

Entranced by the beauty of her appearance, Malec Muhammed inquired whether she received visitors. "Yes, she does," was the answer; "but it is at their own risk, as she usually changes her visitors into the shape of some animal." Malec, nothing daunted by this strange remark, set out at once for the abode of the princess.

The door of the palace was shut, and knocking loudly he cried, "Open to Malec Muhammed." The Peri's reputation was well-known, and no one ever arrived at the palace who was not brave enough to risk being turned into an animal. In a moment the door was opened and Malec was invited to step inside.

In the reception hall he saw a throne composed of a single jacinth, adorned with the richest cushions, on which was seated a lady, beautiful as the silver moon, surrounded by a thousand handmaids, brilliant as stars.

Malec stood stupefied in wonder at this vision of paradise. The princess pointed to a golden seat near the throne, and when he sat upon it she asked, "Whence come you, who are you, and why have you visited me?"

[Pg 134]

Malec Muhammed answered like one in a dream,

Then Geti Afraz ordered one of her handmaidens to bring some ruby-coloured wine to her guest, and after he had taken it she asked whether the company of the maiden would give him entertainment. But he refused her offer, saying that his devotion to herself prevented him talking to, or even looking at, any other woman.

The princess seemed pleased with this compliment, but said in a pensive tone, "Man is an impatient creature and from his impatience many misfortunes result which he lays to our charge." Malec replied that whilst in her presence he could never give way to impatience for, if he were allowed to gaze into her adorable eyes, life needed nothing more to make it perfect.

Geti Afraz smiled sarcastically, saying, "I fear you will not remain satisfied gazing for ever into my eyes, and take heed, for if you show the least tendency to lose your head over me you will be punished by being banished from my society."

Thus they spent many hours in each other's company, he gazing into her eyes but never presuming even so far as to touch her hand.

Overcome by her beauty, at last he threw himself at her feet and asked whether the lifelong devotion he was prepared to offer was acceptable in her sight. "Be patient and cautious," she said, to calm his protestations, "otherwise you will be transformed into an animal, which is not an easy matter to remedy."

So Malec went back to his golden seat and mastered his passionate feelings as well as he could. Just then one of the handmaidens brought in a scented rose to present to the princess. Malec Muhammed led her forward in hopes that his fingers might chance to touch those of Geti Afraz. The princess stretched out her hand to take the rose when Malec Muhammed lost his self-control and planted an impassioned kiss upon her fingers.[Pg 135] "Ah! you cursed billing dove!" cried Geti Afraz, "Why do you do that?" and at her words Malec gave a sudden spring into the air and whirled round and round in the form of a dove.

The poor bird was desperate on account of this strange way in which his affection had been received. All day long he flew from turret to turret, and hopped from branch to branch, before his unrelenting mistress; but finding his appeals no use he flew away and took the quickest road to his house. There his servants set traps to catch him, and he fluttered about in great fear, until one remarked, "Poor little dove, let it go, for the love of our master, who has not been seen here for some days."

Malec then flew to the house of his uncle, the Vizier, and perched on his knee. The Vizier, suspecting enchantment, sent for a box of medicine and inserted a dose in the bird's bill; the dove fluttered round and round in a circle and suddenly resumed human form.

But the attraction of the princess proved too much for Malec, and though he tried to forget her he found it impossible. At last, in desperation, he cried out that he must see her again, cost what it might.

he exclaimed as he set out once more for the palace.

He was admitted into the presence of the princess, who expressed great surprise at the fate which had overtaken him.

"Ah," he said, "it was hard to be so severely punished for one kiss of those charming fingers."

"Well," she replied, "I approve of you so well that to compensate you for your misfortune I will give you leave to kiss both my hands and my feet as often as you please, but you must not presume any further than that."

[Pg 136]

That evening he was allowed to stay beside her couch, because when she suggested sending him away he reminded her of her promise. How could he kiss her hands and her feet if he was forced to leave her side? This concession made Malec believe that she had more affection for him than she was willing to show. "I asked her only for the opportunity of admiring her at a distance and she has given me a place close beside her," he thought.

Hour after hour he kissed her hands and feet, and all the time he aspired to her lips. There she lay slumbering, beautiful as a goddess, and as he bent over her to approach his lips to hers, she awoke and reminded him of his promise, saying, "Be cautious, or you will have to take your departure."

At this rebuke he retired ignominiously from her side, but his love for her increased by leaps and bounds, and she fostered it by walking with him in the lovely palace gardens and by taking him with her in her gorgeous carriage when she followed the hounds. In the evening they feasted, and, after quaffing wine, Malec, driven to madness by her beauty, forgot himself as she lay slumbering and, bending forward, pressed his lips to hers.

At that moment she awoke, crying, "Cursed ass! what have you done?"

Even as she uttered the words, Malec gave a spring and galloped away in the form of an ass.

The servants of the princess beat the animal with sticks and drove him out of the palace.

After nine long months, in which Malec endured the ignominy of being in animal form, his uncle, who had been greatly annoyed by his nephew's repeated folly, softened sufficiently to help him out of his dilemma, by giving him a further dose of the magic medicine which brought him back to his natural appearance.

When once again he arrived at the palace Geti Afraz welcomed him warmly.

"All that has befallen you has happened through your own impatience," she said. "What can a man expect[Pg 137] who loses his self-control as you did?"

Nevertheless the princess bound him to her in flowery chains, which entangled him more and more, until the tortured Malec, whilst visiting King Anushah in her company, exceeded the limits of propriety she had laid down for him and was turned into an ox.

In this form he was set to draw water, and tears trickled down his ox-like face at the indignities he had to undergo. His uncle, seeing the animal's distress, said, "Malec Muhammed, if this be you, make some sign to let me know!"

The ox nodded as a sign.

"The curse of God light on you and your doings," said the Vizier, and he had the ox driven to a stall and ordered his servants to fatten him up for the winter, when he intended to make mince-meat of him.

After six months had passed, however, King Anushah interfered and asked the Vizier to pardon Malec's folly. Enough medicine was sent for to serve its purpose even if Malec had been metamorphosed a hundred times and he was called into his uncle's presence.

"Gallows face!" cried the Vizier, "this time you must thank the Shah that you are to become a man once more, for I should have let you die in disgrace. If you take an oath never to behave so foolishly again I will give you the medicine."

The ox pleaded and nodded, the dose was administered and Malec became himself again.

"Really," said the Shah, "you have made a beast of yourself often enough, Muhammed," and he made him promise not to do it again.

But even then Malec had not learnt wisdom, and after many vicissitudes, when he was brought once more into the presence of his charmer, he found her fascination too much for his senses.

The languid Narcissus-like eyes of Geti Afraz yielded to slumber after a banquet, and she fell asleep on her sofa with Malec by her side. In tenderest mood he[Pg 138] rained kiss after kiss upon her lips:

Unable to restrain himself further he laid one hand upon her lily-white bosom, and she started up with the cry, "Cursed dog, what are you doing?" and he became a dog.

For many months Malec endured this new indignity, for his uncle, the Vizier, declared that he should wear a dog's collar round his neck till the day of his death, but the princess herself, relenting of the cruel fate to which she had condemned her lover, contrived that the Shah's wife, Ruh Afza, should transform her husband into an animal in order that he might suffer what Malec was suffering.

As soon as the Shah offered his caresses to her, Ruh Afza cried out:

"Ha! you cat, what? Would you scratch me?" and immediately the Shah found himself whirled round and round, and, taking a spring with his head down and his heels up, he assumed the form of a cat. All the rest of the night he strolled through the garden caterwauling piteously.

In the morning he met the Vizier, who recognised his master, King Anushah, at once, and restored him to his normal condition.

The Shah, wishing to vent his anger on Geti Afraz for this insult to his dignity, decided to execute Malec, "to sear her bosom with a lasting wound," for he believed her to be fond of Malec in spite of her conduct. Sending for the poor dog he lashed the animal severely.

Then, in his pain, Malec cried out to his enchantress to rescue him from danger, and she relented, restoring him to human form and rewarding him with her love.

One of the best descriptions of transformation by use of ointments, in which details of the process are given, is to be found in "The Metamorphosis or Golden Ass[Pg 139] of Apuleius," in which Lucius, the hero, happening to use the wrong salve, transforms himself into a donkey instead of into a bird as he intended. The manner in which he has to resume human shape is by partaking of rose leaves.

Lucius witnesses the transformation of Pamphile into a bird. Watching through the chink of the door leading to her chamber he sees Pamphile divest herself of her garments and after opening a certain small chest, take several boxes therefrom, uncover one of them and rub herself for a long time with the ointment, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. Holding a lamp in her hand she uttered a long incantation, and then shook her limbs with a tremulous agitation; and from these, lightly fluctuating, soft feathers extended and strong wings burst forth, her nose hardened and incurvated, the nails were compressed and made crooked, and Pamphile turned into an owl. Giving voice to a querulous sound, she made trial of her new attributes, gradually leaping from the earth, and soon after, being raised on high, she flew out of doors with all the force of her wings. Thus she was voluntarily changed by her own magic arts.

Lucius then asked Pamphile's maid, Fotis, for a little ointment from the same box, as he much desired to experience a similar transformation. At first Fotis demurred, but at last agreed to do what he asked, telling him that a change back to human form could be effected by "small and frivolous herbs," such as dill put into fountain water, with the leaves of the laurel given as a lotion, and also to drink.

The matter being decided, Fotis went into the bedchamber of her mistress and fetched a box of ointment from the chest, which she brought to Lucius, who thus tells the story of what took place.

"Having obtained the box from Fotis, and having prayed that transformation would favour me with prosperous flights, I hastily divested myself of all my[Pg 140] garments, and having ardently put my hand into the box and taken from it a sufficient quantity of the ointment, I rubbed with it the members of my body. And now, balancing my arms with alternate efforts, I longed to be changed into a bird. No plumes, however, germinated, but my hairs became evidently thickened into bristles, my tender skin was hardened into a hide, and the extremities of my hands, all my fingers having lost their number, coalesced into several hoofs and a long tail proceeded from the extremity of my spine. My face was now enormous, my mouth was long, and my limbs immoderate and pendant. Thus, also, my ears increased excessively, and were clothed with rough hairs. And while destitute of all hope, I consider the whole of my body, I see that I am not a bird, but an ass; and, complaining of the deed of Fotis, but being deprived both of the human gesture and voice, I silently expostulated with her (which was all I could do) with my underlip hanging down, and beheld her sternly and obliquely yet with humid eyes. But she, as soon as she beheld me thus changed, struck her forehead with her indignant hands, and exclaimed, 'Wretch that I am, I am undone. Trepidation, and at the same time festination, have beguiled me, and the similitude of the boxes has deceived me. It is well, however, that a remedy for this transformation may be easily obtained; for by only chewing roses you will put off the form of an ass and will immediately become again my Lucius. And I wish I had prepared for this evening, according to my custom, some garlands of roses, for then you would not have suffered the delay of even one night. But as soon as it is morning, a remedy shall hastily be procured for you.' After this manner she lamented. But I thought I was a complete ass, and instead of Lucius a labouring beast, yet I retained human sense."[79]

Lucius deliberated whether he should kick and bite Fotis to death, but was only deterred by the knowledge[Pg 141] that if he did so he would not be able to return to human shape, so he ran to the stable and spent the night with the horses there. But unfortunately he was driven off by a band of robbers, and under these circumstances, necessarily abstaining from roses which he could not get, he was forced to continue under the form of an ass, in which he had numerous adventures.

A most remarkable series of transformations occurs in the Welsh romance "The History of Taliesin," written about the thirteenth century. Caridwen, who is boiling a charmed mixture from which she hopes to secure "the three blessed drops of the grace of inspiration," for her ugly and deformed son, leaves her cauldron for a moment, in which space of time one of her servants unfortunately obtains the benefit of her wisdom. In her anger she threatens him and he, in fear, takes to his heels. She gives chase and he changes into a hare. Then she becomes a greyhound and gains on him. Throwing himself into the river he takes the form of a fish, and she, as an otter, pursues him, and he assumes the shape of a bird. She follows him as a hawk. Then he drops to earth upon a heap of winnowed wheat, disguising himself as a grain. Caridwen transforms herself into a high-crested black hen and scratches among the wheat till she sifts him out and swallows him.

These kaleidoscopic changes are positively bewildering and may be regarded as purely symbolic. They contrast with the simple and pathetic transformation which follows.

The Ebesoana race among the Arawaks of Guiana, take their name from "Ebesotu," the transformed heroine of the following legend:—

A love-sick maiden prayed her father, a sorcerer, to transform her into a dog, so that she might follow her lover, who had been utterly indifferent to her charms.

Her father treated the affair very practically indeed, in spite of the fact that he thought his daughter very[Pg 142] foolish.

The young lover, who was a huntsman, used to start out every morning into the woods, followed by four dogs, but when he returned in the evening only three of them were at heel, for one always ran home when it came to the point of slaughtering the prey. When the hunter reached his cottage he found it swept and clean, the fire burning, and bread freshly baked, and he imagined a kind neighbour had done this for him.

Next day, when he noticed there were only three dogs instead of four, he tied the hounds to a tree and went in search of the missing animal. Peeping through a crack in the door of his cottage he saw a lovely maiden, and the dogskin lying over a chair close by. Making a sudden dart into the room, he seized the skin and thrusting it into the fire, claimed the maiden as his bride.

[Pg 143]

(continued)

A skin-dress that could be put on or taken off to change a person into an animal, or into a human being again, is the basic idea of transformation in folk-tales. When the skin is burnt the animal permanently resumes human shape, as appears from the last story in the preceding chapter. Many legends of frog-princes, serpent-husbands, swan-maidens, tiger-sons, and so forth, fall into this class. A quaint and typical story of the kind is told about a mouse-maiden.

A king and queen of a certain city had a daughter who was invited to become the bride of a prince who lived in another city. Messengers were sent to fetch her, and when they arrived at the palace they ordered the bride to come out of her room to eat the rice of the wedding-feast. But the queen said to the messengers, "She is now eating cooked rice in the house."

They then begged the princess to come out to dress in the robes sent by the bridegroom, but the queen said, "She is already putting on robes in her chamber." Then they said she was to come out and be taken to the bridegroom's city, and the queen, having put a female mouse in an incense box, asked two of the messengers to come forward and gave the box into their hands, saying, "Take this and until seven days have gone by do not lift the lid of the box."

With this the messengers had to be satisfied. They took the box to the prince's city, and when they lifted the lid after seven days the mouse jumped out of the[Pg 144] box and hid herself among the cooking pots. Now it was the duty of a servant girl in the prince's household to apportion and serve cooked rice and vegetable curry to the prince, and when he was satisfied, she covered up the cooking pots containing the rest of the food. Then the mouse came, and having taken and eaten some of the cooked rice and vegetables, covered up the cooking pots and went back to hide among the pots.

The following day the same thing occurred, and the prince said to the servant, "Does the mouse eat cooked rice? Look and tell me."

The girl went to see and when she came back she said, "She has eaten the cooked rice and covered the cooking pots, and has gone."

Next day the prince said, "I am going to cut the rice-crop. Remain at home and, when evening comes, put the utensils for cooking near the hearth." So the servant obeyed him and in the evening the mouse came and cooked. She placed the food ready and again ran and hid behind the pots.

This went on for several days, and when the whole rice-crop was garnered in, the prince went near to the place where the mouse was hidden and said, "Having pounded the rice and removed the husks, let us go to your village and present it to your parents as first-fruits." But the mouse said, "I will not go. You go!" So the prince made the servant get the package of cooked rice ready, and he went to the village of the queen and gave the package to her.

And the queen said, "Where is my daughter?" The prince answered, "She refused to come."

Then the queen said, "Go back to your city, and having placed the cooking utensils near the hearth, hide yourself and stay in the house."

After the prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The mouse, having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and, assuming the shape of a girl, put on other clothes. While she was preparing to cook, the[Pg 145] prince took the mouse-jacket and burnt it.

Afterwards when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket had been and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve of the skin-dress among the embers. While she was there weeping and weeping, the prince came out of his hiding-place and said, "Your mother told me to burn the mouse-jacket. Now you are really mine!"

So the mouse became a princess again and married the prince.[80]

The same idea is contained in the story of the king who, putting on a jackal-skin, turns into a jackal, only resuming human form permanently when the skin is burnt.[81] In "Indian Fairy Tales" there is a prince who has a monkey-skin which he can put on and off at pleasure.[82] A king's daughter in another story also has a monkey-skin and when a prince burns it she takes fire and flies away all ablaze to her father's palace.[83] Four fairy doves in feather-dresses appear in "Romantic Tales from the Panjab with Indian Night's Entertainment."[84] When they take off their feathers to bathe, a prince conceals one dress and the fairy is unable to resume bird form. The story of the feather-vest of the dove-maiden in "The Arabian Nights"[85] is similar in style.

The swan-maidens or cloud-maidens, as they are sometimes called, have a shirt made of swan's feathers which acts much in the same manner as the wolf-skin to the wer-wolf. The swan-maiden retains human shape as long as she is kept away from her feather tunic. The commonest form of this legend is that of a man who passes by a lake and sees several beautiful maidens bathing,[Pg 146] their feather-dresses lying on the bank. He approaches quietly and steals one of the dresses. In due course the bathers come to the shore, don their dresses and swim off in the shape of swans, all but one, who is left lamenting on the shore. Then the thief appears, tells her what he has done and bids the maiden marry him. They live happily together until one day when the husband, by accident, leaves the wardrobe door unlocked and the swan-maiden puts on her feather-shirt and flies off, never to return.[86]

In a similar story the maiden is wearing a gold chain round her neck which her huntsman lover seizes, thus gaining the power over her which makes it possible to woo and wed her. She gives birth in due course to seven sons, each one of whom wears a gold chain about his neck and can transform himself into a swan at will.

Lothaire, King of France, married a fairy wife, and his children were born wearing golden collars which gave them the magical power of assuming the form of swans.

In the legends which have a Knight of the Swan as hero, like the story of Lohengrin, the swan plays only a secondary part.

The primitive idea at the root of all these stories is that the human soul, in passing from one shape to another, has to wear the outer sign or garment of the creature it desires to represent. The symbolic difference between the wer-wolf and the swan-maiden is that the former represents the rough, howling, and destructive night-wind, the latter the fleecy, pure, and enthralling summer cloud.

The Valkyries, with their shirts of plumage, who hover over Scandinavian battle-fields to minister to the souls of dying heroes are of the same order of beings as the Hindu Asparas and the Houris of the Mussulman. The Lorelei sirens with their fish-tails, their golden combs[Pg 147] and mirrors, who lure fishermen to their doom on the rocks, are not far removed from the same family. All are partly human and allied with more or less fanciful animal forms and characteristics. They are frequently the precursors of evil or at least of danger to mankind, but many of them possess a sweetness and charm which is unsurpassed and unsurpassable.

Far more terrible than sirens and swan-maidens were the Berserkers of Scandinavia in the ninth century who, possessed by a strange mania, arrayed themselves in the skins of wolves or bears and went forth to see whom they might devour.

The Mara is a more peaceable but nevertheless a more uncanny being, a kind of female demon who comes at night to torment sleepers by crouching on their bodies and checking respiration. Sometimes she is to be seen in animal form, sometimes as a beautiful woman. She has been known to torture people to death, and may perhaps have some distant affinity to the vampire, but is far less vindictive and self-seeking, though gifted with powers of darkness.

A pious knight, journeying one day, found a fair lady nude, and bound to a tree, her back streaming with blood from the stripes of lashes. Rescuing her from her unfortunate position, he took her to his palace and made her his wife, her extraordinary loveliness winning her fame throughout the neighbourhood.

Her husband, the knight, accompanied her to mass every Sunday, and to his great surprise and regret she always refused to stay in the church while the creed was said. Just beforehand she would deliberately rise from her seat and walk out. Her husband questioned her about this strange habit, but could get no satisfactory explanation, nor would she consent to alter her behaviour. He used entreaties and even threats without avail, and at last he decided to keep her in the church by main force. Seizing upon her with both hands, he held her in her seat, and then he noticed her frame become convulsed[Pg 148] and her eyes grow unnaturally large and dark. The service stopped and everyone in the building turned to see what was happening. "In the name of God, speak," cried the pious knight, "and tell me what or who thou art!" and as he said these words his wife melted away and disappeared, while, with a great cry of anguish, a monster of evil shape rose from the spot where she had been sitting and, passing through the air, vanished through the roof of the church.

Another legend about the Mara is that if she be wrapped up in the bedclothes and held down tightly, a white dove flies out of the window and the bedclothes will be found to contain nothing. This belief is apparently isolated and unrelated to other phenomena and is probably only a tribute to the elusive character of this she-demon.

One of the Calmuc stories concerns three sisters, who, coming across an enchanted castle tenanted by a white bird, are each in turn offered marriage by the owner. The third sister marries the bird, who turns out to be a handsome cavalier, but having burned his aviary, she loses him, and cannot regain her husband until the aviary is restored.

