Balder the Beautiful Part 21

"_Tein-eigin_, neid-fire, need-fire, forced fire, fire produced by the friction of wood or iron against wood.

"The fire of purification was kindled from the neid-fire, while the domestic fire on the hearth was re-kindled from the purification fire on the knoll. Among other names, the purification fire was called _Teine Bheuil_, fire of Beul, and _Teine mor Bheuil_, great fire of Beul. The fire of Beul was divided into two fires between which people and cattle rushed australly for purposes of purification. The ordeal was trying, as may be inferred from phrases still current. _Is teodha so na teine teodha Bheuil_, 'Hotter is this than the hot fire of Beul.' Replying to his grandchild, an old man in Lewis said ... 'Mary! sonnie, it were worse for me to do that for thee than to go between the two great fires of Beul.'

"The neid-fire was resorted to in imminent or actual calamity upon the first day of the quarter, and to ensure success in great or important events.

[The needfire in Arran.]

"The writer conversed with several persons who saw the neid-fire made, and who joined in the ceremony. As mentioned elsewhere, a woman in Arran said that her father, and the other men of the townland, made the neid-fire on the knoll on _La buidhe Bealltain_--Yellow Day of Beltane.

They fed the fire from _cuaile mor conaidh caoin_--great bundles of sacred f.a.ggots brought to the knoll on Beltane Eve. When the sacred fire became kindled, the people rushed home and brought their herds and drove them through and round the fire of purification, to sain them from the _bana bhuitseach mhor Nic Creafain Mac Creafain_--the great arch witch Mac Crauford, now Crawford. That was in the second decade of this century.

[The need-fire in North Uist.]

"John Macphail, Middlequarter, North Uist, said that the last occasion on which the neid-fire was made in North Uist was _bliadhna an t-sneachda bhuidhe_--the year of the yellow snow--1829 (?). The snow lay so deep and remained so long on the ground, that it became yellow. Some suggest that the snow was originally yellow, as snow is occasionally red. This extraordinary continuance of snow caused much want and suffering throughout the Isles. The people of North Uist extinguished their own fires and generated a purification fire at Sail Dharaich, Sollas. The fire was produced from an oak log by rapidly boring with an auger. This was accomplished by the exertions of _naoi naoinear ciad ginealach mac_--the nine nines of first-begotten sons. From the neid-fire produced on the knoll the people of the parish obtained fire for their dwellings. Many cults and ceremonies were observed on the occasion, cults and ceremonies in which Pagan and Christian beliefs intermingled. _Sail Dharaich_, Oak Log, obtained its name from the log of oak for the neid-fire being there. A fragment of this log riddled with auger holes marks a grave in _Cladh Sgealoir_, the burying-ground of _Sgealoir_, in the neighbourhood.

[The need-fire in Reay, Sutherland.]

"Mr. Alexander Mackay, Edinburgh, a native of Reay, Sutherland, says:--'My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning operations for the season, the crew of the boat met at night in our house to settle accounts for the past, and to plan operations for the new season. My mother and the rest of us were sent to bed. I lay in the kitchen, and was listening and watching, though they thought I was asleep. After the men had settled their past affairs and future plans, they put out the fire on the hearth, not a spark being allowed to live.

They then rubbed two pieces of wood one against another so rapidly as to produce fire, the men joining in one after the other, and working with the utmost energy and never allowing the friction to relax. From this friction-fire they rekindled the fire on the hearth, from which all the men present carried away a kindling to their own homes. Whether their success was due to their skill, their industry, their perseverance, or to the neid-fire, I do not know, but I know that they were much the most successful crew in the place. They met on Sat.u.r.day, and went to church on Sunday like the good men and the good Christians they were--a little of their Pagan faith mingling with their Christian belief. I have reason to believe that other crews in the place as well as my father's crew practised the neid-fire.'

"A man at Helmsdale, Sutherland, saw the _tein-eigin_ made in his boyhood.

"The neid-fire was made in North Uist about the year 1829, in Arran about 1820, in Helmsdale about 1818, in Reay about 1830."[733]

[The Beltane fire a precaution against witchcraft.]

