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. 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 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 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.

CHAPTER III

THE BUSH-SOUL

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