In the well-known story of "The Brahman Girl who marries a Tiger," the tiger assumes human shape and makes a beautiful girl fall in love with him. Soon after their marriage he threatens her, saying, "Be quiet or I shall show you my original shape."[87] When she urges him to do so he changes and behold, "four legs, a striped skin, a long tail, and a tiger's face come on him suddenly, and, horror of horrors, a tiger, and not a man stands before her!"

She has to obey all his orders and finally gives birth to a son, who also turns out "to be only a tiger."

She gets her brothers to help her, murders her child and runs off home. In the end the tiger is killed by her[Pg 149] relatives, and the Brahman girl, in memory of him, raises a pillar over the well and plants a fragrant shrub on the top of it.[88]

The Chinese have a curious idea about "making animals,"[89] and a story is told about a man who arrived at an inn in Yang-Chow leading five donkeys. He asks the landlord whether he may put the animals in the stable, and while he goes off for a short time, he leaves instructions that they are not to be given water to drink. They become so restless, however, that the landlord takes the responsibility of setting them loose, and they make a rush to a neighbouring pond. But no sooner has water touched their lips than they roll on the ground and change into women. The landlord, frightened at what has occurred, hides them in his house and presently the man returns leading five sheep. But now the landlord's suspicions are aroused and, persuading his guest to take wine indoors, he goes out and waters the sheep. They turn into young men and their temporary owner is put under arrest and executed for a sorcerer.

In a Basque story, seven brothers forbid their sister to go near a certain house. She disobeys them and a witch in the house gives her certain herbs, telling her to put them in her brothers' foot-bath. She does so and the brothers are changed into cows. The ideas contained in these examples are similar in character to those contained in Grimm's "Household Tales." The following is more like the Japanese wer-fox episodes:—

A certain prince royal of India has a lovely mistress who bewitches him, and who falls asleep one day in a bed of chrysanthemums where her lover shoots and wounds a fox in the forehead. The girl is found to be bleeding from a wound in her temple and is thus exposed. She is an evil animal.

In many stories women give birth to animals.

[Pg 150]

A widow who lives near a palace and makes a livelihood by pounding rice, bears a frog which becomes a good-looking prince, but he ends as a frog.

In the story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri) a queen bears a tortoise prince who has the power of leaving his shell, and assuming human form. One day his mother is present at the transformation and smashes the shell, after which her son has to remain a man. Another queen gives birth to a tortoise which is reared by her, and goes in search of divine flowers, which he obtains by the aid of a nymph.

A raja has two wives and the first has six sons, the second only one, who is a mongoose. His name is Lelsing, and he speaks like a man, but grows no bigger than an ordinary mongoose. In this story the six brothers do everything they can to ill-treat the mongoose boy, but all their tricks turn to his advantage, and in the end he grows rich while they grow poor, and finally they all get drowned, while he goes home rejoicing at his revenge upon them for their unkindness.[90]

The Bards at Jaisalmer claimed one of the raja's sons for a ruler, so he gave them one of his seven ranis, who was expecting to become a mother, and they took her to Nahan and near the Sarmor tank she gave birth first to a lion and four monsters, and then to a son. After the monsters were exorcised they took the child to Medni and he became the first raja of Nahan (Sarmor).[91]

Another raja's child was born with the ears of an ox. Only the raja's barber knew, but he blurted it out to the dom and the dom went to the raja's palace and sang

Then the raja was very angry, and only forgave the dom when he said he had not been told about the misfortune, but that a drum had sung the words to him.[92]

[Pg 151]

"The Two Brothers" is a typical and classical story in which one brother assumes the form of a great bull with all the sacred marks. In another story of German origin, the hero, who has been hacked to pieces and stuffed in a bag, is restored to life by a master sorcerer, who endows him with the power of assuming whatever shape he pleases. He turns into a fine horse, and the king's daughter, believing she is being deceived, has the animal decapitated.

A similar Russian tale is about a horse which has a golden mane and, when it is killed, a bull with golden hair arises from the blood spilt.

So numerous are the stories of this description, dealing with transformation, that it is practically impossible to divide them into their various types, although many attempts to classify them have been made by authoritative writers on folk-lore; nor is it possible to give them due occult significance. They are interesting chiefly on account of the details which may be gathered from them concerning methods and reasons of transformation.

The Indian Rakshasa (Bengalese Raqhosh) are beings of a malevolent nature which haunt cemeteries, harass the devout, animate dead bodies, and afflict mankind in various ways. They can assume any form they please, animal or other. Females appear as beautiful women for the purpose of luring men to their doom. When in their natural state they have upstanding hair, yellow as the flames which they vomit forth from mouths which are provided with huge tusks. They have large, black, hairy bodies. The Nagas, on the other hand, are semi-divine snake-beings with good impulses.

In "Bengali Household Tales," by William McCulloch,[93] a Raqhosh performs a transformation in the following manner: He removes a stone from an underground passage and descending brings forth a monkey. He then plucks a few leaves from a tree, draws water from a well close by, throws the leaves into it and pours it over the body of the monkey. The monkey is immediately[Pg 152] transformed into a beautiful young woman with whom the Raqhosh descends by the underground passage. Towards dawn the two come up again. This time the Raqhosh plucks some leaves from another tree and throws them into some water from another well, and then pours it over the young woman. Instantaneously she is changed into a monkey again.

This is not the most usual way for such transformations and retransformations to occur in Indian folk-tales; sometimes they are achieved by magic rods. In Grimm's "Household Tale," "Donkey Cabbages," one kind of cabbage transforms a man into an ass and the other reverses the process.

Magicians, however, have other methods. Mercurius, the most skilful of sorcerers, was supposed to have discovered the secret of "fascinating" men's eyes in such a way as to make people invisible to their sight, or perhaps to give them the appearance of an animal. This may be compared to modern hypnotism and has an important bearing on the subject.

Pomponius Mela attributes to the Druidical priestesses of Sena the knowledge of transforming themselves into animals at will.

Proteus, according to Homer's account, becomes a dragon, a lion, or a boar. Eustathius, the commentator, adds, "not really changing but only appearing to do so." Proteus was an adroit worker of miracles, and was well acquainted with the secrets of Egyptian philosophy. He assumed animal shape in order to escape the necessity of foretelling the future when asked to do so but, whenever he saw his endeavours were of no avail, he resumed his natural appearance.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century Joseph Acosta, who resided in Peru, asserts that sorcerers existed there at that time who were capable of assuming any form they pleased. He tells of a ruler of a city in Mexico who was sent for by the predecessor of Montezuma and who transformed himself successively before the eyes of[Pg 153] men who tried to seize his person, into a tiger, an eagle, and a serpent. At length he gave in, and being taken before the emperor was condemned to death.

The same kind of power was ascribed, in 1702, by the Bishop of Chiapa (a province of Guatemala) to the Naguals, the national priests who endeavoured to win back the children brought up as Christians by the Government, to the religion of their ancestors. After various ceremonies, the child he was teaching was told to advance and embrace the Nagual. At that moment he assumed a hideous animal form, and as a lion, tiger, or other wild beast, threw the young convert to Christianity into a state of abject terror by appearing chained to him.[94] There, no doubt, hypnotism became a weapon of religious fanaticism.

At the appearance of the monster Ravanas, the gods, becoming alarmed, transform themselves into animals: Indras changes into a peacock, Yamas into a crow, Kuveras into a chameleon, and Varunas into a swan in order to escape the ire of the enemy.

These transformations, says de Gubernatis,[95] instead of being capricious, were necessary and natural to the several gods, for the animal is the shadow that follows the hero and is so closely identified with him that it may often be said to be the hero himself.

Nash, in "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1613, has the following remarkable passage. "They talk of an ox that tolled the bell at Woolwich, and how from an ox he transformed himself into an old man, and from an old man to an infant and into a young man again."

The Egyptians were the first to broach the opinion that the soul of man is immortal and that, when the body dies, it enters into the form of an animal which is born at the moment, thence passing on from one animal to another, until it has circled through the forms of all the creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and the[Pg 154] air, after which it enters again into a human frame and is born anew. The whole period of transmigration is (they say) three thousand years.[96]

According to Egyptian beliefs only the souls of wicked men suffered the disgrace of entering the body of an animal when, "weighed in the balance" before the tribunal of Osiris, they were pronounced unworthy to enter the abode of the blessed. The soul was then sent back to the body of a pig.

The doctrine of metempsychosis was borrowed from Egypt by Pythagoras and classical allusions are so numerous that it is impossible to mention more than a few instances.

Empedocles believed he had passed through many forms, a bird and a fish among others. Lucian's story was of a Pythagorian cock which had been a man, a woman, a fish, a horse, and a frog, and of all states he thought that man was the most deplorably wretched of the animals. After anointing himself with enchanted salve from Thessaly, Lucian was transformed into an ass and worked for seven years under a "gardiner, a tyle man, a corier, and suchlike." At the end of the period he was restored to human shape by nibbling rose leaves.

Dionysius was believed to assume the form of a goat or of a bull, and Cronius was said to take the form of a horse. Epona was a horse-goddess, and Callisto in an Arcadian myth was changed into a bear. Citeus, son of Lycaon, laments the transformation of his daughter into a bear. Iphigenia at the moment of sacrifice was changed into a fawn. Osiris was mangled by a boar, or Typhon in the form of a boar;—just as in the tale of Diarmuid and Grainne, the former's foster brother was transformed into a boar.

The sorceress Thessala was able to call up strange animal ghosts:

[Pg 155]

In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Puck is gifted with the power of transformation. He says,

He had also the power to transform others into animals, and seeing Bottom studying the part of Pyramus, plays a trick upon him:

"An ass's nole I fixed on his head."

"Bless thee, Bottom," says Quin, seeing his companion transformed in this manner, "Bless thee! thou art translated." But Titania, herself under a spell, becomes enamoured of the vision. "So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape," she cries, and she desires to stick musk-roses in his sleek smooth head, and kiss the fair, large ears." Fortunately Oberon orders Puck to restore Bottom to his normal shape before much harm is done.

Many modern writers have used the mystic idea of animal transformation, especially as gleaned from Celtic legendary sources; for instance, in the tales by Fiona McLeod and the poems by W. B. Yeats.

In another poem the salmon caught by a young fisherman is no sooner under his roof, than it changes into a shimmering maiden—which makes one think of the Indian story of a shining man who casts his ugly skin[Pg 156] and is so bright that no one can see him without being blinded.

A pretty little story of a shining lady who becomes a butterfly, is told by Mr. H. A. Giles in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."[97] Mr. Wang of Chang-shang, the District Magistrate, had a habit of commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code inflicted on prisoners in exchange for a corresponding number of butterflies. He rejoiced in seeing the insects flutter hither and thither like "tinsel snippings" borne on the breeze. One night he dreamt that a beautiful girl in shimmering clothes stood before him who said sadly, "Your cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end; now you must pay the penalty for what you have done." Then she transformed herself into a butterfly and flew away.

A great feature in folk-tales and fairy stories is, of course, the talking animal. Grimm's "Tales," the "Arabian Nights," and Hans Andersen's "Märchen," have made such semi-human creatures thoroughly familiar. They appear also in the Bible and mythology. Eve and the serpent, Balaam and the ass, Achilles and his horses, Porus and the elephant, Bacchus, Phryxius and many others are notable instances. The idea of words of wisdom coming from the lips of brutes is brought to greater perfection in the fables than elsewhere, and Æsop's animals are gifted with speech, traits, and passions absolutely human.

Pilpay, Lokman, Babrius, Phædrus, and La Fontaine, most successfully of all, exploited the same theme, and a wonderful procession of animals stalks through their writings, almost every kind of zoological specimen being represented. There are rats enough to require the services of many Pied Pipers of Hamelin, lions enough to stock the equatorial forests, wolves to crowd the Steppes of Russia, bats and birds, gnats and frogs galore, and to each beast, feathered thing, or fish, a place is[Pg 157] given in the social scale which he fills with dignity and grace, or in which he acts with wisdom and judgment, or again in which he is made to look ridiculous and becomes the laughing stock of those about him.

"If one is a wolf, one devours," wrote Walpole, referring to the fables of La Fontaine. "If one is a fox, one is cunning. If one is a monkey, one is a coxcomb."

The fox always gets the better of everyone else in the fables. He makes use of the goat to climb out of the well, and then leaves him to his fate. He is always taking the advantage of the wolf, for he has more brains, if less strength. He has no difficulty in inventing stratagems which bring the plump turkeys into his larder. He is always diplomatic, he comes smiling out of every difficulty, he is quick and energetic: his personal appearance, heightened by his bright eye and bushy tail, is in his favour. He has two qualities invaluable to the courtier, a certain dash and a certain subtlety, and above all he is bon viveur.

His worst enemy is the dog, with whom his tricks are frequently wanting in success. When out walking with the cat, and boastful of his own superior resources, he finds himself at a disadvantage the moment an attack is threatened by a pack of hounds. The cat quickly climbs a lofty tree.

In the end they are too clever for him, and he meets his death.

The story of Reynard the fox is a novel of adventure in which animals play the part of men and usually bear men's names, and who does not know and love the tale of Brer Rabbit and Brer B'ar and their relations with[Pg 158] Uncle Remus, or the equally human animals of Alice's "Adventures."

These fictitious beings combine human and animal mental characteristics, but there is another class, the fabulous animals, of which the physical attributes are taken partly from man, partly from animal types. They are no doubt symbolic of occult truths, and much time and labour might be spent in formulating their relationship.

[Pg 159]

The most important among fabulous animals which are partly human beings are the centaur, half-man and half-horse; the harpy, half-woman and half-vulture; the sphinx, which has the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle, and the satyr, an old man with goat's legs and tail.

"Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies," says Charles Lamb, "may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at all?—or

Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?—O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante—tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching demons—are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied following him:

That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual—that[Pg 160] it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth—and that it predominates in the period of sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence."[98]

Prentice Mulford firmly believed that the supposed fables in the ancient mythologies concerning beings half-men, half-beasts (such as centaurs or mermaids) had had their origin in spiritual truths. "Our race," he says, "has been so developed out of the animal or coarser forms of life. Countless ages ago all forms of life were coarser than now. As these grew finer, man attracted and absorbed the spirit of the finer."

"The history of animals such as the ancients have transmitted to us," says Eusebe Salverte,[99] "is filled with details apparently chimerical: but which are sometimes only the consequence of a defective nomenclature. The name, Onocentaur, which seems to designate a monster, uniting the form of a man and an ass, was given to a quadrumanus which runs sometimes on four paws, but at other times uses its forepaws only as hands: merely an immense monkey covered with grey hair, particularly on the lower part of the body...."

M. Geoffroy de St. Hillaire described a polydactyle horse as having hairy fingers separated by membranes: yet when ancient authors have spoken of horses, the feet of which bore some resemblance to the hands and feet of a man, they have been accused of imposture.[100]

The Centaurs were mythical creatures which inhabited Thessaly. They were said to have sprung from a union of Ixion and a Cloud, or, according to other authorities, to be the offspring of Centaurus, son of Apollo, by Stilbia, daughter of Peneus. The famous battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ was occasioned by a quarrel[Pg 161] at the marriage of Hippodamia with Pirithous. The Centaurs having come to a state of intoxication, offered violence to the women present, an insult for which they received due punishment.

A vivid presentment of what changing shape from man to horse would mean is to be found in Mr. Algernon Blackwood's "The Centaur,"[101] in which story the Irish hero, Mally, watches his own transformation into the figure of the Urwelt, with amazement.

"All white and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran.

"He ran yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours ... it was his own feet now that made that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf."

In "Gulliver's Travels" the men-horses or Houyhnhnms are fine horses gifted with human intelligence, but the Yahoos are described by Swift as having a very peculiar shape. Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank, they had beards like goats and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies was bare, so that their skins, which were of a brown-buff colour, could be seen. They had no tails, and they sat on the ground as well as laid down, and often stood on their hind feet. They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points and hooked. They would often spring and bound and leap[Pg 162] with prodigious agility.[102]

In speaking, the Houyhnhnms pronounced through the nose and throat, and their language approached nearest to High-Dutch or German, but was more graceful and significant.

Swift no doubt took his idea of the men-horses from centaurs.

The Harpies were three fabulous winged monsters, offsprings of Neptune and Terra, represented with the features of a woman, the body of a vulture, and human fingers armed with sharp claws. Heraldically the harpy appears as a vulture with the head and breasts of a woman. Neptune's daughters emitted an odious stench and polluted all they touched.

The Sphinx was another composite fabled monster, with the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. According to the Grecian poets the animal infested the city of Thebes, devouring the inhabitants and setting difficult riddles. It was promised, however, that on the solution of one of its enigmas the Sphinx would destroy itself. The puzzle to be solved was, "What animal walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Many people attempted to find a solution in the hope of winning Jocasta, sister of Creon, King of Thebes, in marriage, but all fell victims to their ambition until the advent of Œdipus, who answered the Sphinx, saying, Man crept on his hands and feet in infancy, at noon he walked erect, and in the evening of life required the support of a staff. On hearing the reply the Sphinx dashed her head against a rock and expired. In Egypt sphinxes with human heads were called Androsphinxes. They had no wings, which were added by the Greek artists.

Hecate, the Greek goddess, was described as having three bodies or three heads, one of a horse, the second of a dog, and the third of a lion. She was a spectral being[Pg 163] who at night sent from the lower world all kinds of demons and phantoms to teach sorcery. She wandered about with the souls of the dead and her approach was announced by the whining and howling of dogs.

Hathor was pictured sometimes as a cow, sometimes as a woman with the head of a cow, bearing the solar disc between her horns.

Other animal goddesses of curious shapes are Egyptian, such as the cat-goddess, the bird-goddess, the hippopotamus-goddess, Smet-Smet or Rert-Rert, figures of which may be seen at the British Museum.

Strange creatures too were the Gorgons, the three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Their hairs were entwined with serpents, they had hands of brass, scales on their body, and the tusks of a wild boar. Their frightful appearance caused those who beheld them to turn to stone. They were conquered by Perseus, who was given special weapons for the purpose by the gods. He cut off Medusa's head and gave it to Minerva; as he fled through the air to Ethiopia drops of blood fell to the ground from the severed head and turned to serpents. Pegasus, the winged horse, sprang from Medusa's blood and became the favourite of the Muses. He was given to Bellerophon and helped him to conquer the Chimaera, the celebrated monster with three heads, a lion's, goat's, and dragon's, which continually sent forth flames. The forepart of its body was that of a lion, the middle of a goat, and the hind part that of a dragon.

These are the chief mythological monsters, thus rapidly enumerated, but other creatures, half-human, half-animal, are of greater interest psychologically. For instance, the Persians believe firmly in ghouls which wander in lonely and haunted places, lure travellers from their path and devour them. They are hideous in shape and give forth blood-curdling screams. Being able to assume any animal form at will, they often appear as camels or mules, or perhaps even simulate a human being well-known[Pg 164] to their intended victim. The charm against them is to utter the name of the Prophet in all sincerity.

The Persians also believe in divs or cat-headed men with horns and hoofs. Jinns or Afreets can turn themselves into animals at will and so no Persian likes to kill dogs or cats, lest the angry demons, whose dwelling-place they are, should haunt those responsible for evicting them.

The Satyrs were rural demi-gods, in the shape of men but with legs and feet like goats, short horns on the head and the body covered with hair. They attended on Bacchus and were given to similar excesses. They roamed through woods, dwelt in caves, and endeavoured to gain the loves of the Nymphs. They were identical with Fauns, Panes or Sylvani, the human-goat wood-spirits. They should not be confused with the Nature-Spirits described by Paracelsus, though similar in name.

In Russia wood-spirits are believed to appear partly in human shape, but also with horns, ears, and legs of goats. They are called Ljeschi and can change their shape and size, in a forest, being large like trees; in a meadow, merely the height of the grass.

The Griffin was half-lion and half-eagle, and apparently had no human characteristics.

The Mermaid is a fabulous marine creature, partly woman and partly fish. The Nereides were sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus, the ancient sea-god and his wife Doris. They were at least fifty in number (Propertius says a hundred), and they had green hair and fishes' tails. The most celebrated of them all were Amphitrite, wife of Neptune, Thetis, mother of Achilles, Galatea, and Doto. They are identical with the Sirens.

Many charming stories have been told of Mermaids, and Mermaid-prophetesses.

According to the old Danish ballad a mermaid foretold the death of Queen Dagmar, wife of Valdemar II, surnamed the Victorious.