From the foregoing account we learn that in Arran the annual Beltane fire was regularly made by the friction of wood, and that it was used to protect men and cattle against a great witch. When we remember that Beltane Eve or the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) is the great witching time of the year throughout Europe, we may surmise that wherever bonfires have been ceremonially kindled on that day it has been done simply as a precaution against witchcraft; indeed this motive is expressly alleged not only in Scotland, but in Wales, the Isle of Man, and many parts of Central Europe.[734] It deserves, further, to be noticed that in North Uist the wood used to kindle the need-fire was oak, and that the nine times nine men by whose exertions the flame was elicited were all first-born sons. Apparently the first-born son of a family was thought to be endowed with more magical virtue than his younger brothers. Similarly in the Punjaub "the supernatural power ascribed to the first born is not due to his being unlucky, but the idea underlying the belief seems to be that being the first product of the parents, he inherits the spiritual powers (or magnetism) in a high degree. The success of such persons in stopping rain and hail and in stupefying snakes is proverbial. It is believed that a first child born with feet forward can cure backache by kicking the patient in the back, on a crossing."[735]

[The need-fire in Aberdeenshire.]

In the north-east of Aberdeenshire and the neighbourhood, when the cattle-disease known as the "quarter-ill" broke out, "the 'muckle wheel'

was set in motion and turned till fire was produced. From this virgin flame fires were kindled in the byres. At the same time, if neighbours requested the favour, live coals were given them to kindle fires for the purification of their homesteads and turning off the disease. Fumigating the byres with juniper was a method adopted to ward off disease. Such a fire was called 'needfyre.' The kindling of it came under the censure of the Presbytery at times."[736]

[The need-fire in Perthshire.]

In Perthshire the need-fire was kindled as a remedy for cattle-disease as late as 1826. "A wealthy old farmer, having lost several of his cattle by some disease very prevalent at present, and being able to account for it in no way so rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to the following remedy, recommended to him by a weird sister in his neighbourhood, as an effectual protection from the attacks of the foul fiend. A few stones were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals having been laid thereon, the fuel was ignited by _will-fire_, that is fire obtained by friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness the solemnity, the cattle were made to pa.s.s through the flames, in the order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending with the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd, that he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete."[737]

[The need-fire in Ireland.]

In County Leitrim, Ireland, in order to prevent fever from spreading, "all the fires on the townland, and the two adjoining (one on each side), would be put out. Then the men of the three townlands would come to one house, and get two large blocks of wood. One would be set in the ground, and the other one, fitted with two handles, placed on the top of it. The men would then draw the upper block backwards and forwards over the lower until fire was produced by friction, and from this the fires would be lighted again. This would prevent the fever from spreading,"[738]

[The use of the need-fire a relic of a time when all fires were kindled by the friction of wood.]

Thus it appears that in many parts of Europe it has been customary to kindle fire by the friction of wood for the purpose of curing or preventing the spread of disease, particularly among cattle. The mode of striking a light by rubbing two dry sticks against each other is the one to which all over the world savages have most commonly resorted for the sake of providing themselves with fire;[739] and we can scarcely doubt that the practice of kindling the need-fire in this primitive fashion is merely a survival from the time when our savage forefathers lit all their fires in that way. Nothing is so conservative of old customs as religious or magical ritual, which invests these relics of the past with an atmosphere of mysterious virtue and sanct.i.ty. To the educated mind it seems obvious that a fire which a man kindles with the sweat of his brow by laboriously rubbing one stick against each other can possess neither more nor less virtue than one which he has struck in a moment by the friction of a lucifer match; but to the ignorant and superst.i.tious this truth is far from apparent, and accordingly they take infinite pains to do in a roundabout way what they might have done directly with the greatest ease, and what, even when it is done, is of no use whatever for the purpose in hand. A vast proportion of the labour which mankind has expended throughout the ages has been no better spent; it has been like the stone of Sisyphus eternally rolled up hill only to revolve eternally down again, or like the water poured for ever by the Danaids into broken pitchers which it could never fill.

[The belief that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire remains alight in the neighbourhood.]

