CHAPTER XI.

WERE-WOLVES AND THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.

Bodies of birds and animals supposed to be tenanted by the souls of men. Instances from Shakspere. The Druids. The Egyptian, Pythagorean, and the Hindoo Doctrines. The Taliesin romance. The bell-tolling ox at Woolwich. Were-wolves. Irish were-wolves. King John a were-wolf. Greek and Roman were-wolves. German were-wolves. Swan shirts and eagle shirts. Irish Mermaids. Bears. Detection of were-wolves. Vampires. Witches transformed into cats. Were-wolves, like witches, burnt at the stake. The witches' magic bridle, which transformed human beings into horses. Lancashire witches transformed into greyhounds. Margery Grant, a recently deceased Scotch witch, sometimes transformed into a pony, and sometimes into a hare. Men transformed into crocodiles. Owl transformations. The owl, the baker, and the baker's daughter. Bakers transformed into a cuckoo and a woodpecker. The White Doe of Rylstone. The Manx wren, the robin, the stork, etc., each supposed to enshrine the soul of a human being. Men transformed into leopards, etc., in Africa. Greek Lykanthropy. Aryan conception of the howling wind as a wolf. The souls of the damned were-wolves in Hell. The wolf a personification of the darkness of the Night. Greek forms of this myth in Apollo and Latona his mother. Personifications of natural phenomena. Children suckled by wolves. Page 224