"In the year 1576," says the Chronicle of Frederick II of Denmark, "there came late in the autumn a simple[Pg 165] old peasant from Samso to the Court then being held at Kalundborg, who related that a beautiful female had more than once come to him while working in his field by the seashore, whose figure, from the waist downwards, resembled that of a fish, and who had solemnly and strictly enjoined him to go over and announce to the king, that as God had blessed his queen so that she was pregnant of a son (afterwards Christian IV), who should be numbered among the greatest princes of the North, and, seeing that all sorts of sins were gaining ground in his kingdom, he, in honour of and in gratitude to God who had so blessed him, should wholly extirpate such sins, lest God should visit him with anger and punishment thereafter."[103]

In the Shetland Isles mermaids are said to dwell among the fishes, in the depths of the ocean, in mansions of pearl and coral. They resemble human beings, but greatly excel them in beauty. When they wish to visit the earth they put on the ham or garb of some fish, but if they lose this garment, all hopes of return are annihilated and they must stay where they are.

A mermaid was found by a fisherman called Pergrin at St. Dognael's, near Cardigan, and he took her prisoner, but she wept bitterly and said to him, "If you will let me go, Pergrin, I will call to you three times at the moment of your greatest need." Moved by her distress, he obeyed and almost forgot the incident, but some weeks later he was fishing on a hot, calm day, when he heard distinctly, the call, thrice repeated, "Pergrin, take up thy nets." This he did in great haste, and by the time he reached the harbour a terrible storm had come up, and all the other fishermen who had not been warned were drowned. This story, it is claimed, belongs to other parts of Wales also.

There is said to be a castle in Finland, on the borders of a small lake, out of which, previously to the death of the Governor, an apparition in the form of a mermaid[Pg 166] arises and makes sweet melody.

One of the most charming descriptions of a Sea-maiden is found in Hans Andersen's well-known story of "The Little Mermaid." Her skin is as soft and delicate as a rose-leaf, her eyes are as deep a blue as the sea, but like all other mermaids, she has no feet; her body ends in a tail like that of a fish. For many years she plays happily in the enchanted palace of the Mer-king, her father, but when she reaches years of discretion she visits the earth and falls in love with a handsome prince, forsaking her home and family and giving away her beautiful voice for love of him. But she does more even than this, for she has to appeal to a witch to transform her into a maiden like the others who walk on land, and the process is a terribly painful one. The witch prepares a drink she has to take with her on her journey to the unknown country, and she is told that she must sit down on the shore and swallow the draught, and that then her tail will fall and shrink up "to the things which men call legs." When she walks or dances the pain will be as though she were walking on the sharp edge of swords or the edges of ploughshares. But she braves all these terrors and dances more gracefully than ever any earth-maiden could do, hoping that her prince will marry her and so give her the right to an immortal soul. Then the real tragedy occurs, for the prince loves her only as a beautiful child, and he marries a princess of his own kind, so that the mermaid's sacrifice seems to be thrown away. If she wishes to return to her original state she has to kill the prince, but when she holds the knife over him as he sleeps beside his beautiful bride she cannot find it in her heart to harm him, and sooner than think of her own forlorn condition, she throws the knife into the sea and gives up, as she believes, her last hope of happiness. But then her reward comes, for she is borne into the air by the daughters of that element, and the story ends with a promise of a new and a lovelier existence.

[Pg 167]

Mr. H. G. Wells, among recent writers, has used the idea of the mermaid in his quaint story "The Sea Lady."

The famous mermaid figures in the coat-of-arms of several well-known families. Sometimes she holds a mirror, sometimes a mirror and comb. A red mermaid with yellow hair on a white field appears in the arms of the family living at Glasfryn in the south of Carnarvonshire.

Other marine monsters besides mermaids are sometimes found in the sea, which, without corresponding exactly to man, yet resemble him more than any other animals. However, like the rest of the brutes, they lack mind or soul. They have, says Paracelsus, the same relations to man as the ape and are nothing but the apes of the sea.

Merovingian princes traced their origin to a sea-monster, and Druid priestesses claimed to be able to assume animal form and to rule wind and wave. Indeed, since men first sought to classify other living organisms, they have credited nature with producing strange and weird monsters, half-human, half-animal, which exist either in their own imaginations or in realms beyond the material plane of everyday cognisance.

In the third Calmuc tale, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her in order that she may become fruitful, and a tailed monster is born having a man's body and a bull's head. This man-bull, who is Minotaur, goes into the forest and picks up three companions, one black, one green, one white, who accompany him. He overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch, and when lowered into a well by his companions, he manages to escape. Presently he meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower springs, and following her, finds himself in heaven.

The classical Minotaurus is said to have been the offspring of Pasiphae and a bull sent from the sea to Minos, who shut the half-human monster in the Cnossian labyrinth and fed him with the bodies of the youths and maidens sent by the Athenians as a tribute. This monster[Pg 168] was slain by Theseus.

Among modern writers, Mr. H. G. Wells has perhaps been the most daring in describing monsters. In "The Island of Dr. Moreau," Dr. Moreau explains to Pendrick his method of making humanised animals. "These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes," he says. "To that—to the study of plasticity of living forms—my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it. It's not simply the outward form of an animal I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification, of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood, with which subject indeed I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediæval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar cripples and show-monsters; some vestiges of whose art still remains in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in L'Homme qui Rit ... but perhaps my meaning grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another, to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth, to modify the articulations of its limbs, and indeed to change it in its most intimate structure?..."

"So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in England—I have been going on, and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it, but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human[Pg 169] shape I can get now almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and claws—painful things that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine where—in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you as soon as you began to observe them, but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares at me.... But I will conquer yet. Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I say, this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature of my own. After all, what is ten years? Man has been a hundred thousand in the making."[104]

"There were swine-men and swine-women," says Pendrick later, describing the beast-folk, "a mare rhinoceros creature, and several other females I did not ascertain. There were several Wolf creatures, a Bear-bull, and a Saint Bernard Dog Man. I have already described the Ape Man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of Vixen and Bear, whom I hated from the beginning."[105]

"First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal, for all that he cast a shadow, and tossed the dust with his hoofs: after him, from the brake, came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw[Pg 170] as it came: and then appeared the Swine Woman and two Wolf Women: then the Fox-Bear-Witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others all hurrying eagerly."[106]

In another imaginative work dealing with the twenty-ninth century A.D., the brute creation has been humanised in a way never before dreamt of.

"... a levy of 40,000 naturalists were engaged for years in forming a hundred different zoological armies. Each of these was, by an admirable system of drill, brought to such a high state of discipline that a brigade, consisting of a thousand elephants, a thousand rhinoceroses, 180,000 monkeys and 15,000 other beasts of draught and burden could be officered with perfect ease by as few as one thousand naturalists. Birds of burden and fish of burden were in like manner drafted into the ranks of the zoological army, and, being subjected to similar training, were brought to a similar degree of efficiency."[107]

Giraldus Cambrensis wrote of many curious monsters and strange things that happened in connection with them. He believed that occult powers came through them in some manner, and told the story of a Welshman called Melerius, who had an odd experience by which he acquired the powers of a seer. One Palm Sunday he met a damsel whom he had long loved and embraced her in the woods, when suddenly, instead of a beautiful girl, he found in his arms a hairy, rough, and hideous creature, the sight of which deprived him of his senses. On his return to sanity, many years later, he discovered that he had wonderful occult gifts of prophecy.

Giraldus also believed that people in Ireland, by magical arts, could turn "any substance about them into fat pigs," as they appeared to be, though the colour was always red, and could then sell them in the markets. They disappeared, however, "as soon as they crossed[Pg 171] any water," and even if they were looked after carefully they never lasted as pigs for more than three days. He writes of a man-monster whose body was human, except the extremities, which were cloven like those of an ox. This monster had large round eyes like an ox and the only sound he could make was like an ox lowing. He was present at the Court of Maurice Fitzgerald in Wicklow, and took up his food between the fissures of his cloven forefeet. His fate was to be put secretly to death, a fate which might with advantage be shared, metaphorically speaking, by many of the hybrid creatures, or manufactured monstrosities, figments of unwholesome brains.

Augustine, in the sixteenth book of his "De Civitate Dei," chapter viii., speaks of monsters of the human race, born in the East, some having heads of dogs, others without heads, and eyes in their breasts. "I myself," he adds, "at the time I was in Italy, heard it said of some district in those parts, that there the stable women who had learnt magical arts, used to give something to travellers in their cheese which transformed them into beasts of burden, and after they had performed the tasks required of them, they were allowed to resume their natural form."

One of the most fearsome among the fabulous animals is the dragon, an enormous serpent of abnormal form which is represented in ancient legends as a huge Hydra, watching as sentinel the Garden of the Hesperides. In art the dragon is the symbol of sin, and in the Bible this monster appears as the symbol of the King of Egypt and the King of Babylon. The dragon, which is the emblem of the Chinese Empire, like the legendary serpent, can assume human shape.

The basilisk is another fabulous animal of the snake tribe, which carries a jewel in its head, and in many French legends possesses human proclivities. It is the king of all the serpents and holds itself erect. Its eyes are red and fiery, the face pointed, and upon its head it wears a crest like a crown. It has, moreover, the terrible[Pg 172] gift of killing people by the glare of its eye and other serpents are said to fly from its presence in dread.

The cockatrice is identical with the basilisk, but is perhaps not quite so human. It is produced from a "cock's egg hatched by a frog."

Lilith is the "night-monster," and according to the Rabbinical idea, she is a spectre in the figure of a woman who, entering houses in the dead of night, seizes upon the little children of the household and bears them away to murder them. According to some accounts she is not unlike Lamia, and has the form of a serpent.

[Pg 173]

Since the beginning of the world the serpent has been regarded as the most mystic of reptiles. He was called "more subtil than any beast of the field," from the day on which he spoke to Eve and said that if she ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life, her eyes should be opened and she should surely not die, and he has been endowed with human powers again and again, worshipped as a god in every part of the world and depicted in ancient art as possessed of human form and attributes. In Aztec paintings the mother of the human race is always represented in conversation with a serpent who is erect. This is the serpent, "who once spoke with a human voice."

Mythology has numberless legends which tell of human or semi-human serpents. The ancient kings of Thebes and Delphi claimed kingship with the snake, and Cadmus and his wife Harmonia, quitting Thebes, went to reign over a tribe of Eel-men in Illyria and became transformed into snakes, just as now Kaffir kings are said to turn into boa-constrictors or other deadly serpents, and some other African tribes believe that their dead chiefs become crocodiles.

Cecrops, the first king of Athens, was supposed to have been half-serpent and half-man, and Cychreus, after slaying a snake which ravaged the island of Salamis, appeared in the form of his victim.

When Minerva contended with Neptune for the city of Athens, she created the olive which became sacred to her, and she planted it on the Acropolis and placed it in the charge of the serpent-god, Erechthonios, who is[Pg 174] represented as half-serpent, half-man, the lower extremities being serpentine.

The story of Alexander's birth, as told by Plutarch, is one of the most curious of the man-serpent traditions. Olympias, his mother, kept tame snakes in the house and one of them was said to have been found in her bed, and was thought to be the real father of Alexander the Great. Lucian adopts this view of Alexander's parentage.

The worship of serpent-gods is found amongst many nations. The Chinese god Foki, for instance, is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake. The same belief in serpent-gods exists among the primitive Turanian tribes. The Accadians made the serpent one of the principal attributes, and one of the forms of Hea, and we find a very important allusion to a mythological serpent in the words from an Accadian dithyrambus uttered by a god, perhaps by Hea:—

The story of Crishna is very similar to that of Hercules in Grecian mythology, the serpent forming a prominent feature in both. Crishna conquers a dragon, into which the Assoor Aghe had transformed himself to swallow him up. He defeats also Kalli Naga (the black or evil spirit with a thousand heads) who, placing himself in the bed of the river Jumna, poisoned the stream, so that all the companions of Crishna and his cattle, who tasted of it, perished. He overcame Kalli Naga, without arms, and in the form of a child. The serpent twisted himself about the body of Crishna, but the god tore off his heads, one after the other, and trampled them under his feet. Before he had completely destroyed Kalli Naga, the wife[Pg 175] and children of the monster (serpents also) came and besought him to release their relative. Crishna took pity on them, and releasing Kalli Naga, said to him, "Begone quickly into the abyss: this place is not proper for thee since I have engaged with thee, thy name shall remain through all the period of time and devatars and men shall henceforth remember thee without dismay." So the serpent with his wife and children went into the abyss, and the water which had been affected by his poison became pure and wholesome.[109]

Crishna also destroyed the serpent-king of Egypt and his army of snakes.

Lamia was an evil spirit having the semblance of a serpent, with the head, or at least the mouth, of a beautiful woman, whose whole figure the demon assumed for the purpose of securing the love of some man whom, it was supposed, she desired to tear to pieces and devour. Lycius is said to have fallen in love with one of these spirits, but was delivered by his master, Apollonius, who, "by some probable conjectures," found her out to be a serpent, a lamia.[110]

Keats made use of this idea in his poem, "Lamia." Later the word was used to mean a witch or enchantress. Melusina was another beautiful serpent-woman who disappeared from her husband's presence every Saturday, and turned into a human fish or serpent.

A modern version of the legend of Melusina is found in Wales. To assume the shape of a snake, witches prepared special charms, and sometimes a ban was placed upon enemies by which they turned into snakes for a time.

A young farmer in Anglesea went to South Wales and there he met a handsome girl whose eyes were "sometimes blue, sometimes grey, and sometimes like emeralds," but they always sparkled and glittered. He fell in love with her at first sight, and she agreed to become his wife[Pg 176] if he would allow her to disappear twice a year for a fortnight without questioning her as to where she went. To this arrangement the young husband agreed.

For some years he did not trouble himself about his wife's absence, but his mother began nagging at him, saying that he ought to find out where she went and what she did. Taking his mother's advice, he disguised himself and followed his wife to a lonely part of a forest not far from their home. Hiding himself behind a huge rock, he noticed from this point of vantage that his wife took off her girdle and threw it down in the deep grass near a dark pool. Then she vanished, and the next moment he saw a large and handsome snake glide through the grass, just where she had been standing. He chased the reptile, but the snake disappeared into a hole near the pool. The husband went home and waited patiently for his wife's return, and when she came, he requested her to tell him where she had been. This she refused to do, and when he asked her what she did with her girdle, she blushed painfully.

The next time when she was intending to go away, he seized and hid the girdle, and thus deferred her departure. She was taken ill, and he, hoping to rid her of a baneful charm, threw the girdle in the fire. Then his wife writhed in agony, and when the girdle was burnt up she died. The neighbours called her the Snake-Woman of the South on account of this strange story of her doings.[111]

A shoemaker in the Vale of Taff married a widow for her money and, as love seemed lacking on both sides, it was not long before serious quarrels occurred between the couple. Although it was said that hard blows were struck on both sides, the neighbours remarked that it was strange the shoemaker's wife appeared amongst them without a trace of a bruise on her person. At night loud cries and deep groans arose from the shoemaker's dwelling,[Pg 177] and a certain gentleman of an inquisitive turn of mind decided to discover what took place and hid himself in a loft over the kitchen, to spy on the couple. Whatever he may have learnt during the proceedings, he said nothing, and a report was spread that he had been "paid to hold his tongue and not divulge the family secret." At last, however, his discretion failed him, and anger against the shoemaker, with whom he fell into a dispute, made him reveal what he knew. He said that as soon as angry words passed between husband and wife, the latter "assumed from the shoulders upwards, the shape of a snake, and deliberately and maliciously sucked her partner's blood and pierced him with her venomous fangs."

No marks were found on the husband's body, but he grew ever thinner and weaker, and after ailing for many months he died. The doctor who tended him in his last illness declared that he had died from the poisonous sting of a serpent. After this verdict the spy was given the credit of his story, which, however, had a gruesome sequel. He and the doctor were found lying helpless in the churchyard one morning. When roused from what seemed a fatal slumber, they said they had been invited by the shoemaker's widow to drink with her in memory of her late dear second husband. Then she sprang upon them in the shape of a snake and stung them severely. They had only strength enough left to crawl to the churchyard, where they would probably have died from torpor had not the neighbours roused them. The widow was never seen again, but a snake constantly appeared in the neighbourhood and could not be killed by any means, so that it earned the name of "the old snake-woman."[112]

Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was interested in the subject of prenatal influences, depicted the heroine of his well-known novel, "Elsie Venner," as a girl who had received the taint of a serpent before birth, from a snakebite suffered by her mother.

[Pg 178]

Elsie's friend, Helen Darley, knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of the cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of her repugnance.

When Elsie was taken ill her doctor said that she had lived a double being, as it were, the consequence of the blight which fell upon her in the dim period before consciousness.

"Elsie Venner" is an American story, but India, where the snake is even more familiar, is the home of many human-serpent stories, and legends of serpent descent.

Near Jait in the Mathura district is a tank with the broken statue of a hooded serpent on it. Once upon a time a Raja married a princess from a distant country and, after a short stay there, decided to take his wife home, but she refused to go until he had declared his lineage. The Raja told her she would regret her curiosity, but she persisted. Finally he took her to the river and there warned her again. She would not take heed and he entreated her not to be alarmed at whatever she saw, adding that if she did she would lose him. Saying this, he began slowly to descend into the water, all the time trying to dissuade her from her purpose, till it became too late and the water rose to his neck. Then, after a last attempt to induce her to give up her curiosity, he dived and reappeared in the form of a Naga (serpent). Raising his hood over the water he said, "This is my lineage! I am a Nagbansi."

His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the Naga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day.[113]

A member of the family of Buddha fell in love with the daughter of a serpent-king. He was married to her and presently became the sovereign of the country. His wife had obtained possession of a human body, but a nine-headed snake occasionally appeared at the back of[Pg 179] her neck. While she slept one night her husband chopped the serpent in two at a single blow, and this caused her to become blind.

Another curious legend is told of a Buddha priest who had become a serpent because he had killed the tree Elapatra, and he then resided in a beautiful lake near Taxila. In the days of Hiuen-Tsiang, when the people of the country wanted fine weather or rain they went to the spring accompanied by a priest, and, "snapping their fingers, invoked the serpent," and immediately obtained their wishes.

The snake tribe is common enough in the Punjaub. Snake families go through many ceremonies, saying that in olden days the serpent was a great king. If they find a dead snake they put clothes on it and give it a regular funeral. The snake changes its form every hundred years, when it becomes either a man or a bull. Snake-charmers have the power of recognising these transformed snakes, and follow them stealthily until they return to their holes and then ask them where treasure is hidden. This they will do on consideration of a drop of blood from the little finger of a first-born son.[114]

Among fairy tales the favourite story is that of a human being who dons a snake-skin, and when it is burnt he resumes human form. The snake-bridegroom is an exceedingly popular version of this idea.[115]

There was once a poor woman, who had never borne a child and she prayed to God that she might be blessed with one, even though she were to bring forth a snake. And God heard her prayer, and in due course she gave birth to a snake. Directly the reptile saw the light of day it slipped down from her lap into the grass and disappeared. Now the poor woman mourned constantly for the snake, because after God had heard and granted her prayer, it grieved her that the being whom she had conceived should have vanished without leaving a[Pg 180] trace as to its whereabouts. Twenty years passed, and then the snake returned and said to its mother, "I am the serpent to which you gave birth, and which fled from you into the grass, and I have come back, mother, so that you may demand the king's daughter for me in marriage."

At first the mother rejoiced at the sight of her son, but soon she grew mournful because she did not know how she dare to demand the hand of the king's daughter for a serpent, especially as she was very poor. But the serpent said, "Go along, mother, and do what I ask; even if the king won't give his daughter, he can't cut your head off for the mere asking. But whatever he says to you do not look back until you get home again."

The mother allowed herself to be persuaded and went to the king. At first the servants would not let her into the palace, but she went on asking until they admitted her. When she entered the king's presence she said to him, "Most gracious Majesty, there is your sword and here is my head. Strike if you must, but let me tell you first that for a long time I was childless and then I prayed to God to bless me, even though I were to bring forth a serpent, and He blessed me and I brought forth a serpent. As soon as it saw the light it vanished into the grass and after twenty years it has returned to me and has sent me here to ask for the hand of your daughter in marriage."

The king burst into laughter and said, "I will give my daughter to your son if he builds me a bridge of pearls and precious stones from my palace to his house."

Then the mother turned to go home, and never looked back, and when she left the palace a bridge of pearls and diamonds arose all the way behind her till she reached her own house. When the mother told the serpent what the king had said, the serpent remarked to her, "Go again and see whether the king will give me his daughter, but whatever he answers don't look round as you come back."

This time the king told the mother that if her son could give his daughter a better palace than his own, he[Pg 181] should have her for a wife. The mother went back without looking behind her, and found that her house had changed into a palace, and everything in it was three times as good as in the king's palace. All the furniture was made of pure gold.

Then the serpent asked his mother to go back to the palace and fetch the king's daughter, and this time the king told the princess she must marry the serpent. There was a splendid wedding, and in due course the young wife found she was to become a mother. Then her friends grew inquisitive, saying, "If you are living with a serpent how can you hope to have a child?" At first she would not answer, but when her mother-in-law insisted on putting the same question, she replied, "Mother, your son is not really a serpent, but a young man, so handsome that there is none other like him. Every evening he strips off his snake-skin and in the morning he enters it again."