The curious notion that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire remains alight in the neighbourhood seems to imply that fire is conceived as a unity which is broken up into fractions and consequently weakened in exact proportion to the number of places where it burns; hence in order to obtain it at full strength you must light it only at a single point, for then the flame will burst out with a concentrated energy derived from the tributary fires which burned on all the extinguished hearths of the country. So in a modern city if all the gas were turned off simultaneously at all the burners but one, the flame would no doubt blaze at that one burner with a fierceness such as no single burner could shew when all are burning at the same time. The a.n.a.logy may help us to understand the process of reasoning which leads the peasantry to insist on the extinction of all common fires when the need-fire is about to be kindled. Perhaps, too, it may partly explain that ceremonial extinction of all old fires on other occasions which is often required by custom as a preliminary to the lighting of a new and sacred fire.[740] We have seen that in the Highlands of Scotland all common fires were extinguished on the Eve of May-day as a preparation for kindling the Beltane bonfire by friction next morning;[741] and no doubt the reason for the extinction was the same as in the case of the need-fire. Indeed we may a.s.sume with a fair degree of probability that the need-fire was the parent of the periodic fire-festivals; at first invoked only at irregular intervals to cure certain evils as they occurred, the powerful virtue of fire was afterwards employed at regular intervals to prevent the occurrence of the same evils as well as to remedy such as had actually arisen.

[The needfire among the Iroquois of North America.]

The need-fire of Europe has its parallel in a ceremony which used to be observed by the Iroquois Indians of North America. "Formerly when an epidemic prevailed among the Iroquois despite the efforts to stay it, it was customary for the princ.i.p.al shaman to order the fires in every cabin to be extinguished and the ashes and cinders to be carefully removed; for it was believed that the pestilence was sent as a punishment for neglecting to rekindle 'new fire,' or because of the manner in which the fire then in use had been kindled. So, after all the fires were out, two suitable logs of slippery elm (_Ulmus fulva_) were provided for the new fire. One of the logs was from six to eight inches in diameter and from eight to ten feet long; the other was from ten to twelve inches in diameter and about ten feet long. About midway across the larger log a cuneiform notch or cut about six inches deep was made, and in the wedge-shaped notch punk was placed. The other log was drawn rapidly to and fro in the cut by four strong men chosen for the purpose until the punk was ignited by the friction thus produced. Before and during the progress of the work of igniting the fire the shaman votively sprinkled _tcar-hu'-en-we_, 'real tobacco,' three several times into the cuneiform notch and offered earnest prayers to the Fire-G.o.d, beseeching him 'to aid, to bless, and to redeem the people from their calamities.' The ignited punk was used to light a large bonfire, and then the head of every family was required to take home 'new fire' to rekindle a fire in his or her fire-place."[742]

-- 9. _The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague_

[The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales; burnt sacrifice a pig in Scotland.]

Sometimes apparently in England as well as in Scotland the kindling of a need-fire was accompanied by the sacrifice of a calf. Thus in Northamptonshire, at some time during the first half of the nineteenth century, "Miss C---- and her cousin walking saw a fire in a field and a crowd round it. They said, 'What is the matter?' 'Killing a calf.' 'What for?' 'To stop the murrain.' They went away as quickly as possible. On speaking to the clergyman he made enquiries. The people did not like to talk of the affair, but it appeared that when there is a disease among the cows or the calves are born sickly, they sacrifice (i.e. kill and burn) one 'for good luck.'"[743] It is not here said that the fire was a need-fire, of which indeed the two horrified ladies had probably never heard; but the a.n.a.logy of the parallel custom in Mull[744] renders it probable that in Northamptonshire also the fire was kindled by the friction of wood, and that the calf or some part of it was burnt in the fire. Certainly the practice of burning a single animal alive in order to save all the others would seem to have been not uncommon in England down to the nineteenth century. Thus a farmer in Cornwall about the year 1800, having lost many cattle by disease, and tried many remedies in vain, consulted with some of his neighbours and laying their heads together "they recalled to their recollections a tale, which tradition had handed down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle no more." Accordingly, on a day appointed they met, lighted a large fire, placed the best calf in it, and standing round the blazing pile drove the animal with pitchforks back into the flames whenever it attempted to escape. Thus the victim was burned alive to save the rest of the cattle.[745] "There can be no doubt but that a belief prevailed until a very recent period, amongst the small farmers in the districts remote from towns in Cornwall, that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of G.o.d. This sacrifice must be by fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave them warranty for this belief.... While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent instances of this superst.i.tion.