When the serpent's mother heard this she rejoiced greatly, and longed to see her son after he had stripped off his snake-skin.

Presently the two conspirators arranged that when the young man had gone to bed, they should burn the discarded skin, and while his mother put it in the oven, his wife was to pour cold water on her husband lest he should be destroyed by the heat. No sooner had he laid himself down to sleep, than they carried out their plan, but the smell of the burning skin made him cry out, "What have you done? May God punish you. Where can I go in the condition I now am?" But the women comforted him and said it was better for him to live among ordinary mortals than in the snake form, and before long the king resigned his throne in his favour, and all turned out happily.

A very similar story is told of a queen who also gives birth to a serpent.[116] She is allowed to nurse and fondle her offspring in the usual fashion, but for twenty-two[Pg 182] years it does not speak and its first utterance is to demand from its parents a wife.

When the parents remark that no nice girl would care to marry a serpent, he tells them not to look in too high a class for a mate.

In this case the father does the wooing, but the mother evokes the truth about her son. When she learns about the snake-skin, she makes the young wife help to burn it, and tragedy results. The husband curses his wife, saying that she will not see him again until she has worn through iron shoes, and that she shall not give birth to her child until he embraces her once more by putting his right arm round her. Then he vanishes for three years, and all that time she is unable to bear her child, so she decides to seek her husband. She travels through the world and comes to the house of the Sun's mother, and when the Sun comes indoors she inquires whether he has seen her husband. But the Sun can do nothing for her but to send her to the Moon. The same disappointment awaits her there, and the Moon sends her to the Winds. After many striking adventures she finds her husband, makes him undo his curse, and gives birth to a son who has golden locks and golden hands.

In another story of serpent-marriage a woman stands in doubt because she cannot cross a river. A serpent comes out of the river and says, "What will you give me if I carry you across?" The woman, having no other possessions, promises to give her coming child; if it is a girl as a wife, if a boy as a "name friend." In after years she has to fulfil her promise and, taking her daughter to the bank of the river, she sees the snake draw her beneath the water. In the course of time the girl bears her husband four snake sons.[117]

An Ainu girl gave birth to a snake as the result of the sun's rays shining on her while she slept, and the snake turned into a child.

[Pg 183]

The Dyaks and Silakans will not kill the cobra because in remote ages a female ancestor brought forth twins, a boy and a cobra. The cobra went to the forest, but told the mother to warn her children that if they were ever bitten by cobras they must stay in the same place for a whole day and that then the venom would take no effect. The boy then met his cobra brother in the jungle one day and cut off his tail, so that now all cobras have a blunted tail.

In folk-tales the serpent frequently mates with a woman. A curious Basuto story concerns a girl called Senkepeng, who was deserted by her friends and taken home by an old woman, who said she would make a nice wife for her son. Her son turned out to be a serpent, whom no one had ever seen outside his hut, but he had married all the girls of the tribe in succession with fatal results to them, because he ate all the food. Every morning the girl was awakened by a blow of the serpent's tail and was then ordered to go and prepare his food. At last she grew tired of this treatment and resolved to run away. Her serpent-husband pursued her, but she sang a charm or incantation and this delayed his progress and gave her a chance of continuing her flight. Whenever the serpent came up to her she repeated her song.

At last she reached her father's village and told her story, and people were ready to defend her against her pursuer. As soon as the serpent came in sight Senkepeng sang her charm, and the people attacked the serpent and slew it. Presently the serpent's mother arrived and burnt the mutilated corpse, wrapping the ashes in a skin which she threw into a pond. Walking three times round the pond, without speaking a word, she caused her son to come to life again, and he came out of the pond as a human being, and Senkepeng welcomed him as her husband. In another variant the serpent's ashes are put in a vase of clay, which is given to Senkepeng. Afterwards she uncovers the vase and a man steps out from it.[118]

[Pg 184]

The first Dindje Indian had two wives, one of whom would have nothing to say to him. She used to disappear during the day, and he followed her to find out her secret. He saw her go into a marsh where she met a serpent. When she returned to the hut she had several children, but hid them from her husband under a cover. The man discovered the hiding-place, and there found horrible little men-serpents, which he killed. Thereupon the woman left him and he never saw her again.

In a Bengal story a mighty serpent, after slaughtering a whole family except one beautiful daughter, carries her off to his watery tank, from which she is rescued by a prince. In Russia it is believed that mortal maidens are carried off by serpents.

The Indians are very superstitious. Otto Stoll, author of "Suggestion und Hypnotismus,"[119] showed a friendly Cakchiquel Indian one of his hairs under the microscope. The Indian asked to have it back that he might preserve it, saying that if it were lost, it would turn into a snake, and he would then have to suffer great trouble through snakes all his life. When Dr. Stoll appeared to be sceptical, he told him that he had often seen the long hairs which native women combed out and let fall into the river, become transformed into serpents as they fell. This is a widespread belief, and in an early Mexican dictionary by Molina, in 1571, the word "tzoncoatl" is translated, "the snake which is formed out of horse's hair which fell into the water."

The white snake especially may sometimes be a lovely transformed maiden, as appears from the story of a cowboy who makes a friend of a white snake which comes to play with him and twines about his legs. One evening in midsummer he beholds a fair maiden, who says she is the daughter of an Eastern king and has been forced to spend her life through enchantment in the form of a white snake, with permission to resume human shape on midsummer night every quarter of a century. The cowboy is the first human being who has not shrunk from her[Pg 185] when she appears in reptile form. She tells him that she will come again, and will wind herself three times round his body and give him three kisses. If he should shrink from her then she will have to remain a snake for ever. When she appears, the youth stands firm while the reptile caresses him and, lo and behold, there is a crash and a flash and he finds himself in a magnificent palace, with a beautiful girl beside him who becomes his wife.

The Russians have a story of some girls bathing, when a snake comes out of the water and sits upon the clothes of the prettiest one, saying he will not move till she promises to marry him. She agrees, and that very night an army of snakes seize her and carry her beneath the water, where they become men and women. She stays for some years with her husband, and is then allowed to go home and visit her mother. The latter, discovering the husband's name, goes to the water and calls upon him. When he comes to the surface she chops off his head with an axe. Probably the snake-bride has been told by her husband not to mention his name for fear of his death, the name being taboo.

In a Zuni legend the daughter of a chief bathes in a pool sacred to Kolowissa, the serpent of the sea. Kolowissa in anger appears to the maiden in the form of a child, whom she takes to her home. There the child changes into an enormous serpent, who induces her to go away with him, and when she does so he transforms himself again into a handsome youth.

Incredulous that such happiness can befall her, she expresses her doubts to the young man, but he then shows her his shrivelled snake-skin as proof that he is the god of the waters and that he loves her well enough to make her his wife.[120]

A beautiful girl in New Guinea was beloved by a chief of a strange tribe, and he was so fearful of entering her father's territory that he asked a sorcerer for a charm which would enable him to change into a snake the[Pg 186] moment he crossed the boundary of his own country. In this form he entered the girl's hut, and on seeing the reptile she began to scream. Her father, however, was more astute and saw the serpent was really a man, so he bade his daughter to go to him, as he must be a great chief to be thus able to transform himself. She obeyed his command, and as the serpent went slowly, her father advised her to burn his tail with a hot banana leaf to make him hurry. This she also did, but at the boundary the snake vanished and presently a handsome young man came up to her and told her he was the serpent, showing certain burns on his feet and legs in proof of the statement.[121]

In France the serpent with a jewel in its head is called vouivre, which is the same as our basilisk or dragon. The vouivre is a reptile from a yard to two yards long, having only one eye in its head, which shines like a jewel and is called the carbuncle. This jewel is regarded as of inestimable value, and those who can obtain one of these treasures become enormously rich. Many of the legends deal with the robbery of this jewel from the serpent, a crime which is frequently punishable by death or madness.

The French have several variants of the story of St. George and the Dragon. At the castle of Vaugrenans, for instance, there lived a lovely lady whose beauty had led her far astray from the path of virtue. She was changed into a basilisk and terrorised the country by her misdeeds. Her son George was a handsome knight, whose natural piety led him to live a life of good deeds. George decided that he must set his country free from the depredations of the monster reptile, which never ceased to prey upon the neighbourhood and he did battle with it as once the archangel, St. Michael, had combated the dragon. George killed the serpent and his horse trampled what remained of it beneath its hoofs.

[Pg 187]

George was very sad, however, in spite of his victory, and he asked St. Michael, who had witnessed the struggle, what was the punishment for one who had slain his own mother.

"He ought to be burnt," replied St. Michael, "and his ashes strewn to the winds."

So George had to suffer the penalty of being burnt and his ashes were scattered to the winds. So far the story bears a marked resemblance to the family story of the Lambton worm, but the French tale has a curious sequel. The ashes fell in one heap instead of scattering to the wind, and a young girl who was passing gathered them up. Near by she found an apple of Paradise, which she ate. In due course she gave birth to a son, and when the infant was baptised, it cried in a loud tone of voice, "I am called George and I have been born on this earth for the second time." Later he was made a saint.

The Roman genius, which accompanies every man through life as his protector, frequently took the shape of a serpent.

In many lands, by eating a snake, wisdom is acquired, or the language of animals mastered, and generally a particular snake is mentioned by name. Thus with Arabs and Swahilis it is the king of snakes: among Swedish, Danish, Celtic or Slavonic peoples it is a white snake or the fabulous basilisk with a crown on its head, which resembles the jewel-headed serpent of Eastern lore.

In the country of Râma there stood a brick stupa or tower, about a hundred feet high, in the time of Hiuen-Tsiang. The stupa constantly emitted rays of glory, and by the side of it was a Naga tank. The Naga frequently changed his appearance into that of a man, and, as such, encircled the tower in the practice of religion, that is, he turned religiously with his right hand towards the tower.[122]

In New Guinea it is believed that a witch is possessed by spirits which can be expelled in the form of snakes.[Pg 188] Among the Ainus, madness is explained as possession by snakes. The Zulus believe that an ancestor who wishes to approach a kraal takes serpent shape. In Madagascar different species of snakes are the abode for different classes, one for common people, one for chiefs, and one for women, and in certain parts of Europe it is solemnly believed that people may assume serpent-form during sleep.

The fact that the serpent-stories of the nature here collected, are so numerous seems to point to a definite occult connection between the highest living organism, man, who is represented by a vertical line, and the reptile, the serpent, represented by the horizontal line, the two together forming the right angle.

[Pg 189]

The cat, as appears from many legends, easily holds the place amongst mystic animals that the serpent has among reptiles, partly no doubt because of its close relationship with sorcerers and witches.

Among the strange animal-gods and goddesses of Egypt none is more famous than the goddess Sekhet and Bast of Bubastis, who sometimes has the head of a lion, sometimes of a cat. The early inhabitants of the valley of the Nile were better acquainted with the lion than with the cat, which was first introduced from Nubia in the eleventh dynasty. In the time of the old Empire there was no cat-headed deity chiefly because there were no cats. When once introduced, the cat became a sacred animal and Sekhet's lion-head was superseded by a milder feline form. The Egyptians also believed that Diana, wishing to escape from giants, chose to hide herself in the form of a cat.

Cats, like foxes, are credited in Japan with the power of assuming human shape in order to bewitch mankind. The two-tailed vampire cat destroys a beautiful maiden and, taking her form, preys on a handsome prince.

A man who kills a cat is liable to be possessed by a cat, and he prevents this if he eats part of the animal. This homeopathic cure is called cat-punishment. At Aix in Provence, on the day of Corpus Christi, the largest tom-cat is dressed in swaddling clothes and publicly exhibited in a magnificent shrine.[123]

[Pg 190]

There is a well-known story of a traveller who saw a procession of cats in a ruined abbey lowering a small coffin with a crown on it into a grave. Filled with fear, he rushed from the spot and later told his vision to a friend. The friend's cat lay curled up quietly before the fire, but, hearing the story, it sprang up and crying out, "Now I am king of the cats!" disappeared in a flash up the chimney.

An inhabitant of Toulon told Bérenger-Feraud,[124] in 1875, that one of his friends had a wizard cat. Every evening the cat used to listen to their conversation, and if the subject interested him, he expressed his own opinion, usually saying the last word on the topic. If his mistress had any plans on hand, she consulted the cat, giving her reasons for taking one course or another. After having weighed the pros and cons carefully, the cat used to advise her by saying "yes" or "no" as to whether her plans could be carried out or not.

The cat used to speak whenever he wanted food, asking either for fish or meat to be purchased, and he talked very indignantly if the required dainty was not forthcoming.

From time to time this uncanny animal disappeared for many days at a stretch; and the members of the household were convinced that he had taken human form in his absence. He always used to speak before leaving and after returning.

When he lay on the point of death he prayed that his body might be decently buried, and his mistress gave him a solemn promise to this effect and laid the corpse in a box which she interred behind the cemetery wall. She dare not bury it in the grave prepared for human beings, but the coffin was laid alongside a Christian tomb, and at the funeral the cat's soul was recommended to the care of his Creator.

Wizard cats have been known to do serious harm to those against whom they have a grudge, and it is well to be sure, if you value your life, whether you are dealing[Pg 191] with a real animal or a "familiar" when you feel angry.

A young man in Radnorshire had the reputation of being very cruel to cats. On the day he was to be married he saw a cat cross his path, and he threw a stone at it. From that moment he weakened in health and had to go away frequently to recuperate. The neighbours said that during these absences he was changed into a cat and ran wild in the woods and, after his death, tradition declared that he wandered through the district at night in the shape of a cat and struck terror in the hearts of naughty children.

General Sir Thomas Edward Gordon tells the following story of a modern instance in which a man was said to be transformed into a cat after death.[125]

"For twenty-five years an oral addition to the written standing orders of the native guard at Government House near Poona had been communicated regularly from one guard to another on relief, to the effect that any cat passing out of the front door after dark was to be regarded as His Excellency the Governor, and to be saluted accordingly. The meaning of this was that Sir Robert Grant, Governor of Bombay, had died there in 1838, and on the evening of the day of his death a cat was seen to leave the house by the front door and walk up and down a particular path, as had been the Governor's habit to do after sunset. A Hindu sentry had observed this, and he mentioned it to the others of his faith, who made it a subject of superstitious conjecture, the result being that one of the priestly class explained the mystery of the dogma of the transmigration of the soul from one body to another, and interpreted the circumstance to mean that the spirit of the deceased Governor had entered into one of the house pets.

"It was difficult to fix on a particular one, and it was therefore decided that every cat passing out of the main entrance after dark was to be regarded as the tabernacle of Governor Grant's soul, and to be treated with due[Pg 192] respect and the proper honours. This decision was accepted without question by all the native attendants and others belonging to Government House. The whole guard, from sepoy to sibadar, fully acquiesced in it, and an oral addition was made to the standing orders that the sentry at the front door would 'present arms' to any cat passing out there after dark."

A strange cat-story is told in "Notes and Queries," by a writer who knew the lady who had seen the ghost.

The lady was living with her father about 1840 in an ancient country-house which he had rented from an elderly heiress. The inmates soon discovered that the house was haunted. Strange noises were heard from time to time in the dining-room at night: a mysterious black cat used to appear in the entrance hall in the evening and scamper straight up the main staircase—not ascending it in the manner of mortal cats, but by winding itself in and out of the balustrade in a decidedly uncanny and preternatural way; and, worst of all, an old gentleman, in a black skull cap, yellow dressing-gown and red slippers, would come at midnight out of a certain door, cross the hall, go upstairs (in a dignified manner and not as the cat did) and vanish into an empty bedroom on the first floor. All the members of the household used to hear the noises and see the old gentleman whenever they were awake and downstairs at midnight. As to the "tortuous cat," it was vouched for by the servants and duly recorded by the lady who told the story. At length the inmates, finding the situation unpleasant, courageously determined to beard the ghost and give the old gentleman a practical and straightforward remonstrance about his conduct. On a certain night four men-servants were accordingly posted on the staircase, at the head of the first flight of stairs, it having been arranged that they should stop the intruder if they could, while their master, with a loaded pistol, should follow him and cut off his retreat.

[Pg 193]

At midnight the venerable gentleman emerged from his accustomed door. "Here he is!" cried the master of the house, and the servants on the staircase held their ground whilst the old gentleman approached silently, apparently unconscious of their presence. He came close up to the dauntless four, and then, to their amazement, he passed straight through them and reappeared on the other side. Turning round, they saw him calmly gliding up the second flight of stairs, above that on which they were posted. The master of the house, calling on them to follow, gave chase and fired his revolver. The old gentleman took no notice of the shot and entered the empty bedroom as usual, through its closed door. His pursuers opened the door only to find the room empty. A thorough search was made, the wainscoting sounded, the chimney explored, the cupboards turned out, and so forth, but nothing was found but a box containing deeds and some money in a forgotten closet.

The next morning the occupier wrote to the owner of the house to tell her of the discovery of the deed-box, and at the end of his letter, he inquired casually whether any of her relatives had been noted for a peculiarity of dress.

She replied that her grandfather always used to wear, when he was at home and in his study, a black skull cap, a yellow dressing-gown and red slippers.

After the finding of the deed-box the ghost failed to reappear and the companion phantom cat no longer did gymnastic exercises on the balustrade.

A different cause no doubt lies at the root of the appearance of a phantom cat and of a witch-cat, but it is not always easy to distinguish between the varieties of apparitions. The animals in the following stories bear resemblance to witches' familiars.

A woodman whose dinner was stolen from him daily by a cat made many attempts to waylay the creature. At last he succeeded in catching it in the act of larceny and he chopped off one of its paws, only to find on his return home that his wife had lost a hand.

[Pg 194]

A Frenchwoman at Billancourt was cooking an omelette when a black cat strayed into the cottage and sat down near the hearth to watch the operation. At the critical moment the cat cried out, "The omelette is done on that side. Turn it." The old woman was indignant at this aspersion on her culinary knowledge and she flung the half-cooked omelette at the cat, striking the animal's face. The next morning she had the satisfaction of seeing a deep red burn on the cheek of an evil-minded neighbour.

A woman whose children were always ailing, lived in the village of Ceyreste near to Ciotat. As soon as one child recovered another fell ill, and their mother was in despair, because she could not account for their ailments.

One day, one of her neighbours said, "Do you know, I feel sure your mother-in-law is injuring the health of your little ones. She may be a witch."

The woman spoke to her husband about the matter, and they decided to watch over their children carefully to see whether their illness was due to evil influence.

One night they were watching without appearing to do so, when suddenly a black cat approached the cradle of one of the children, moving with stealth and quite silently. The husband raised a stick he had picked up for the purpose and struck the animal violently, intending to kill it. But the blow was not carefully aimed and he only succeeded in crushing one of the evil animal's paws. With a bound it escaped him.

For a day or two afterwards nothing was seen of the children's grandmother, who usually came on a visit every day to inquire after the health of her grandchildren.

Then the neighbour said, "She is hiding something from you. Go and see why she does not come."

The husband followed her advice and went to see his mother, whom he found with her hand bound up, and in an extremely bad temper. He pretended not to see that she had been hurt, and he asked her in the most natural tone he could summon, why she had not been[Pg 195] to visit them as usual.

"Whatever should I come to your house for?" she asked angrily. "Look at the state of my fingers. If I had been struck by a hatchet instead of a stick, my fingers would have been cut off and I should have nothing left but a stump."[126]

Mr. Algernon Blackwood has cleverly used this idea of the astral body assuming cat-shape, and a wound inflicted on the animal reproducing itself on the physical counterpart, by means of the so-called phenomenon of repercussion.

In "The Empty Sleeve,"[127] the violinist Hyman "believed that there was some fluid portion of a man's personality which could be projected to a distance, and even semimaterialised there. The 'astral body,' he called it, or some such foolishness, claiming that it could appear in various forms, according to the character of its owner's desire, even in animal forms."

Billy Gilmer described to his brother what he saw when the violinist was playing. "The music seemed to issue from himself rather than from the shining bit of wood under his chin, when—I noticed something coming over me that was"—he hesitated, searching for words—"that wasn't all due to the music."...

"You mean Hyman looked queer?"

Billy nodded his head without turning.

"Changed there before my very eyes"—he whispered it—"turned animal——"

"Animal!" John felt his hair rising.

"That's the only way I can put it. His face and hands and body turned otherwise than usual. I lost the sound of his feet. When the bow-hand or the fingers on the strings passed into the light, they were"—he uttered a soft, shuddering little laugh—"furry, oddly divided, the fingers massed together. And he paced stealthily. I[Pg 196] thought every instant the fiddle would drop with a crash and he would spring at me across the room."

Some weeks later John Gilmer is awakened by a noise in the flat, and seizing a Turkish sword from the wall where it hung he entered the sitting-room where he saw a moving figure.

"Clutching his Turkish sword tightly he drew back with the utmost caution against the wall and watched, for the singular impression came to him that the movement was not that of a human being crouching, but rather of something that pertained to the animal world. He remembered, flash-like, the movements of reptiles, the stealth of the larger felines, the undulating glide of great snakes. For the moment, however, it did not move, and they faced one another.

"The other side of the room was but dimly lighted, and the noise he made clicking up another electric lamp brought the thing flying forwards again—towards himself. At such a moment it seemed absurd to think of so small a detail, but he remembered his bare feet, and, genuinely frightened, he leaped upon a chair and swished with his sword through the air about him. From this better point of view, with the increased light to aid him, he then saw two things—first, that the glass case usually covering the Guarnerius violin had been shifted: and, secondly, that the moving object was slowly elongating itself into an upright position. Semi-erect and yet most oddly, too, like a creature on its hind legs, it was coming swiftly towards him. It was making for the door—and escape."

Confused, he struck out wildly, lost his balance and fell forward from the chair.

"Then came the most curious thing of all, for as he dropped, the figure also dropped, stooped low down, crouched, dwindled amazingly in size, and rushed past him close to the ground like an animal on all fours. John Gilmer screamed, for he could no longer contain himself. Stumbling over the chair as he turned to follow, cutting[Pg 197] and slashing wildly with his sword, he saw half-way down the darkened corridor beyond, the large, scuttling outline of—a cat!

"The door into the outer landing was somehow ajar, and the next second the beast was out, but not before the steel had fallen with a dreadful crashing blow upon the front disappearing leg, almost severing it from the body."

Months afterwards the Gilmers met Hyman wearing spectacles and a beard. William pointed out to his brother another difference.

"But didn't you also notice——"

"What?"

"He had an empty sleeve."

"An empty sleeve?"

"Yes," said William. "He's lost an arm!"

A daring cat-story is of French origin and bears distinctive national characteristics on the face of it. On the 26th of March, 1782, a gentleman of wealth who was jealous of his wife's honour, decided he would consult Count Cagliostro, in order to find out whether his wife, who was young and beautiful, had always been faithful to him. He told the Count the reason of his visit and begged him to assist him in discovering the truth. Cagliostro said that this was quite an easy matter, and that he would give him a small phial containing a certain liquid which he was to drink when he reached home and just before he went to bed. "If your wife has been unfaithful to you," said Cagliostro, "you will be transformed into a cat."

The husband went home and told his wife how clever the Count was. She asked him the reason of his journey. At first he refused to tell her, but when she insisted he told her the exact means by which he was going to test her fidelity. She laughed at his credulity, but he swallowed the draught and they went to bed. The wife rose[Pg 198] early to attend to her household duties, leaving her husband asleep. At ten o'clock, as he did not appear, she went up to wake him, and to her intense astonishment, she found a huge black cat in the bed in place of her husband. She screamed, called her dear husband's name, and bent over the cat to kiss it, but without avail. Her husband had vanished! Then, in her despair, she knelt beside the bed and prayed for pardon, saying that she had committed a sin and that a handsome young soldier had cajoled her, by means of vows, of tears, and stories of heroic battles, to forget her marriage vows.

Black cocks and hens—like the cat—appear to have affinity with ghosts and sorcery. Among the fauna of La Franche Comté black hens are found, gifted with supernatural powers, which are so much like the ordinary ones that it is difficult to tell them apart. Yet they are magicians well versed in sorcery. In the courtyard they are served before their companions, and when they become broody and sit on the nest, a piece of money is slipped beneath them. If they are pleased, other coins are added, but it is very difficult to please them. At Mouthe in the Jura mountains, there are said to be witch-hens that frighten eagles.[128] Cocks are also thought to have power over lions. Proches gives an example of a spirit which was wont to appear in the form of a lion, but by setting of a cock before it, it was made to disappear, because there is a contrariety between a cock and a lion.

If an unexpected fortune is left to a poor peasant the French say that "he has a black hen," and the black hen which brings treasure is given by the devil to those who have sold their soul to him. A black cock is regarded as lucky,[129] and use is made of it in ceremonial magic.

Oromasis, father of Zoroaster, possessed a gold-finding hen which was hatched in the following manner. "Take aromatic woods, such as aloes, cedar, orange, citron[Pg 199] laurel, iris-root, with rose leaves dried in the sun. Place them in a golden chafing-dish, pour balsamic oil over them: add the finest incense and clear gum. Next say: Athas, Solinain, Erminatos, Pasaim: set a glass over the chafing dish: direct the rays of the sun thereon, and the wood will kindle, the glass will melt, a sweet odour will fill the place, and the compost will burn speedily to ashes. Place these ashes in a golden egg while still red-hot: lay the egg upon a black cushion; cover it with a bell-glass of faceted rock-crystal; then lift up your eyes and stretch your arms towards heaven and cry: O Sanataper, Ismaï, Nontapilus, Ertivaler, Canopistus. Expose the glass to the most fierce rays of the sun till it seems enveloped in flame, the egg ceases to be visible and a slight vapour rises. Presently you will discern a black pullet just beginning to move, when, if you say: Binusas, Testipas, it will take wing and nestle in your bosom."[130]

An alternative method provided by the Grimoire is to take an unspotted egg, and expose it to the meridian rays of the sun. Then select the blackest hen you can get, and shut it in a box lined with black. Place the box in a darkened room and let the hen sit till it hatches the chicken, which should be as black as the hen's outlook. The black pullet should have gold-finding proclivities. Another method altogether is to secure a virgin black hen, which must be seized without causing it to cackle. Repair to the highroad, walk till you come to a cross-way, and there, on the stroke of midnight, describe a circle with a cypress rod, place yourself in the middle, tear the bird in twain, and pronounce thrice the words Eloïm, Essaim, frugativi et appellavi. Next turn to the east, kneel down, recite a prayer, and conclude it with the Grand Appellation, when the Unclean Spirit will appear to you in a scarlet surcoat, a yellow vest, and breeches of pale green. His head will resemble that of a dog, but his ears will be those of an ass, with two horns above them; he will have the legs and hoofs of a calf.[Pg 200] He will ask for your orders, which you will give as you please, and as he cannot do otherwise than obey you, you may become rich on the spot, and thus the happiest of men. Such at least is the judgment of the Grimoire.[131]

Samuel Bernard, the Jewish banker who died in 1789, left an enormous fortune. It was said that he possessed a favourite black cock as a mascot, which was thought by many to have supernatural powers and to be connected in the diabolical manner indicated with the amassing of his wealth. The bird died a day or two before his master.

At Basle, in 1474, a cock was tried for having laid an egg. After a long examination the cock was condemned to death, not as a cock but as a sorcerer or devil in the form of a cock. The bird was burned with its egg at the stake! In former times all animals were regarded as amenable to the laws of the country and the whole proceedings of the trial, sentence, and execution were conducted with the strictest formalities of justice. Ninety-two processes against animals were tried in the French courts between 1120 and 1740, when the last trial and execution of a cow took place.

At Lavegny, in 1457, a sow and her six young ones were tried for having murdered and partly eaten a child. The sow was found guilty and executed, but the pigs were acquitted on account of their youth and the bad example of their mother.

Such instances might be multiplied in number, but they have no real place here, as the victims of justice were not regarded in the light of human animals, but as animals which had broken the standard of conduct laid down for the so-called superior race.

Chanticleer is the name of the cock in the great beast epic of the Middle Ages, Reynard the Fox, and Chanticleer, as everyone knows, has been humanised and immortalised in recent years by the famous French dramatist, Rostand. The cock, the hawk, and the eagle, among birds, appear to attract wizards or male sorcerers for[Pg 201] transformation purposes, while the more graceful and docile feathered beings, such as the nightingale, the wren, and above all the swan, appeal more frequently to the witch or maiden as a suitable form in which to appear.

Admirers of William Blake's work will remember the curious conception of a woman with a swan's head depicted in his "Jerusalem."

After the classic swan-maidens and Valkyries, perhaps the owl-woman comes next in popularity, made famous no doubt by the transformation of Pamphile in "The Metamorphosis, or Golden Ass of Apuleius."

[Pg 202]

A beautiful girl of about twenty years of age lived in a Provençal village. Her figure was good, she had an engaging carriage, fine hair, lovely eyes and teeth, and, in short, she was very attractive, but none of the young men of the village ever attempted to make love to her, and she had never had an offer of marriage. Whenever she met a young man who was new to the neighbourhood, he said, "Oh, what a pretty girl!" But his friends whispered in his ear, "Yes, she's lovely but she's a witch," and the mere suspicion of such a thing was so unpleasant that the young man knew it was quite impossible to give the lady a second sympathetic thought.

A few courageous young men, it is true, were anxious to hear further details about her sad story, and their friends gave them the following account as soon as they were out of earshot of any curious listener.

The young girl's mother, it appeared, had become a witch in her early youth, because, finding herself at the bedside of an old neighbour who lay at death's door and who was a notorious witch, she had been imprudent enough to take hold of her hand. Her indiscretion had not at the time become public property, and she had no difficulty in getting a husband, but a very short time after the marriage had taken place, the man had fallen ill, and died soon afterwards in a mysterious decline.

Under these circumstances there could be no doubt that the daughter was a witch as well as the mother, and it was equally certain that any bold gentleman who might venture to marry her would be condemned to an[Pg 203] early death.

Whether the young lady in question was pleased at the prospect of being laid on the shelf is very doubtful. Most girls of twenty have not an idea in the world beyond getting married, and she did not seem to be an exception to the rule.

One day a nice-looking young man who had recently come to the district to take up a position of some importance, was much struck by the young lady's good looks. When a friend told him she was undoubtedly a witch he shrugged his shoulders in contemptuous incredulity and continued to glance at her with interest and even tenderness in his gaze.

He was specially favoured by the girl, who received his attentions with pleasure and returned his glances. They soon made one another's acquaintance and, before long, an engagement was arranged between them.

The young man's family looked upon the forthcoming marriage with anything but good-will. But the young lover was obstinate, and as the girl and her mother did their best to keep him to his intentions, the arrangements were settled and the wedding-day fixed.

The fiancé was allowed to pay court to his lady-love every evening, and he made good use of this privilege. Autumn was approaching and the evenings were drawing in, and as the wedding was to be in November, there were many things to arrange and discuss every day, which made long visits a matter of course.

Time and time again one of the young man's friends pointed out the danger into which he was running by marrying a witch, but all advice was useless. It had an effect in one way, however, as it made the young man anxious to know whether the accusation could possibly be true. After a long time, in which his friend's suggestions had slowly made an impression, the young man decided to take steps to make sure what sort of a woman he was about to marry.

[Pg 204]

It is a well-known fact that the witches' Sabbath begins exactly at midnight, and once or twice when it grew very late whilst he was visiting his fiancée, her mother had suggested it was time he took his leave as it was close on midnight. This occurrence had made him slightly suspicious, and he decided to resort to a ruse.

One evening, having arrived at the usual hour, he complained of fatigue and pretended to fall asleep. Being Friday, the meeting of the witches was a specially solemn one, and not a single witch could afford to be absent. As time wore on, mother and daughter tried to wake the young man, but this was impossible, as he was sleeping too heavily, even snoring in a marked fashion, although all the time he was prepared to glance out of one eye if anything extraordinary went on in the room.

Presently, finding all their efforts in vain, the two women began talking in whispers, and were seemingly in great trouble. Then, as time pressed on, they took a mighty resolution. They put out the light, so that the room was in utter darkness save for the glowing embers on the hearth, then they took from a hidden press a jar of ointment which they placed on the table. They quickly divested themselves of their clothes and, dipping their fingers into the jar, rubbed themselves all over very carefully with the ointment. Every time they rubbed a limb they cried out, "Supra fueillo—above the foliage!"

As soon as they had finished this ritual they suddenly became owls, flew up the chimney, uttering the lugubrious hoot of the night-bird, and leaving behind them no signs of their presence except their discarded clothes on a chair in the room which had been the stage of this strange transformation.

As soon as he was left alone, the young man opened his eyes in a state of indescribable stupefaction. He rose, lit the lamp, looked carefully all round the room, touching many of the things to make sure that he was really awake and that he had not been the subject of an hallucination. When he came to the clothes, which still felt warm from their owners' bodies, and saw on the table[Pg 205] the jar of black ointment which smelt as though it had been made of burnt animal fat, he knew he was not dreaming.

Just then a clock close by struck the hour of twelve, and the young man, shaking and quaking with the strangeness of what had taken place, looked round in fear lest some awful apparition should greet his eyes. But nothing happened, for all the witches were at the Sabbath by that time.

Then a mad idea entered his head! Why should not he, too, transform himself into an owl and go to join his future wife and her mother, who had effected the transformation without apparently the slightest difficulty. The idea had no sooner struck him than he prepared to carry it out. In the twinkling of an eye he slipped off his clothes, dipped his fingers into the magic jar and rubbed himself exactly as the women had done. Unfortunately, however, he could not remember the exact phrase they had used, and instead of crying "Supra fueillo," he said, "Souto fueillo—under the foliage," with every rub.

Scarcely had he completed his exercises, and said "Souto fueillo" for the last time, than he was immediately changed into an owl and flew towards the chimney.

Scarcely had he reached the grate, however, when he knocked against the smouldering green faggots and burnt himself.

[Pg 206]

He attributed this misadventure to his want of address, not being accustomed to the shape and movements of a bird, and he assured himself that as soon as he was free of the house he would manage better. But when he reached the open country he began to suffer tortures. Where the fields were bare he found himself easily able to fly, just like any ordinary owl, but as soon as he came to the smallest hedge or thicket, he was obliged to pass through it instead of clearing it from above, and every branch, twig or thorn hit and stung him like a whip.

He wished to stop flying, for every moment his suffering grew more unendurable, but it was impossible to stop, for he was induced by some superior power to go straight ahead, and however much he tried, he could not avoid the shrubs and trees which lay in his path. The words "souto fueillo—under the foliage" which he had used were literally true, in the most cruel sense. He was bruised and torn all over, and felt as though he were at the point of death and that his last moment had come, when suddenly he heard a cock crow and the first ray of light appeared in the sky, heralding the dawn. The witches' Sabbath ended, he fell heavily to earth, finding himself lying naked on the wet soil. Bruised and bleeding, and smarting from a hundred scratches, his condition was pitiable, but he took heart when he realised that his experiment, so foolishly attempted, had not turned out even worse. He stood up, and limping and sore, hastened to his own house, slinking into bed, where he developed a serious fever which kept him there for many weeks. No one ever guessed the real cause of his illness, but as soon as he had recovered his ordinary state of health he went to live in another town and never even called on his ex-fiancée and her mother to ask them for the clothes which he had left on a chair in their sitting-room.

A legend about another owl-woman is alluded to by Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act IV, Sc. V, in Ophelia's speech, "They say the owl was a baker's daughter." The common version of this story comes from Gloucestershire, and is told as follows: "Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it considerably in size. The dough, however, immediately afterwards began to swell, and presently became an enormous size. Whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Wheugh! wheugh! wheugh!' which owl-like noise, it is said,[Pg 207] probably induced our Saviour, for her wickedness, to transform her into that bird."

An old ode gives a more aristocratic descent to the owl than the family of a tradesman.

In the north country the owl was also said to be of royal descent, perhaps of birth even as high as the child of a Pharaoh.

Another common tradition represents the owl as an old weaver spinning with silver threads, and the barn owl is said to be a transformation of one of the servants of the ten kings of the infernal regions.[132]

A similar story about the Saviour and the dough is told of the woodpecker. When Christ and St. Peter were wandering about the earth, they came to a house where an old wife sat baking. Her name was Gertrude and she wore a red mutch on her head. The Saviour, being hungry, pleaded that she should give Him a bannock, and to this she agreed. She took a very small piece of dough and rolled it out, but as she was rolling it it grew bigger and finally covered the whole griddle.

Then she said it was too large and she could not give away that bannock, and she took up a still smaller piece of dough and began again. But this piece grew as large as the other, and she refused to let her visitors have it. The same thing occurred a third time, and then Gertrude said, "I can't give you anything. You will have to go[Pg 208] without, for all these bannocks are too large."

Then Christ was angry and said, "Since you grudge me a morsel of food you shall turn into a bird and seek your livelihood between bark and hole, and only drink when it rains."

As He spoke these words, Gertrude turned into a large black woodpecker and flew up from the kneading trough and out through the chimney. Her body is black but she still wears the red mutch and she taps at the trees for her food.[133]

The Bohemians believe the cuckoo to be a transformed peasant woman who hid herself when she saw the Saviour approaching because she feared she would have to give Him a loaf. After He had gone by she looked out of the window and cried "Cuckoo!" and thereupon she was changed into a bird.

Another tradition says that the cuckoo is a transformed maiden, who is calling for her lost brother, or else that she proclaims to the world by her cry that her brother has been found again. A Serbian song says that a dead man was detained in misery on earth because his sister persisted in shedding tears over his grave. Becoming angry at her unreasonable sorrow, he cursed her and she was changed into a cuckoo and had enough to do grieving over her own condition without troubling further about his.

In an Albanian version of this legend a sister had two brothers, and accidentally killed one of them by getting up from her needlework and stabbing him in the heart with her scissors. She and her surviving brother grieved so deeply that they turned into birds, and all day long she cried "Ku-ku, ku-ku, Where are you?" to the brother she had slain.

The Westphalian peasants say that the nightingale is a shepherdess who treated a shepherd, who loved her, harshly, for she kept on promising to marry him but was never prepared to fulfil her vow. At last the shepherd[Pg 209] could not endure her dilly-dallying any longer and he prayed that she might never sleep again until the day of judgment. Since then her voice is always heard at night-time, singing, "Is tit, is tit, to wit, to wit—Trizy, Trizy, to bucht, to bucht"—which is the cry of the shepherdess to her dog Trizy.[134]

"In former times," says Mr. Train, in his "Account of the Isle of Man,"[135] "a fairy of uncommon beauty exerted such undue influence over the male population, that by her sweet voice she induced numbers to follow her footsteps till by degrees she led them into the sea, where they perished. This barbarous exercise of power had continued for a long time, till it was apprehended that the island would be exhausted of its defenders: when a knight-errant sprang up who discovered some means of countervailing the charms used by this siren, and even laid a plot for her destruction, which she escaped at the moment of extreme hazard by taking the form of a wren. But, though she evaded instant annihilation, a spell was cast upon her by which she was condemned to animate the same form every succeeding New Year's day, until she should perish by a human hand." Every anniversary therefore man and boy hunt the island from dawn till twilight for the small brown bird whose feathers are looked upon as a charm against shipwreck.

In German folk-lore the magpie is a bird of the infernal regions, now changing herself into a witch, or sometimes turning herself into the steed or broomstick on which the witch rides to the Sabbath. In Sweden tradition says that sorcerers on Walpurgis night ride to Blocula and there turn into magpies. A lady at Carlstadt in that country was haunted by witch-birds in a very unpleasant manner. Having insulted a Finn woman who had begged food of her she told her to take a magpie that was hanging in a cage and eat it if she was hungry. The Finn cast an "evil eye" on the lady for this insult,[Pg 210] but took the bird away with her. Some time after the Swedish lady noticed that whenever she went out a magpie came hopping in front of her. This happened for some days running, and then the magpie was joined by a companion bird, and presently by a number. The lady began to be frightened, but the more she tried to get rid of these strange companions the more numerous they became. They perched on her shoulders, tugged at her dress, and pecked at her ankles. In despair she shut herself up indoors, but they remained outside, and as soon as the door was open in they hopped. At last she went to bed and had the shutters closed, and the magpies kept on tapping outside till she died.

There is a beautiful Eskimo legend of a bird-bride:—

The Eskimo captures the fairest and carries her to his snow house, where she becomes his wife and bears him three children, and he promises that whatever bird or beast he shall slay for food he will never capture another grey gull. But as time goes on he forgets his vow and once when food is scarce and he can get no game, he shoots four sea-gulls with his bow and arrow. Then his wife tells him her hour has come, and, calling her children to fetch the feather plumes, she dons them and flies away with her little ones and the husband is left lamenting.

[Pg 211]

A more definite variant of the bird-maiden legend is found in "The Arabian Nights." Janshah enters a pavilion and mounting the throne falls asleep. But presently awaking he walks forth and sees flying in mid-sky, three birds, in dove-form but as large as eagles. They alight on the brink of the basin of the fountain. There they become maidens, plunge into the basin and play and swim in the water. Janshah, struck by their beauty, rises and follows them when they come to land, saying, "Who are ye, O illustrious princesses, and whence come ye?" The youngest maiden replies, "We are from the invisible world of Almighty Allah, and we come hither to divert ourselves."