One of them was the sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Portreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and his cows. The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em.'"[746]

In a recent account of the fire-festivals of Wales we read that "I have also heard my grandfather and father say that in times gone by the people would throw a calf in the fire when there was any disease among the herds. The same would be done with a sheep if there was anything the matter with a flock. I can remember myself seeing cattle being driven between two fires to 'stop the disease spreading.' When in later times it was not considered humane to drive the cattle between the fires, the herdsmen were accustomed to force the animals over the wood ashes to protect them against various ailments."[747] Writing about 1866, the antiquary W. Henderson says that a live ox was burned near Haltwhistle in Northumberland "only twenty years ago" to stop a murrain.[748] "About the year 1850 disease broke out among the cattle of a small farm in the parish of Resoliss, Black Isle, Ross-shire. The farmer prevailed on his wife to undertake a journey to a wise woman of renown in Banffshire to ask a charm against the effects of the 'ill eye.' The long journey of upwards of fifty miles was performed by the good wife, and the charm was got. One chief thing ordered was to burn to death a pig, and sprinkle the ashes over the byre and other farm buildings. This order was carried out, except that the pig was killed before it was burned. A more terrible sacrifice was made at times. One of the diseased animals was rubbed over with tar, driven forth, set on fire, and allowed to run till it fell down and died."[749] "Living animals have been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory to avert the loss of other stock. The burial of three puppies 'brandise-wise' in a field is supposed to rid it of weeds.

Throughout the rural districts of Devon witchcraft is an article of current faith, and the toad is thrown into the flames as an emissary of the evil one."[750]

[The calf is burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on the herd.]

But why, we may ask, should the burning alive of a calf or a sheep be supposed to save the rest of the herd or the flock from the murrain?

According to one writer, as we have seen, the burnt sacrifice was thought to appease the wrath of G.o.d.[751] The idea of appeasing the wrath of a ferocious deity by burning an animal alive is probably no more than a theological gloss put on an old heathen rite; it would hardly occur to the simple mind of an English b.u.mpkin, who, though he may be stupid, is not naturally cruel and does not conceive of a divinity who takes delight in the contemplation of suffering. To his thinking G.o.d has little or nothing to do with the murrain, but witches, ill-wishers, and fairies have a great deal to do with it. The English farmer who burned one of his lambs alive said that he did it "to save his flocks from spells which had been cast on them"; and the Scotch farmer who was bidden to burn a pig alive for a similar purpose, but who had the humanity to kill the animal first, believed that this was a remedy for the "evil eye" which had been cast upon his beasts. Again, we read that "a farmer, who possessed broad acres, and who was in many respects a sensible man, was greatly annoyed to find that his cattle became diseased in the spring. Nothing could satisfy him but that they were bewitched, and he was resolved to find out the person who had cast the evil eye on his oxen. According to an anciently-prescribed rule, the farmer took one of his bullocks and bled it to death, catching all the blood on bundles of straw. The b.l.o.o.d.y straw was then piled into a heap, and set on fire. Burning with a vast quant.i.ty of smoke, the farmer expected to see the witch, either in reality or in shadow, amidst the smoke."[752] Such reasons express the real beliefs of the peasants.

"Cattle, like human beings, were exposed to the influences of the evil eye, of forespeaking, and of the casting of evil. Witches and warlocks did the work of evil among their neighbours' cattle if their anger had been aroused in any way. The fairies often wrought injury amongst cattle. Every animal that died suddenly was killed by the dart of the fairies, or, in the language of the people, was 'shot-a-dead.' Flint arrows and spear-heads went by the name of 'faery dairts....' When an animal died suddenly the canny woman of the district was sent for to search for the 'faery dairt,' and in due course she found one, to the great satisfaction of the owner of the dead animal."[753]

[Mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break the spell.]

But how, we must still ask, can burning an animal alive break the spell that has been cast upon its fellows by a witch or a warlock? Some light is thrown on the question by the following account of measures which rustic wiseacres in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for witchcraft. "A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had.

Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... She at once took it for granted that the ducks had been bewitched. This misbelief involved very shocking consequences, for it necessitated the idea that so diabolical an act could only be combated by diabolical cruelty. And the most diabolical act of cruelty she could imagine was that of baking alive in a hot oven one of the ducks. And that was what she did. The sequence of thought in her mind was that the spell that had been laid on the ducks was that of preternaturally wicked wilfulness; that this spell could only be broken through intensity of suffering, in this case death by burning; that the intensity of suffering would break the spell in the one roasted to death; and that the spell broken in one would be altogether broken, that is, in all the ducks.... Shocking, however, as was this method of exorcising the ducks, there was nothing in it original. Just about a hundred years before, everyone in the town and neighbourhood of Ipswich had heard, and many had believed, that a witch had been burnt to death in her own house at Ipswich by the process of burning alive one of the sheep she had bewitched. It was curious, but it was as convincing as curious, that the hands and feet of this witch were the only parts of her that had not been incinerated. This, however, was satisfactorily explained by the fact that the four feet of the sheep, by which it had been suspended over the fire, had not been destroyed in the flames that had consumed its body."[754] According to a slightly different account of the same tragic incident, the last of the "Ipswitch witches," one Grace Pett, "laid her hand heavily on a farmer's sheep, who, in order to punish her, fastened one of the sheep in the ground and burnt it, except the feet, which were under the earth. The next morning Grace Pett was found burnt to a cinder, except her feet. Her fate is recorded in the _Philosophical Transactions_ as a case of spontaneous combustion."[755]

[In burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself.]

This last anecdote is instructive, if perhaps not strictly authentic. It shows that in burning alive one of a bewitched flock or herd what you really do is to burn the witch, who is either actually incarnate in the animal or perhaps more probably stands in a relation of sympathy with it so close as almost to amount to ident.i.ty. Hence if you burn the creature to ashes, you utterly destroy the witch and thereby save the whole of the rest of the flock or herd from her abominable machinations; whereas if you only partially burn the animal, allowing some parts of it to escape the flames, the witch is only half-baked, and her power for mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by a well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the animal's, and therefore the witch's, body nearly intact at the moment of death, it allows her soul to escape and return safe and sound to her own human body, which all the time is probably lying quietly at home in bed.

And the same train of reasoning that justifies the burning alive of bewitched animals justifies and indeed requires the burning alive of the witches themselves; it is really the only way of destroying them, body and soul, and therefore of thoroughly extirpating the whole infernal crew.

[Practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of Man.]

In the Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living memory.

On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John Rhys: "A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently died. Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let me give you another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw at a farm nearer the centre of the island a live calf being burnt. The owner bears an English name, but his family has long been settled in Man. The farmer's explanation to my informant was that the calf was burnt to secure luck for the rest of the herd, some of which were threatening to die. My informant thought there was absolutely nothing the matter with them, except that they had too little to eat. Be that as it may, the one calf was sacrificed as a burnt-offering to secure luck for the rest of the cattle. Let me here also quote Mr. Moore's note in his _Manx Surnames_, p. 184, on the place name _Cabbal yn Oural Losht_, or the Chapel of the Burnt Sacrifice. 'This name,' he says, 'records a circ.u.mstance which took place in the nineteenth century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain, burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.' Particulars, I may say, of time, place, and person could be easily added to Mr. Moore's statement, excepting, perhaps as to the deity in question; on that point I have never been informed, but Mr. Moore is probably right in the use of the capital _d_, as the sacrificer is, according to all accounts, a highly devout Christian. One more instance: an octogenarian woman, born in the parish of Bride, and now living at Kirk Andreas, saw, when she was a 'lump of a girl' of ten or fifteen years of age, a live sheep being burnt in a field in the parish of Andreas, on May-day, whereby she meant the first of May reckoned according to the Old Style. She a.s.serts very decidedly that it was _son oural_, 'as a sacrifice,' as she put it, and 'for an object to the public': those were her words when she expressed herself in English. Further, she made the statement that it was a custom to burn a sheep on old May-day for a sacrifice. I was fully alive to the interest of this evidence, and cross-examined her so far as her age allows of it, and I find that she adheres to her statement with all firmness."[756]

[By burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear.]

But Manxmen burn beasts when they are dead as well as when they are alive; and their reasons for burning the dead animals may help us to understand their reasons for burning the living animals. On this subject I will again quote Sir John Rhys: "When a beast dies on a farm, of course it dies, according to the old-fashioned view of things, as I understand it, from the influence of the evil eye or the interposition of a witch. So if you want to know to whom you are indebted for the loss of the beast, you have simply to burn its carcase in the open air and watch who comes first to the spot or who first pa.s.ses by; that is the criminal to be charged with the death of the animal, and he cannot help coming there--such is the effect of the fire. A Michael woman, who is now about thirty, related to me how she watched while the carcase of a bewitched colt was burning, how she saw the witch coming, and how she remembers her shrivelled face, with nose and chin in close proximity.