Still marvelling at her beauty, Janshah said to the youngest, "Have ruth on me and deign kindness to me and take pity on my case and all that hath befallen me in my life." But she will not hearken to his pleadings, and though he recites love poems to them all they only laugh and sing and make merry. They stay with him feasting till morning and then, resuming dove-shape, fly off and are seen no more. Janshah, deprived of their company, well-nigh loses his reason and falls into a swoon.

Eventually he wins the princess by seizing her feather robe and refusing to return it in spite of the fact that the fair lady, Shamsah by name, beseeches him with all her wiles to do so. They decide to go back to the princesses' motherland to be married, and Janshah returns the feather suit, which she dons, telling him to mount her back and shut his eyes and ears, so that he "may not hear the roar of the revolving sphere," and, she adds, "keep fast hold of my feathers lest thou fall off."

They return to his home happily wedded and Janshah places the feather-vest of the princess in a white marble chest, which is sealed with melted lead and buried under the palace walls. But Shamsah when she enters the new palace smells the scent of her flying feather-gear, and when her husband is asleep she gets out the garment and flies away. Then Janshah has to search for the Castle[Pg 212] of Jewels, where he meets his fair bride once more.[137]

A very similar story is told by Charles Swynnerton in "Romantic Tales from the Panjab, with Indian Nights' Entertainment,"[138] about Prince Bairam and his fairy bride. The Prince, sitting down in a beautiful garden, watches four milk-white doves who settle in the shape of four fairies by the edge of a tank of clear crystal water. There they bathe and when they come out to dress three of them resume their dove-shape, but the fourth fairy, whose name is Ghulab Bano, cannot find her clothes and bids farewell to her sisters, saying, "It is my kismet. Some different destiny awaits me here and we shall never meet again."

Then she falls in love with the Prince, who has purposely hidden her dove-skin, and marries him. After a time she asks her husband for leave to visit her father and mother, promising to return. He gives her the fairy clothes and she disappears as a milk-white dove. But her parents are angry with her for marrying a mortal and imprison her in a subterranean city, so that she cannot keep her promise. The Prince goes in search of her and at last finds his bride, but as women cannot keep a secret, she tells her friends of his presence, and her father sends giants to kill him, and only after many further adventures are the Prince and the fairy-Princess once more happily united.

In a Basuto legend a girl is devoured by wer-animals in whose care, as men, she has been sent to her betrothed. Her heart is transformed into a dove and joins a flock of these birds. They visit the hut of the bridegroom's sister, who suspects that the beautiful bird may be the lost maiden. Then the bridegroom seizes hold of the dove, the wings come off and the girl herself steps forth as beautiful and innocent as ever.

Hans Andersen's "The Wild Swans" differs in an important particular from the other stories of this class, as it deals with Swan-princes. Princess Elsie's eleven[Pg 213] brothers are transformed into swans by their wicked stepmother, who says, "Fly away in the form of great speechless birds." But she could not make their transformation so disagreeable as she wished, and the princes were changed into eleven white swans.

Elsie releases them by plucking stinging-nettles which she has to weave into eleven shirts with long sleeves. She does not finish in time, and one sleeve being wanting in the youngest boy's shirt, he has one arm, and a wing instead of the other.[139]

The robin, oddly enough among birds, is also a transformed man. The legend is told amongst the Chippeway Indians that there was once a hunter so ambitious that his only son should signalise himself by endurance when he came to the time of life to undergo the fast for the purpose of choosing his guardian spirit, that after the lad had fasted for eight days, his father still pressed him to persevere. But the next day, when the father entered the hut, his son had paid the penalty of violated nature, and in the form of a robin had just flown down to the top of a lodge. There before he flew away to the woods, he entreated his father not to mourn the transformation. "I shall be happier," he said, "in my present state than I could have been as a man. I shall always be the friend of men and keep near their dwellings; I could not gratify your pride as a warrior, but I will cheer you with my songs."[140]

In Bavaria the hoopoe is said to play the part of attendant to the cuckoo. It is believed that the plantain was once a maiden, who, watching by the wayside for her lover, who was long in coming, was changed into a plant, and once in seven years she becomes a bird, either the cuckoo or the hoopoe,[141] or, as it is called in Devonshire, the "dinnick," the cuckoo's servant.

[Pg 214]

One of the best-known classical stories of bird-women is, of course, the tragedy of Progne and Philomela, daughters of Pandion, King of Athens. Progne marries Tereus, King of Thrace, but Tereus, blinded by Philomela's beauty, betrays his sister-in-law and cuts out her tongue lest she should tell of his villainy. Nevertheless she manages to send a message to her sister, who revenges herself and Philomela on her husband Tereus by killing his son Itys and dishing up his body as food at a meal which she sets before his father. Tereus, having eaten of the flesh of his beloved son, discovers the trick played upon him and pursues his wife and her sister with the intention of punishing them. As they flee Philomela is transformed into a nightingale, while Progne becomes a swallow, upon whose breast the red stains of her murdered son appear. Tereus is changed into a crested bird, either a hoopoe or a lapwing.

A pretty story of a woman-kingfisher is also to be found among the classics. Ceyx, King of Trachyn, sets out for Claros, to succour his brother, against the advice of his wife, Halcyone. A storm overtakes the ship on which he is travelling and he is drowned. Halcyone hastens to the seashore to find him, as she feels she cannot live without his presence, and as she stands looking out to sea the body of the drowned Ceyx floats towards her. She leaps into the water to seize his corpse and at that moment is transformed into a kingfisher, and with her bill and wings caresses the dead face and limbs of her beloved husband. Then the gods, in compassion, transform Ceyx also into a kingfisher, so that as birds their love may endure for ever.[142]

[Pg 215]

Certain animals are associated with certain families, and in many such instances the animal makes its appearance as a death-warning. Sometimes the animal in question, which is in the nature of a totem of the clan, is the family crest and has an occult connection with its traditions and history.

The Ferrers, whose country seat is at Chartley Park, near Litchfield, have a peculiar breed of cattle on their estates. The colour of the cattle is white with black muzzles. The whole of the inside of the ear, and one-third of the outside from the tip downwards is red, and the horns are white, with black tips, very fine and bent upwards.

In the year in which the Battle of Burton Bridge was fought and lost, a black calf was born into this stock and the downfall of the Ferrers family occurred about this time, giving rise to a tradition which has never been falsified, that the birth of a dark or parti-coloured calf from the Chartley Park breed is an omen of death within the year to a member of the Ferrers family.

The "Staffordshire Chronicle," of July, 1835, says, "It is a noticeable coincidence that a calf of this description was born whenever a death happened in the family. The decease of the seventh Earl Ferrers and of his countess, and of his son, Viscount Tamworth, and of his daughter, Mrs. William Jolliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the eighth earl and of his daughter, Lady Francis Shirley, were each preceded by the ominous birth of the fatal-hued calf. In the spring of 1835 a[Pg 216] black calf appeared at Chartley, and before long the beautiful countess, second wife of the eighth earl, lay on her death-bed.

Birds of various kinds frequently make their appearance in families as harbingers of death. When the Oxenhams of Devonshire were visited by the apparition of a white bird they knew that one of the family was doomed. The well-known story is told by James Oxenham in a tract entitled "A True relation of an Apparition in the likenesse of a Bird with a white breast that appeared hovering over the death-beds of some of the children of Mr. James Oxenham, of Sale Monachorum, Devon, Gent."

One of the first members of the family to see the apparition was the famous John Oxenham, a young man of twenty-two, who was taken ill in the vigour of his youth, a great strapping fellow six foot and a half in height, well built, of comely countenance and of great intellectual gifts. He died on the fifth day of September, 1635, and two days before his death the bird with the white breast hovered over his bed. Charles Kingsley made use of this incident in "Westward Ho!" John Oxenham, in the midst of drinking a toast, suddenly drops his glass on the table and staring in terror at some object which he seems to see fluttering round the room, he cries out "There! Do you see it? The bird! The bird with the white breast!"

No sooner was John Oxenham in his grave than the apparition showed itself to Thomasine, wife of James Oxenham, who died on the seventh of September, 1635. She was quite a young woman and, according to the witnesses, Elizabeth Frost and Joan Tooker, the strange phantom was seen clearly fluttering above her sick-bed. The next member of the Oxenhams to whom the warning appeared was Thomasine's little sister, Rebecca, a child of eight, who breathed her last on September the ninth, following. And no sooner had the little girl been laid in her grave than Thomasine, infant of the above-mentioned[Pg 217] Thomasine and James Oxenham, was taken sick and died on the 15th of September, 1635, the bird appearing also in this case.

It is impossible not to wonder what disease it was that carried off so many members of the Oxenham family within a few days of one another, and whether the bird was fluttering through the rooms the whole of the time, or whether it disappeared between the various deaths. Certain it is that it was not seen hovering over the sick-beds of other members of the family who recovered health. An earlier visitation had occurred in 1618, when the grandmother of the said John, a certain Grace Oxenham, had yielded up her soul into the hands of her Maker. Many later appearances of the famous bird are on record. A Mr. Oxenham who lived in Sidmouth for many years and who died between 1810 and 1821, was attended by an old gardener and his wife, who gave evidence that they had seen a white bird fly in at the door, dart across the bed in which their master lay dying, and disappear in one of the drawers of the bureau, but when they opened all the drawers to find the apparition, they could discover no signs of it.

In 1873 the Rev. Henry Oxenham gave the following version of the family story, which may be found in Frederick George Lee's "Glimpses of the Supernatural."[143]

"Shortly before the death of my late uncle, G. N. Oxenham, Esq., of 17 Earl's Terrace, Kensington, who was then head of the family, this occurred: His only surviving daughter, now Mrs. Thomas Peter, but then unmarried and living at home, and a friend of my aunt's, Miss Roberts, who happened to be staying in the house, but was no relation, and had never heard of the family tradition, were sitting in the dining-room immediately beneath his bedroom about a week before his death, which took place on December 15, 1873, when their[Pg 218] attention was aroused by a shouting outside the window.

"On looking out they observed a white bird—which might have been a pigeon, but, if so, was an unusually large one—perched on the thorn tree outside the windows and it remained there for several minutes, in spite of some workmen on the opposite side of the road throwing their hats at it, in the vain effort to drive it away.

"Miss Roberts mentioned this to my aunt at the time, though not, of course, attaching any special significance to it, and my aunt (since deceased) repeated it to me soon after my uncle's death. Neither did my cousin, though aware of the family tradition, think of it at the time.... My cousin also mentioned another circumstance, which either I did not hear of or had forgotten, viz. that my late aunt spoke at the time of frequently hearing a sound like the fluttering of a bird's wings in my uncle's bedroom, and said that the nurse testified to hearing it also."

A more tragic incident connected with the same legend was that when Lady Margaret Oxenham was about to be married a white bird appeared and fluttered about her head, and that she was stabbed at the altar by a rejected lover.

In another family a white crow was seen as a death-warning. In the late half of the eighteenth century the son of a rich landowner in North Wales was said to exercise an evil influence over his elder brother, who was heir to the estate. When the landowner died the eldest son disappeared mysteriously, and the second son took his place as heir. Wherever the new squire went he was accompanied by a white crow with black wings, and all the neighbours recognised the bird as his constant companion.

A few years passed and the squire found it necessary to make a journey to London on a matter of business, but thinking that the crow would cause an odd sensation if it followed him about the Metropolis, he decided, or let himself be persuaded, that it was better to leave the[Pg 219] bird behind. On his way home from town, he stayed for a night or two at the house of a friend in Shrewsbury. During dinner the door of the dining-room was blown open suddenly, as though by an unexpected gust of wind, and the white crow flew into the room and perched on the squire's shoulder, as though well-contented to be once more in the presence of its master.

To satisfy the curiosity of the guests, the squire explained that the bird was his most faithful friend. When the diners left the table and went into the drawing-room a pet dog chased the bird, which had left its perch on the squire's shoulder and had flown on ahead. One of the visitors attempted to strike the dog, hoping to make it cease to persecute the bird, and by accident he hit the bird instead. Croaking piteously, the white crow wheeled about twice and fluttered to the ground dying. The squire who had lingered behind the others came forward at the noise of the fray and, seeing the dead crow, cried:

"Alas! You have killed one who was to me like a brother."

Then he turned to his host and took a hurried farewell, for, he added, "I have but three weeks more to live."

At this strange speech the host and his guests concluded that the squire was over-superstitious and they pooh-poohed his fears, which, however, proved only too correct. He died three weeks later, as he had himself prophesied, and then it was reported that the elder brother, on his disappearance, had taken the shape of a crow and that whoever owned the bird knew that he would only survive it by three weeks. A third brother inherited the estate, and to this day when a death is expected in the family, a white crow with black wings is seen hovering near the house.[144]

A bird is connected with a death-warning in the Lyttleton family, whose country seat is Hagley in Worcestershire.[Pg 220] The first earl was a distinguished poet and historian, but his son, Thomas, the second earl, was known as "the wicked Lord Lyttleton," a title he had won by his extravagances and profligacy. He died on November 27th, 1779, at his town house in Hill Street, having been foretold of his death three days previously.

In the middle of the night of the 24th of November he was awakened by the fluttering of a bird about the curtains in his bedroom, and looking up, he saw the vision of a lovely woman dressed in white, upon whose wrist a small bird was perched like a falcon. As he lay watching the apparition, the woman spoke, warning him to prepare for death within three days.

Although he treated the matter lightly, and his friends seconded him in combating his superstitious fears, Lord Lyttleton died at the exact hour named by his ghostly visitor and the casement at which the bird was seen by the doomed man has since been frequently pointed out to people interested in the tradition.

Closeburn Castle, the seat of the Kirkpatricks in Dumfries-shire, was surrounded by a beautiful lake, and whenever any member of the family was about to die a swan appeared on the waters and remained there until the death had taken place, then disappearing as mysteriously as it came.

The story of this ghostly swan is a sad one. In former times a pair of swans made the lake their favourite resort in the summer season. Year after year the pair paid an annual visit to Closeburn to the delight of the family, for they were thought to bring good fortune in their train, and whatever misfortune or sorrow had been impending vanished like magic at their appearance.

One Lady Kirkpatrick had been sick unto death when the first information of the presence of the swans brought her speedily back to health. Another year the heir of the house, a mere babe, lay almost at his last gasp when the broken-hearted mother, gazing from the castle window one dark night, saw the two swans descend as though from[Pg 221] the celestial world, and the next moment they were seen sailing majestically upon the lake. Full of joy at this good omen, she turned to her sick child and saw with thanksgiving and praise the first signs of returning health, a recovery which proved to be speedy. And so many stories were told of kindly influence exerted by the original birds and their successors, that for one hundred and fifty years the tradition held good. But after the elapse of that period a change occurred, which unfortunately reversed the omen.

At that time Closeburn Castle was in the possession of a boy of thirteen of the name of Robert. He was romantic by nature, but also mischievous, and it happened that one day he was permitted to go to the theatre in Edinburgh to see a performance of "The Merchant of Venice." The lines which Portia says of Bassanio, that he would

struck his imagination very forcibly and afterwards he could not rest because he was so anxious to know whether the song of a dying swan was a fact and not merely a myth.

Moved by this absorbing impulse, he went a short time later into the Park at Closeburn with the intention of shooting sparrows with his cross-bow, and at that moment, unluckily, the prophetic swans came sailing upon the lake in his direction.

Without a thought as to what might be the result of his action, Robert aimed his bow at one of the swans, and the arrow, winging its way over the lake, hit its mark so surely that the swan perished on the spot. Its companion gave a shrill and lamentable scream and vanished forthwith.

Robert, filled with remorse at what he had done, buried the body of his victim, which had drifted to the shores of the lake, and told nobody what had taken place. But for many years, much to the surprise of the family, no[Pg 222] swans came to Closeburn.

Much later, when the matter had been almost forgotten, a single swan returned, but, unlike the earlier visitants, it was shy to wildness, and upon its breast was seen a blood-red stain.

People shook their heads and said this phantom swan boded the family no good, and their prognostications came true, for though the swan with the bleeding breast came more rarely than the others had done, every time it appeared it heralded misfortune. First the sudden death of the Lord of Closeburn occurred at home and then one of his relatives was lost in a shipwreck. And again at the third nuptials of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, the first baronet of that name, his son and heir Roger, who was in good health at the time, caught sight of the swan, and in full conviction that the warning was meant to tell of impending evil, he went home duly despondent. His father rallied him on his mood, which he said proceeded from a jealous dislike of his new stepmother. But Roger answered, "Perhaps before long, you too may be sorrowing," and that very night he gave up the ghost.

Since then, tradition says, that the mystic wounded swan has never been seen at Closeburn, and the tragic revenge has been completely fulfilled.

According to the account of Sir Walter Scott, supernatural appearances announce death to the ancient Highland family of the MacLeans of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor who was slain in battle is heard to gallop along a stony bank and then to ride thrice around the family residence ringing his fairy bridle and thus intimating the approaching calamity. The reference to this legend occurs in "The Lady of the Lake."

A fox is an unusual animal to be responsible for a death-warning,[Pg 223] except perhaps in Japan, where so many superstitions cling round this creature, but the Irish family of Gormanston is haunted by a small congregation of foxes whenever the head of the house is about to die.

Before the death of the twelfth viscount, in 1860, foxes were seen round about and even in the house for some days. A few hours before his death, "three foxes were playing about and making a noise close to the house, and just in front of the cloisters, which are yew-trees planted and trailed in that shape." They wandered about the grounds in pairs and sat under the viscount's window, barking and howling all night. Next morning they were crouching in the grass in the front of the house. Although they had access to the poultry yard, it was certainly strange that they never touched any of the birds. As soon as the funeral was over the animals disappeared suddenly.

When the succeeding viscount died, in 1876, the foxes were seen again, appearing constantly under the bedroom window, especially when the sick viscount was supposed to have taken a turn for the better, which, however, proved to be a false hope, for he passed away soon afterwards.

On the occasion of the death of the fourteenth Viscount Gormanston the coachman and gardener saw two foxes near the chapel and five or six more round the front of the house, and several were barking in the cloisters. Lord Gormanston's son, the Hon. Mr. Preston, watched beside his father's body which lay in the chapel, and on one occasion, about three in the morning, he "became conscious of a slight noise, which seemed to be that of a number of people walking stealthily around the chapel on the gravel walk. He went to the side door, listened, and heard outside a continuous and insistent snuffling or sniffing noise, accompanied by whimperings and scratchings at the door. On opening it, he saw a full-grown fox sitting on the path within four feet of him. Just in the shadow was another, while he could[Pg 224] hear several more moving close by in the darkness. He then went to the end door, opposite the altar, and on opening it found two more foxes, one so close that he could have touched it with his foot. On shutting the door the noises continued till 5 a.m., when they suddenly ceased."[145]

When a death is about to take place in the Baronet's family at Clifton Hall, in Nottinghamshire, a sturgeon is said to force its way up the river Trent, which runs at the foot of the beautifully wooded slope on which the Hall stands, and whenever white owls are seen perched on the family mansion of the Arundels of Wardour it is held to be an indication that a member of the family is near to death.

In one family a little white dog appears to give warning that a death is about to occur. The story is taken from J. A. Middleton's "Grey Ghost Book."[146] A relative of General French was sitting in the garden talking with a friend when the latter saw a little white dog run under her companion's chair. As it did not reappear she became curious and requested him to see what had become of it. The man rose and removed his chair, but the dog was not there, having suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Then he related that in his family a little white dog appeared before a death, and that this was a warning to him.

Some time after they met again and she learnt that his uncle had died the same night, and that she had seen the animal, and when she remarked that it was strange that it should have been visible to her and not to him, he said that on many other occasions the phantom had appeared to someone outside the family, though always near to a member of it to whom it was visible.

A black dog appears as a death warning to some families, as related by Catherine Crowe in "The Night Side of Nature."[147]

[Pg 225]

A young lady of well-known family was sitting at work, well and cheerful, when she saw to her great surprise a large black dog close to her. As both door and window were closed she could not understand how he had got in, but when she started up to put him out she could no longer see him. Quite puzzled and thinking it must be some strange illusion, she sat down again, and went on with her work, when presently he was there again. Much alarmed, she now ran out and told her mother, who said she must have fancied it, or else that she must be ill. She said that she was quite well and that she was sure she had seen the animal. Then her mother promised to wait outside the door, and if the dog appeared again her daughter said she would call her. Presently the daughter saw the dog again, but he disappeared when she called her mother. Soon afterwards the mother was taken ill and died. Before her death she said to her daughter, "Remember the black dog."

Another family in the east of England has a tradition that the appearance of a black dog portends the death of one of its members. It was not said that no death took place without such warning; but only that, when the apparition occurred, its meaning was certain. The eldest son of this family married. He knew not whether to believe or disbelieve the legend. On one hand he thought it superstitious to receive it, and, on the other, he could not altogether reject it in the face of much testimony. In this state of doubt—the thing itself being unpleasant—he resolved to say nothing on the subject to his young wife. It could only, he thought, worry and harass her, and could not by any possibility do any good, and he kept this resolution. In due course of time he had a family; but of the apparition he saw nothing. At length, one of his children was taken ill with small-pox; but the attack was slight and not the least danger was apprehended. He was sitting down to dinner with his wife, when she said, "I will just step upstairs and see how baby is going on, and I will be back again in a moment." She went and, returning rather hastily, said,[Pg 226] "Baby is asleep; but pray go upstairs, for there is a large black dog lying on his bed. Go up and drive it out of the house." The father had no doubt of the result. He went upstairs; there was no black dog to be seen; but the child was dead.[148]

The New Hall at Nafferton was the occasional residence of the Derwentwater (Radcliffe) family, who left it for Dilston Hall in 1768. Gradually the place fell into decay and strange things were seen about the house. The apparitions were most frequent at times of birth or death, or as preliminaries to any fatal accident, and they took the forms of a white weasel, a white hen, or a white rabbit, and sometimes a headless person dressed in white. Rappings and other noises were frequent, and became so obtrusive that finally a farmer who lived in the house decided to investigate matters. He called his brother to help him, and as the worst noises came from a cavity in his own room, covered by a hearthstone and called the "Priest's Hole," they began by digging up the hearthstone. Beneath it was an accumulation of rubbish, which they emptied out until they found a flagged recess, surrounded at the sides by a stone seat, the actual hiding-place of priests, usual in the houses of gentry of Roman Catholic tenets. Seeing nothing extraordinary, they were about to desist from their labours when they thought they heard a voice urging them to go on digging. From the "priest's hole" they entered another apartment, and then a third, where they found a blood-stained shirt and nightcap, which were apparently of new linen, but as soon as they were exposed to the atmosphere they crumbled away like "burnt tinder."

On careful inquiry it was discovered that about the time of the Radcliffes' occupancy, an old pedlar had been murdered on the spot and his goods stolen by the innkeeper's daughters.[149]

[Pg 227]

Albert Smith, whose brother was a pupil at Guildford Grammar School, tells a story of a phantom vision which appeared at the time of a death. Several of the schoolboys had been sitting up all night for a frolic when one of them said, "I'll swear there's a likeness of our old huntsman on his grey horse going across the whitewashed wall!" He was laughed at for being so superstitious, but next morning a servant came from the family to say "the old huntsman had been thrown from his horse and killed that morning whilst airing the hounds."

It is no easier to attempt to explain such an apparition than it is to say why Jemmy Lowther, the "bad Lord Lonsdale," was said to dash about in his phantom coach and six after his death.

Another member of a noble family was responsible for bringing trouble on his house through his wicked ways.

The Lambtons were haunted for nine generations by a horrible snake or worm which brought much evil in its train. One day the heir to the estate, a ne'er-do-well, was fishing in the Wear on a Sunday and catching nothing he vented his anger in loud curses. Soon afterwards there were indications that a fish was on his line, and, to his disgust, he found he had hooked a monster, something between a worm and a serpent. Terrified, he threw the creature into a well close by. Before long, repenting of his wicked ways, he betook himself to the Crusades, leaving his aged father to look after the estates without him. Meanwhile the monster he had caught grew too large for the well and crawled forth to work ill to the country-side, laying waste the land, devouring cattle, and plundering right and left. The villagers tried to appease it by offerings of milk, but no real release was to be had from this serpent-tyrant until the return of the young heir from the Crusade. Then he battled with the monster for freedom, much in the manner of St. George and the Dragon, except that he took a vow to offer as a sacrifice the first living thing he met after his victory was won. To his horror this happened to be[Pg 228] his father, and incapable of parricide, he preferred to allow a curse to descend on posterity, and for nine generations the Lambtons died by violence.

Another story tells of what happened to a noble dame when she died, after having lived an evil life.

Lady Howard in the time of James I was said to be the possessor of evil qualities in spite of her beauty and accomplishments. She was cruel to her only daughter, and was thought to get rid of her husbands by mysterious means, for she had been married four times.

When she died she had to do penance for her sins. Being transformed into a hound, she was compelled to run a long distance every night from her residence at Fitzford, to Okehampton Park and back to her old home, carrying a blade of grass picked from the park. This work was to go on until all the grass had been removed from Okehampton.

That evil-doing is punishable by a descent in the scale of being is a salient point which appears in the race-beliefs of many nations.

The Lady Sybil of Bernshaw Tower, a fair maid of high rank but evil repute, turned into a white doe after making a strange compact with the devil. Rich, young, and beautiful, her desires were still unsatisfied and she longed for supernatural powers, so that she might take part in the witches' Sabbath. At this time, Lord William of Hapton Tower (a member of the Townley family) was a suitor for Lady Sybil's hand, but his proposals did not meet with her approval. In despair, he decided to consult a famous Lancashire witch called Mother Helston, who promised him success on All Halloween. In accordance with her instructions he went hunting and at a short distance from the Eagle's Crag a milk-white doe[Pg 229] started from behind the thicket, and he found it impossible to capture the animal. His hounds were wearied and he returned to the Crag, almost determined to give up the chase, when a strange hound joined his pack. Then a fresh start was made, and the strange hound, Mother Helston's familiar, captured the white doe. That night an earthquake shook Hapton Tower to its foundations and in the morning the white doe appeared as the fair Lady Sybil, who had been fleeing from her suitor in animal shape. Thus Lord William married the heiress of Bernshaw Tower, but a year later she renewed her diabolical practices and not until she lay near death was it possible for Lord William to have the devil's bond cancelled, which he did by enlisting the holy offices of a neighbouring priest. After her death Bernshaw Tower was deserted and tradition says that on All Halloween, the hound and the milk-white doe meet on the Eagle's Crag, where Lady Sybil lies buried, and are pursued by a spectre huntsman in full chase.[150]

Sometimes the ghost of a human being has the power of taking animal shape, as in the case of the eccentric Miss Beswick of Birchen Bower, Hollinwood.

Birchen Bower was a quaint four-gabled mansion built in the form of a cross, and attached to it was a large barn, where many uncanny incidents happened.

"On the 22nd of July," says the "Manchester Guardian" of August 15, 1868, "the remains of Miss Beswick were committed to the earth in the Harpurhey Cemetery. There is a tradition that this lady, who is supposed to have died about one hundred years ago, had acquired so strong a fear of being buried alive that she left certain property to her medical attendant, so long as her body should be kept above ground. The doctor seems to have embalmed her body with tar, and then swathed it with a strong bandage, leaving the face exposed, and to have kept 'her' out of the grave as long as[Pg 230] he could. For many years past the mummy has been lodged in the rooms of the Manchester Natural History Society (Peter Street), where it has been an object of much popular interest. It seems that the commissioners, who are charged with the rearrangement of the Society's collections, have deemed this specimen undesirable, and have at last buried it."

A curious bargain appears to have been made by Miss Beswick, namely, that every twenty-one years her body was to be taken back to Birchen Bower and be left there for one week, and the more elderly inhabitants declared that this was done at the stated times, and the body laid in the granary of the old farmstead. On the morning when the corpse was fetched away, the horses and cows were invariably found to have been let loose, and sometimes a cow would be found up in the hayloft, although how it came there was a mystery, as there was no passage large enough to admit the animal. The last prank of this description played by Miss Beswick, as far as information goes, was a few years ago when a cow belonging to the farmer then tenanting the place was found in the hayloft. Naturally enough the neighbours believed that supernatural agency had been employed to place it there. This occurred at the fourteenth anniversary of seven years after Miss Beswick died, and it was a recognised fact that some apparition was usually seen at Birchen Bower at the expiration of every seven years. No one could explain how the cow could get into the loft, and blocks had to be borrowed from Bower Mill to get her down again through the hay-hole outside the barn.

After Miss Beswick's death her house was divided up into several cottages, and she seems to have haunted the spot. To one family she appeared as an old lady in a silken gown, and her arrival was invariably announced to them as they were seated at supper by a rustling of silk which was heard at the entrance. Soon after the lady, arrayed in black silk, glided into the room, walked straight[Pg 231] into the parlour and disappeared at one particular flagstone. As she annoyed no one her appearance never drew forth any further remark than "Hush! Here's the old lady again."

Tradition said that Miss Beswick had hidden vast sums of money and other articles of value in the time of Prince Charlie (1745), and a weaver who lived in a part of the haunted house found a tin vessel full of gold pieces under the floor of the haunted parlour. It was thought after this discovery that the phantom lady would rest in her grave, but this was not the case, and she recently appeared near an old well by the brook-side. A rustic going to fetch water, saw a tall lady standing by the well, wearing a black silk gown and a white cap with a frilled border. She stood there in the dusk in a defiant or threatening attitude, streams of blue light appearing to dart from her eyes and flash on the horror-stricken spectator. This appearance of the phantom was said to mean that Miss Beswick could get no rest until certain members of her family regained their property, a result which does not appear to be yet achieved, for the phantom still haunts the neighbourhood, on clear moonlight nights, walking in a headless state between the old barn and the horse-pool, and at other times assuming the forms of different animals which, however, are always lost sight of near the horse-pool. Some people think that Miss Beswick concealed something on this spot in 1745, and is now anxious to point out her treasure to anyone brave enough to address her. On dreary winter nights the barn where the phantom cow was found is said to appear as though on fire, a red glow being observed through the loopholes and crevices of the loft, and loud noises proceeding from the building as though the evil one and his demons were holding revels there. But if an alarm of fire is raised by a frightened neighbour and the farmer has the premises searched, all is found to be in order, and the terror-stricken inhabitants of the village declare that Madame Beswick is up to her ghostly[Pg 232] pranks again.[151]

The popular belief in transformation is at the root of a strange family story about Callaly Castle, which is beautifully situated at the foot of the wooded slopes of Callaly Castle Hill, whose highest peaks are some 800 feet above sea level. In the modern building are incorporated the remains of an ancient border tower, the stronghold of the Claverings. The Survey of 1541 says, "At Callalye ys a toure of th'inheritaunce of Claverynge in measurable good repac'ons."

This was probably the tower which owed its erection on its present site—the "Shepherd's Shaw," to a difference in opinion between the Lord and Lady of Callaly in olden days.

The following account of the legend was given by Mr. George Tate, F.G.S., in an article on "Whittingham Vale," contributed to the "Alnwick Mercury," in 1862: "A lord of Callaly in the days of yore, commenced erecting a castle on the hill: his lady preferred a low, sheltering situation in the vale. She remonstrated, but her lord was wilful, and the building continued to progress. What she could not obtain by persuasion she sought to achieve by stratagem, and availed herself of the superstitious opinions of the age. One of her servants who was devoted to her interests, entered into her scheme: he was dressed up like a boar, and nightly he ascended the hill and pulled down all that had been built during the day. It was soon whispered that the spiritual powers were opposed to the erection of a castle on the hill; the lord himself became alarmed, and he sent some of his retainers to watch the building during the night and discover the cause of the destruction. Under the influence of the superstitions of the times those retainers magnified appearances, and when the boar issued from the wood and commenced overthrowing the work of the day, they beheld a monstrous animal of enormous power.[Pg 233] Their terror was complete when the boar, standing among the overturned stones, cried out in a loud voice:

They immediately fled and informed the lord of the supernatural visitation; and, regarding the rhymes as an expression of the will of Heaven, he abandoned the work, and, in accordance with the wish of his lady, built his castle low down in the vale where the modern mansion now stands."[152]

The animal connected with the Coneely family is a seal. In the west of Ireland there is a seal-clan; the clansman, calling himself after the seal, conceives himself to be of the blood of the eponym animal. In very ancient times some of the Coneely clan were changed by "art magick" into seals and since then no member of the family can kill a seal without incurring bad luck. Seals are called Coneelys, and on this account it was said that many branches of the family changed their name to Conolly.[153] The story was so thoroughly believed that it was said that people who knew of it would "no more kill a seal, or eat of a slaughtered one than they would of a human Coneely."

In the Faroe Isles the seals are said to appear once a year in human form, and in 1872 a writer to the journal of the Anthropological Institute tells the story of an Irish girl who was transformed into a seal.

"The seals which abound on the rocky parts of the shore," he explains, "are regarded with profound veneration, and on no account could a native be induced to kill one, as they are said to be the souls of their departed friends. In the hut of the king is the skin of a large white seal, which I ascertained was piously treasured on account[Pg 234] of having formerly been occupied by the soul of a maiden. The following is the legend related to me:—

"'Many years ago a beautiful young girl lived upon the island and was the betrothed of a "dacent boy" by the name of Rooney. One day Rooney and his bride-elect were fishing out in a coracle, when a storm arose and the frail craft capsized. The terrified lover endeavoured in vain to save his sweetheart. Before sinking for the last time she said farewell to him, and said she would become a white seal and would sing to him. The broken-hearted Rooney swam ashore, but his reason had fled. He daily made a pilgrimage round the island in the hope of meeting his departed in the shape of a white seal; but his journeys were always fruitless.

"'At length one stormy winter night, Rooney started from his couch saying, "Hark, I hear her singing. She calls me now," and before anyone could stop him, he had bounded off and was lost in the darkness. His friends were about to follow when they were deterred by a plaintive voice, chanting a melancholy lay, but when daylight broke it ceased. Then a search was made and down on the seashore they found the dead body of Rooney with a dead white seal clasped to his breast.'" The souls of the lovers had fled to an enchanted island.

Siward in the legend was the son of a bear and had bear's ears. Brochmail was a tusked king of Powis. A tusked or pig-headed birth is said to appear periodically in the Powis family, and there was a story of one member who was so repulsive to the sight that he was kept shut up in the oubliette of Powis Castle.

In Llayn (Carnarvonshire) it is said that March Amheirchion, the Lord of Castell March, had horse's ears, as in the Irish story. These instances are again related to the birth of monsters and deformities, like the Concheannaich or Dogheads, an ancient race who inhabited, in former days, the district now called Moygoniby in Kervy.

[Pg 235]

Conaire the Great, a mythical king of Ireland, was the son of a Bird King and was therefore forbidden to kill any feathered creatures.

In Scotland the clan Chattan, who gave their name to Caithness, called their Chieftain Mohr an Chat, the Great Wild Cat, probably owing to some physical peculiarity.

Cuchullaine, the "hound of Culain," is a totem name. There is a story of a witch who offered one of the family some cooked dog-flesh to eat, but he refused it as it was against the law that he should "eat his namesake's-flesh."

His name was originally Setanta, but his nickname was obtained in this way: One night when he followed Conchobar to the house of Culain, a smith, the gates were locked, and a ferocious dog lay in watch. The boy killed the hound, and when the smith lamented his loss, Setanta said, "I will be your cu (dog) until another is grown large enough to guard your house," whence he was called hound of Culain or Cuchullaine.

According to one account Cuchullaine has more affinity with a bird than with a dog. "Not only does Cuchullaine bear obvious in his name his origin as a cuckoo god but his birth, exploits, and death are those of a cuckoo."[154]

When he was going forth to his last fight he met three crones, daughters of the mist, who asked him to sup with them. Bent on his destruction, they were cooking a hound with poison and spells on spits of the rowan tree. He refused to partake of the dish because it was against the law, and they rebuked him, saying, "It is because the food is only a hound and so you despise it and us." His chivalry thus appealed to, Cuchullaine helped himself to a shoulder-blade out of the stew, and held it in his left hand while he was eating, putting it, when finished, under his left thigh. Then his left hand and thigh became stricken and he had no strength for the fight.

[Pg 236]

For a ghost to take the form of an animal is not at all unusual, and it has been suggested that human ghosts when they appear in the guise of bulls, dogs, sheep, or other animals are accounted for by being "throw-backs of the spirit to a lower animal form."

Black dogs with glowing eyes like hot embers, phantom calves, white rabbits, etc., are sometimes thought in Lincolnshire to haunt the spots where murder or suicide has been committed. They are supposed to be either spectres of the dead in brute form or demons, and in Denmark there is a legend that pigs or goats, if buried alive in walls, turn to spectres.

In Wales the belief exists that the devil can manifest as a pig, calf, dog, or headless horse.

A woman once passing through a village in North Pembrokeshire at night shouted, "Come out, you evil one!" and there appeared a white cat in answer to her call. In the same country a certain Mr. David Walter was passing two large stones called locally the Devil's Nags, accompanied by a mastiff, when an apparition in the form of a huge dog appeared in his path. He tried to set his own animal upon the other, but the mastiff was frightened and would not attack the phantom. Thereupon Walter picked up a stone and was about to throw it at the evil beast when it was suddenly illumined by a circle of fire, and he knew it to be one of the "infernal dogs of hell."

A black calf was said to haunt a stream in the same neighbourhood and one night two villagers caught the[Pg 237] animal and took it home. They locked it up safely as they thought, but in the morning it had disappeared.

The Roaring Bull of Bagbury is a famous Shropshire ghost. Miss Georgina Jackson recites the story as it was told by an old farmer called Hayward.[155]

A very bad man lived at Bagbury Farm, and when he died it was said of him that he had only done two good deeds in his life, one being to give a waistcoat to a poor old man and the other a piece of bread and cheese to a poor village lad. After he was dead, his ghost refused to rest and haunted the farm buildings in the shape of a bull, roaring till the boards, the shutters, and the tiles seemed about to fly off the outhouses. It was quite impossible for anyone to live within range of this roaring which usually began about nine or ten o'clock at night, sometimes even earlier, and at last became so troublesome that the people at the farmhouse sent for twelve parsons to lay the ghost.

When the parsons came "they got him under," but could not lay him, and at last they drove him, still in the shape of a bull, into Hessington Church. All the parsons carried candles, and one of them, who was blind, knowing that there was danger from a stampede, placed his lighted candle in his top-boot. It was a good thing that he did so, for presently the animal made a great rush, and out went every candle except that belonging to the blind parson who said, as though prepared for the event, "You light your candles by mine." But before he was laid the bull made such a "burst" that he cracked the wall of the church from top to bottom, as hundreds of witnesses have asserted from that day to this.

At last they secured the ghost "down into a snuffbox," as the custom is, and he begged that he might be laid under Bagbury Bridge, declaring that every mare that passed over the bridge should lose her foal and every woman her child. This threat made them refuse his request, and they laid him in the Red Sea, where he has[Pg 238] to remain for a thousand years. The knowledge that he was so far away did not prevent the villagers being very chary of crossing Bagbury Bridge at night-time.

Another story of a man who turned into a bull after death is told of a squire at Millidrope in Corve Dale. He was killed by a fall from one of the upper windows of the Hall, and an indelible blood-stain marks the spot. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, his estate, owing to his own carelessness or to the malpractices of his trustees, went to the wrong heir. Unable to rest in his grave owing to this piece of injustice, the squire haunted his own parish, where he was frequently seen in the guise of a flayed bull.[156]

Edmund Swifte tells a story of an animal ghost in the Tower, which appeared while he was keeper of the Crown Jewels. The peculiar point about the story is that this phantom animal was seen with fatal results. One of the night sentries in the Jewel chamber was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from beneath the door. He thrust at it with his bayonet, which stuck in the door. Then he fell into a fit and was carried senseless to the guard-room. His fellow sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him the moment before awake and sober. Swifte saw the man in the guard-house after the incident, when he lay prostrated with terror, and two or three days later the poor sentry was dead.[157]

In the outer Hebrides it is believed that demons take the form of dogs, and a story is told of a priest's dog which was lying on the hearth while his master was hearing confessions. Suddenly the animal started up, annoyed beyond endurance by the atmosphere of ultra-piety and, exclaiming, "If you liked me before, you never will again," he vanished amidst a shower of sparks.

The Highlanders have also a legend of an ownerless black dog, which caused all kinds of misadventure in the[Pg 239] vicinity where he prowled. A hunter shot at the dog with a silver bit, and the aim was so successful that nothing more was seen of the animal. Suddenly a small boy ran up to the hunter with a terrible story of his grandfather who had died within sight of his home as though stricken by a gun-shot wound, and on examination it was found indeed that the silver piece was imbedded in his flesh. There was no further misfortune in the village after this double event, but the tale has more of witchcraft about it than ghostliness.

Samuel Drew, who was apprenticed to a shoemaker, had a curious experience at St. Blazey in Cornwall. It is told in his life written by his son.

"There were several of us boys and men, out about twelve o'clock on a bright moonlight night. I think we were poaching. The party were in a field adjoining the road leading from my master's to St. Austell, and I was stationed outside the hedge to watch and give the alarm if any intruder should appear. While thus occupied I heard what appeared to be the sound of a horse approaching from the town, and I gave a signal. My companions paused and came to the hedge where I was, to see the passenger. They looked through the bushes and I drew myself close to the hedge that I might not be observed. The sound increased, and the supposed horseman seemed drawing near. The clatter of hoofs became more and more distinct. We all looked to see what it was, and I was seized with a strange indefinable feeling of dread: when, instead of a horse, there appeared coming towards us, at an easy pace, but with the same sound which first caught my ear, a creature about the height of a large dog. It went close by me, and as it passed, it turned upon me and my companions huge fiery eyes that struck terror to all our hearts. The road where I stood branched off and on the left there was a gate. Towards the gate the phantom moved, and without any apparent obstruction, went at its regular trot, which we heard several minutes after it had disappeared. Whatever it was, it put an[Pg 240] end to our occupation and we made the best of our way home.