According to another native of Michael, a well-informed middle-aged man, the animal in question was oftenest a calf, and it was wont to be burnt whole, skin and all. The object, according to him, is invariably to bring the bewitcher on the spot, and he always comes; but I am not clear what happens to him when he appears. My informant added, however, that it was believed that, unless the bewitcher got possession of the heart of the burning beast, he lost all his power of bewitching."[757]

[Magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal.]

These statements shew that in the Isle of Man the sympathetic relation between the witch and his or her animal victim is believed to be so close that by burning the animal you compel the witch to appear. The original idea may have been that, by virtue of a magic sympathy which binds the two together, whatever harm you do to the animal is felt by the witch as if it were done to herself. That notion would fully explain why Manx people used also to burn bewitched animals alive; in doing so they probably imagined that they were simultaneously burning the witch who had cast the spell on their cattle.

[Parallel belief in magic sympathy between the animal shape of a were-wolf and his or her ordinary human shape: by wounding the wolf you simultaneously wound the man or woman.]

This explanation of the reason for burning a bewitched animal, dead or alive, is confirmed by the parallel belief concerning were-wolves. It is commonly supposed that certain men and women can transform themselves by magic art into wolves or other animals, but that any wound inflicted on such a transformed beast (a were-wolf or other were-animal) is simultaneously inflicted on the human body of the witch or warlock who had transformed herself or himself into the creature. This belief is widely diffused; it meets us in Europe, Asia, and Africa. For example, Olaus Magnus tells us that in Livonia, not many years before he wrote, a n.o.ble lady had a dispute with her slave on the subject of were-wolves, she doubting whether there were any such things, and he maintaining that there were. To convince her he retired to a room, from which he soon appeared in the form of a wolf. Being chased by the dogs into the forest and brought to bay, the wolf defended himself fiercely, but lost an eye in the struggle. Next day the slave returned to his mistress in human form but with only one eye.[758] Again, it happened in the year 1588 that a gentleman in a village among the mountains of Auvergne, looking out of the window one evening, saw a friend of his going out to hunt. He begged him to bring him back some of his bag, and his friend said that he would. Well, he had not gone very far before he met a huge wolf. He fired and missed it, and the animal attacked him furiously, but he stood on his guard and with an adroit stroke of his hunting knife he cut off the right fore-paw of the brute, which thereupon fled away and he saw it no more. He returned to his friend, and drawing from his pouch the severed paw of the wolf he found to his horror that it was turned into a woman's hand with a golden ring on one of the fingers. His friend recognized the ring as that of his own wife and went to find her. She was sitting by the fire with her right arm under her ap.r.o.n. As she refused to draw it out, her husband confronted her with the hand and the ring on it. She at once confessed the truth, that it was she in the form of a were-wolf whom the hunter had wounded. Her confession was confirmed by applying the severed hand to the stump of her arm, for the two fitted exactly. The angry husband delivered up his wicked wife to justice; she was tried and burnt as a witch.[759] It is said that a were-wolf, scouring the streets of Padua, was caught, and when they cut off his four paws he at once turned into a man, but with both his hands and feet amputated.[760] Again, in a farm of the French district of Beauce, there was once a herdsman who never slept at home. These nocturnal absences naturally attracted attention and set people talking. At the same time, by a curious coincidence, a wolf used to prowl round the farm every night and to excite the dogs in the farmyard to fury by thrusting his snout derisively through the cat's hole in the great gate. The farmer had his suspicions and he determined to watch. One night, when the herdsman went out as usual, his master followed him quietly till he came to a hut, where with his own eyes he saw the man put on a broad belt and at once turn into a wolf, which scoured away over the fields. The farmer smiled a sickly sort of smile and went back to the farm. There he took a stout stick and sat down at the cat's hole to wait. He had not long to wait. The dogs barked like mad, a wolf's snout shewed through the hole, down came the stick, out gushed the blood, and a voice was heard to say without the gate, "A good job too. I had still three years to run." Next day the herdsman appeared as usual, but he had a scar on his brow, and he never went out again at night.[761]

[Werewolves in China.]