"I have often endeavoured in later years, but without success, to account for what I then heard and saw on natural principles. I am sure there was no deception as to the facts. It was a night of unusual brightness, occasioned by a cloudless full moon. The creature was unlike any animal I had then seen, but from my present recollections it had much the appearance of a bear, with a dark shaggy coat. Had it not been for the unearthly lustre of its eyes, and its passing through the gate as it did, there would be no reason to suppose it anything more than an animal perhaps escaped from some menagerie. That it did pass through the gate without pause or hesitation I am perfectly clear. Indeed we all saw it, and saw that the gate was shut, from which we were not distant more than about twenty or thirty yards. The bars were too close to admit the passage of an animal of half its apparent bulk, yet this creature went through without an effort or variation of its pace."

Peele Castle in the Isle of Man is haunted by an apparition called the Manx dog, a shaggy spaniel, which was said to walk in every part of the building, and to lie in the guard-chamber before the fire by candlelight. In days gone by the soldiers were accustomed to the apparition, but all the same they suspected it was an evil spirit, and all were afraid to be left alone in its presence, and were also careful of the language they used lest they should receive an injury if they swore before it. The animal used to appear and return by a passage in the church, and as this passage was also used by the soldier who had to deliver the keys to the captain, and he was terrified at the thought of meeting the phantom, it was arranged that he should have a companion, and after that they went two by two, never singly.

One night one of the soldiers who had been drinking and was in a bragging mood, declared that he would carry back the key alone, though it was not really his[Pg 241] turn to go. He would not listen to the others, who tried to dissuade him. Blustering and swearing, he snatched up the bunch of keys and marched off. Presently a great noise was heard outside, but the soldiers were too frightened to go out and see what was taking place. In staggered the adventurous boaster, struck dumb with horror at what he had seen, nor could he by sign or word explain what had happened to him, but died, in terrible agony, his features distorted and his limbs writhing.

After this occurrence no one would venture through the passage, which was soon bricked up, and the apparition never appeared again in the castle.

Hergest Court, in Herefordshire, was haunted by a demon dog said to have belonged to Black Vaughan. Black Vaughan was himself said to be the ghost of the member of the family whose monument rests in Kingston Church. So powerful was this ghost that he appeared in daylight and upset farmers' waggons, or rode with the old wives to Kingston Market. Once he was said to have appeared in church in the form of a bull, and the usual elaborate form of exorcism was required to dislodge him, in which twelve parsons with twelve candles had to remain in the church until they had "read him down into a silver snuff-box." The demon dog always appeared as a warning that death was nigh to one of the Vaughan family.

The Black Dog of Hergest was famous all over the country-side, and no one ventured to enter the room he was said to haunt. At night he clanked a chain, but at other times he was seen wandering about without one, often near a pond on the high road to Kingston.

Another phantom dog-story comes from the parish of Dean Prior, a narrow woodland valley watered by a stream. Below a beautiful cascade is a deep hollow called the Hound's Pool. At one time there lived near to this spot a skilful weaver. After his death he was seen by his family working as diligently as ever at his loom, and, this being regarded as uncanny, application was made to[Pg 242] the vicar of the parish as to what steps were to be taken to remove the apparition. The parson called at the cottage where the weaver had lived and, hearing the noise of the shuttle in the upstairs room, called to the ghost of the weaver to descend.

"I will," replied the weaver's voice, "as soon as I have worked out my shuttle."

"No," replied the vicar, "you have worked long enough. Come down at once."

So the phantom appeared, and the vicar, taking a handful of earth from the churchyard, threw it in his face. In a moment the apparition turned into a black hound. "Follow me," said the vicar, and the dog followed to the gate of the wood, where a mighty wind was blowing. The vicar picked up a nutshell with a hole in it and leading the hound to the pool below the cascade, said, "Take this, and dip out the pool with it. When it is empty thou shalt rest."

The hound still haunts the spot, and to those who can see is ever at work on the waters of the pool.[158]

Similarly Tregeagle, the famous Demon of Dosmery Pool, in Cornwall, is doomed to empty the pool with a limpet shell which has a large hole in it.

A story is told of a talking Dog which haunted Dobb Park Lodge.

A treasure-seeker who went to explore the underground vaults at the Lodge saw a great, black, rough dog as large as any two or three mastiffs, which said, "No, my man, as you've come here, you must do one of three things, or you'll never see daylight again. You must either drink all the liquor there is in that glass, open that chest, or draw that sword."

The chest was iron-bound and too heavy to move, the drink was scalding hot, and the sword glittered and flashed like lightning wielded by an unseen hand. Fortunately the treasure-seeker escaped after extraordinary experiences with his bare life, returning as empty-handed[Pg 243] as he came, and since then no one has ventured into the ruined vaults of Dobb Park Lodge, and the chest of gold is said to be still there, waiting for an adventurer who can brave the terrors of the "Talking Dog" and his surroundings.

The neighbourhood of Burnley used to be haunted by a phantom locally called "Trash" or "Striker." These names came from the sounds made by the animal which had the appearance of a large dog with broad feet, shaggy hair, drooping ears and "eyes as large as saucers." His paws made a splashing noise as of old shoes on a muddy road, and now and again the brute emitted deep howls. His presence was considered a certain sign of death in the family of anyone who caught sight of the apparition. If followed by anyone the animal began to walk backwards, keeping his eyes on the pursuer. At the slightest inattention on the part of his companion the phantom vanished. Sometimes he plunged into a pool of water, at others he dropped at the feet of the pursuer with a curious splashing sound. Some attempted to strike the animal, but there was no substance present to receive the blow, though the apparition remained in the same position as before the blow was delivered.

Some animal ghosts appear in different shapes at different times.

The Manor of Woodstock was haunted in 1649 by an apparition described by several witnesses whose narratives may be found in Dr. Plott's "Natural History of Oxfordshire."

Commissioners took up residence at the Manor House on 13 October, 1649, but heard nothing of the ghost until three days later when "there came, as they thought, somewhat into the bedchamber (where two of the commissioners and their servants lay), in the shape of a dog, which, going under their beds, did as it were gnaw their bed cords, but on the morrow finding them whole and a quarter of beef, which lay on the ground, untouched they began to entertain other thoughts." On the following[Pg 244] day, the 17th, some evil spirit hurled the chairs and stools up and down the Presence Chamber, "from whence it came into the two chambers where the commissioners and their servants lay and hoisted their beds' feet so much higher than their heads that they thought they should have been turned over and over; and then let them fall down with such force, that their bodies rebounded from the bed a good distance."

The next day also a mysterious visitor appeared to be present, which fetched the warming-pan out of the withdrawing-room and made so much noise "that they thought five bells could not have made more." On the 20th and 21st of October various phenomena occurred, and then came a respite until the 25th, on the night of which, amongst other curious sounds and sights, there was "a very great noise as if forty pieces of ordnance had been shot off together." Peace was restored until the 1st of November when "something came into the withdrawing-room, treading, as they conceived, much like a bear, which at first only walked about a quarter of an hour: at length it made a great noise about the table and threw the warming-pan so violently, that it quite spoiled it. It threw also glass and great stones at them again, and the bones of horses, and all so violently that the bedstead and walls were bruised by them." This night they set candles all about the rooms, and made great fires up to the mantle-trees of the chimneys, but all were put out, nobody knew how. Nor was this all. For in spite of the fact that one of the commissioners had the boldness to ask in the name of God what it was, what it would have, and what they had done, that they should be disturbed in this manner, and the questions, although evoking no answer, caused a temporary cessation of noise, it returned bringing seven devils worse than itself. Whereupon one of the watchers lighted a candle and set it between two rooms in the doorway, on which another of them "fixing his eyes saw the similitude of a hoof, striking the candle and candlestick into the[Pg 245] middle of the bedchamber and afterwards making three scrapes on the snuff to put it out. Upon this the same person was so bold as to draw his sword, but he had scarce got it out, when there was another invisible hand had hold of it too, and tugged with him for it and prevailing, struck him so violently with the pummel that he was stunned with the blow."

This was too much, and two days later the commissioners and their men removed out of the house, unable to stand the strain they were undergoing any longer.

An apparition of a lady in the form of a colt is somewhat unusual, but has been seen, if we may believe the statement of a woman called Sarah Mason. Sarah also saw the ghost of a man who hanged himself and came back afterwards in the form of a large black dog.

The story of Obrick's Colt[159] concerned a lady who was buried with all her jewels and whose corpse was afterwards robbed by the clerk. She haunted the spot, it was said, in the shape of a colt, and the guilty clerk, meeting the phantom animal late one night in a narrow lane, went down on his knees, and said earnestly, "Abide, Satan, abide. I am a righteous man and a psalm-singer." The clerk was called Obitch or Holbeach, from which the ghost is supposed to have taken the name of Obrick's Colt. An old woman in the village declared that "Obitch used to say that he saw the colt as natural as any Christian, and he used to get up against the stile for him to get up on top of his back, and at last the colt grew so bold that folks saw him in the daytime." Holbeach, if that was his real name, never again knew peace of mind on this earth.

On the 21st of January, 1879, a labourer had taken some luggage from one Shropshire village to another, and on the return journey, his horse being tired, he reached a canal bridge some way from home about ten o'clock at night. To his horror a huge black creature with gleaming white eyes jumped out of the hedge and[Pg 246] settled on the horse's back. He beat at the phantom with his whip, which, to his astonishment, instead of meeting with resistance went through the apparition. The terrified horse broke into a canter and tore home with the strange creature clinging to his back.

The adventure was much discussed in the neighbouring villages, and some days later the labourer's master was called upon by a policeman who had somehow got knowledge of an account that he had been robbed when crossing the canal bridge in question late one evening. The policeman was told there had been no robbery, and a version of the tale as it had happened was given him.

"Was that all?" he cried in disappointed tones. "I know what that was. It was the man-monkey, sir, as does come at that bridge ever since a man was drowned in the canal at that spot."[160]

The following story was told to Bérenger-Feraud[161] and happened at a country house on the plateau of the Garde near to Toulon. One evening a woman was sitting by the side of her father who had been lying dangerously ill in bed for some days with a disease which the doctors could not identify. The neighbours came in to offer their services, to keep watch over the sick man so that his daughter, who had spent several nights without any sleep, could go and lie down to rest. She thanked them but refused to do so.

Nevertheless they insisted on remaining, and as it was cold she invited them to sit round the fire in the kitchen to warm themselves. As her father seemed to be asleep for a little while she went into the kitchen to speak to her visitors.

Of a sudden they heard the sick man give a terrible cry of pain and fright. They all hurried into his room to see what was the matter, and there, just above the old man's bed, was a huge stinging-fly which hovered[Pg 247] round and round him, buzzing in a horrible manner.

They tried to catch the dangerous insect, but this was not an easy matter, for it buzzed so loudly that it positively menaced those who came near it. From time to time it hurled itself at the limbs of the sick man, and every time it touched him he gave vent to a shriek of pain. Those who were near him could see large black blisters rising at the spots where the stinging-fly attacked him.

At last one of the men who had more courage than the others beat down the gigantic insect with his hat. They picked up its body with a pair of tongs and threw it out of the house, shutting the door tightly so that it could not return to its attack.

The deed accomplished, they looked at one another terrified at what had taken place, and to their horror they could plainly hear the buzz of the insect outside. The noise was so loud that the windows positively rattled. Then a howl arose outside, a cry so strange that no one present had ever heard the like, and after that all was silent.

They went back to the bedside of the sick man, who had suffered severely, and who told them that he had been suddenly awakened by this horrible stinging-fly, which had hummed in his ears and struck at his body, in such a terrifying manner that he felt sure it must be an evil spirit.

Now that the insect had been captured and put out of the house he felt better, but none of the visitors dared to leave the cottage, feeling sure that a sorcerer was mixed up in the affair. They passed the night sitting round the fire, carefully avoiding all mention of the matter, as they were afraid that the noise of buzzing and humming would begin afresh.

The next morning at sunrise, they decided to open the door, and then they saw the huge insect lying on the ground just outside. But the mysterious part of it was that those who were courageous enough to look at it[Pg 248] closely, stated that it was not the real insect that was lying there but merely its outer shell or covering, just like the skin sloughed by a grasshopper and left behind when it changes its shape.

This then was taken to be proof positive that the stinging-fly was not what it had pretended to be, but was a wizard in disguise, which had intended to do harm to the old invalid, and the horrible cry which had been heard when the insect had been thrown out of doors was only the howl of rage uttered by the wizard at the failure of his wicked designs.

A woman at Toulon told the following story in 1888, saying it had happened in her presence when she was a little girl. Her father, whose name was Isidore, was an omnibus driver and for many years had lived with his own sister in peace and friendliness. One day, however, they fell into an argument and had such a violent quarrel that they decided that they could no longer live together. Isidore, however, felt grieved to think that matters had come to such a pass between himself and the sister he had always loved, and he told a friend about the affair. The friend answered, "You have quarrelled with your sister, because one of your neighbours, who is a sorcerer, has cast a spell over you. To end the enchantment you must give your horses a jolly good hiding to-morrow morning, and then you will see the result. The person who has bewitched you will be taken ill and will bear about his or her body the traces of the blows you give to your horses." Next day Isidore whipped up his horses, as he had been told to do, and he went on slashing them all day long. In the evening he went to bed feeling as though he had done a praiseworthy deed. The next day his sister came to see him and spoke to him quite affectionately, and they decided to bury the hatchet just as though no quarrel had taken place. Then Isidore, to his surprise, heard that a neighbour, of whom he had been very fond until then, and whom he had not in the least suspected of witchcraft, had been taken ill. He hastened[Pg 249] to visit her, and found she was in bed, and that she showed traces of having been beaten. As soon as he entered the room to condole with her she said to him bitterly, "Why on earth did you strike your horses so violently? What harm had the poor beasts done to you?"

This was taken as proof that the neighbour was a witch, and that the weals on her body were the stigmata of the blows which Isidore had given his horses, and he was convinced that this woman had tried to separate him from his sister through sheer jealousy.

The well-known ghost of Tedworth, Wiltshire, called the "Drummer of Tedworth," sometimes took the form of an animal, or at least was heard making animal sounds. The following description is taken from Joseph Glanvill's "Sadducismus Triumphatus."

On one occasion the village blacksmith stayed in the house sleeping with the footman, hoping he might hear the supernatural noises and be cured of his incredulity when "there came a noise in the room as if one had been shoeing a horse, and somewhat came, as it were, with a pair of pincers," snipping away at the sceptical smith. Next day the ghost came panting like a dog out of breath, and a woman who was present, taking up a stick to strike at it, the weapon "was caught suddenly out of her hand and thrown away: and company coming up, the room was presently filled with a bloody noisome smell," and was very hot, though there was no fire, and the winter was severe. "It continued scratching for an hour and a half and then went into the next room, when it knocked a little and seemed to rattle a chain."

Sometimes the phantom purred like a cat and it was described by a servant as "a great body with two red and glaring eyes."

The Rev. Joseph Glanvill himself went to the haunted house in January, 1662, and was convinced that the noises were made by a demon or spirit. He heard a strange scratching, as he went upstairs, which appeared to come from behind the bolster of the children's bed.[Pg 250] It was loud scratching, and when he thrust his hand behind the bolster at the point from which the noise seemed to come it ceased but began in another place. When he removed his hand, however, it began again in the same place as before. "I had been told that it would imitate noises," says Glanvill, "and made trial by scratching several times upon the sheet, as five, and seven and ten, which it followed, and still stopped at my number. I searched under and behind the bed, turned up the clothes to the bed cords, grasped the bolster, sounded the wall behind, and made all the search I possibly could." But all his endeavours were fruitless; he could discover nothing. There was neither cat nor dog in the room. After scratching for more than half an hour, the phantom went into the midst of the bed, under the children, "and then seemed to pant very loudly, like a dog out of breath. I put my hand upon the place and felt the bed bearing up against it, as if something within had thrust it up." The motion it caused by this panting was so strong that it shook the walls and made the windows rattle; yet this strange animal ghost was never explained.

At Epworth parsonage, Lincolnshire, when the Rev. Samuel Wesley, father of John Wesley, was rector, there is a well-known story of the haunting of the parsonage. Robert Brown the servant heard, among other phenomena, "as it were the gobbling of a turkey-cock close to the bedside."

The dog, a large mastiff, showed enormous fear of the strange incidents and apparitions. "When the disturbances continued he used to bark and leap and snap on one side and the other, and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noise at all. But after two or three days he used to tremble and creep away before the noise began. And by that the family knew it was at hand."

Ewshott House, in Crondall, Hampshire, was haunted by a ghost that made a noise exactly as though a flock of[Pg 251] sheep from the paddock had rushed by the windows on the gravel drive. In the morning, however, there were no signs of sheep having passed that way.

Willington Mill was haunted by several spectres in the shape of animals. The mill stood on a tidal stream which ran into the Tyne near to Wallsend. The account of strange happenings there was published by the "Newcastle Weekly Leader" many years ago. One of the servants once saw a lady in a lavender-coloured dress pass the kitchen door, go upstairs, and vanish into one of the bedrooms, but little notice was taken of this apparition; indeed it was almost forgotten when something else happened which drew attention to it. A certain Thomas Davidson was courting this servant and was waiting for her to come out of the mill and join him in a moonlight ramble, when, looking towards the building, he distinctly saw a whitish cat run out and presently it came close to his feet.

Thinking the strange puss was very forward, he gave her a kick, but encountered no solid matter and puss continued her walk, disappearing from his sight a moment later. Returning to the window, and looking in the same direction, Davidson again saw the animal. This time it came hopping like a rabbit, coming quite as close to his feet as before. He determined to have a good rap at it, and took deliberate aim: but, as before, his foot went through it and he felt nothing. Again he followed it, and it disappeared at the same spot as its predecessor. The third time he went to the window and in a few moments it made another appearance, not like a cat or rabbit now but as large as a sheep and brightly luminous. On it came and Davidson stood rooted to the spot as though paralysed, but the animal moved on and vanished as before.

Mr. Proctor, who lived at the mill, on hearing Davidson's account, said that he had seen the animal on various occasions.

[Pg 252]

After this experience ghosts were frequently seen and heard of at the mill. The noises were dreadful, sometimes sounding like a galloping donkey, at others like falling fire-irons. Doors creaked and sticks crackled as though burning, and the rapping became almost incessant. Sometimes the lavender-gowned lady appeared, and at another time several of the inmates of the mill saw a bald-headed old man in a flowing robe like a surplice. Spectral animals always formed an important feature of the haunting.

In November, 1841, a gentleman paid a visit to the place and was confronted by the figure of an animal about two feet high, which appeared in a window. After careful search nothing was found, though the animal was seen in the window by others from the grounds for half an hour, after which it slowly faded away. A two-year-old child saw a ghost kitten, while Davidson's aunt thought the spectre looked like a white pocket handkerchief, knotted at four corners, which danced up and down, leaping as high as the first floor window. This lady was one day standing by the kitchen table when she was startled by the bark of a dog, and two paws were laid heavily on her shoulders, so that she had to lean against the table for support. No dog, however, was found in the house. On several occasions the children, though nothing had been said to them about ghosts, found amusement in chasing up and down the stairs some animal they described either as a "funny cat or a bonny monkey."

In 1853, an attempt was made to discover the secret of the mystery of the mill by a clairvoyante, who in her trance distinctly saw, the "lady like a shadow, with eyes but no sight in them," as she described her, as well as a number of animals. When questioned about these, she answered, "One is like a monkey and another like a dog. Had the lady dogs and monkeys? They all go about the house. What is that other one? It is not a pussy, it runs very fast and gets amongst feet. It is a rabbit but a very quick one." When asked whether the[Pg 253] animals were real, the medium replied in her quaint way, "We don't touch them to see, we would not like a bite."

Beyond this there appears to have been no solution as to the mystery of the haunted mill, although the medium declared that the trouble "came from the cellar."[162]

A writer in "Notes and Queries,"[163] H. Wedgewood by name, visited Mr. Proctor in 1873-4 to ask him the truth about the Willington Mill ghost, and he told her that he had seen a tabby cat in the furnace room. There was nothing unusual in the animal's appearance, and it would not have caught his attention particularly had it not begun to move. But then instead of walking like an ordinary cat it wriggled along like a snake. He went close to it and followed it across the room, holding his hand about a foot above it, until it passed straight into the solid wall.

The well-known Cornish tradition says that if a young woman dies neglected after being betrayed by her lover, she haunts him after her death in the form of a white hare. The false lover is continuously pursued by the phantom. At times it may rescue him from danger, but in the end it is the cause of his death.