WERWOLF. 431 WESLEY. erg who had the power of taking once a year, for several days, the shape of wolves; and I'liny relates that in Arcadia, every year, at the festi- val of Jupiter Lyeajus, one of the family of Antioiis was chosen by lot, and conducted to the brinic of the Arcadian lake, into which, after havini; hung his garments upon a tree, he plunged, anrl was transformed into a wolf. Nine years after, if he had not eaten human flesh, he returned to his friends, looking nine years older than when he disappeared. One of the earliest werwolf stories of the modern tyjie is found in the Salyricon of Petronius, in which a friend of the hero removes his clothing ami immediately becomes a wolf. In this form he is woruided. runs away, and is later found in human form with a knife-stab where he had been wounded as a wolf. In Norway and Ireland it used to be be- lieved that there were men who were 'not of one skin.' Such men could lake upon them- selves other shapes than that of man, their natures then corresponding to the shapes which they assumed, and they also had the strength and other powers of the animal whose shape they bore, as well as their own. It was believed that the change of shape might be effected in one of three ways: simply by putting on a skin of the animal; by the soul of the man deserting the human body for a time and entering into a body borrowed or created for the purpose; or. without any actual change of the form, by means of a charm, which made all beholders see the man under the shape of the animal wdiose part he was sustaining. Nothing of the man remained unchanged except his eyes; by these only could he be recognized. Perhaps the best stories of werwolves wdiich are to be found are contained in the northern sagas. Scarcely anywhere did the belief in them go so deep into the minds of the people as among the northern races, although the Lithuanians and Livonians also shared in this belief. Instances of persons being changed into wolves by way of punishment w'ere freely believed in the Middle .Ages; for example, Saint Patrick was believed to have changed Vereticus. King of Wales, into a wolf; and there was an illustrious Irish family which had incurred the curse of Saint Natalis. every member of which, male and female, according to the popular belief, had to take the shape of a wolf and live the life of a wolf for seven years. The werwolves, like the witches, were now regarded as servants of the devil, from whom they got the power — often ex- ercised by anointing with salve — of assuming the wolf's form ; and it was believed that great numbers of them trooped together to the Devil's Sabbath. The stories of mutilations and other mishaps befalling them in the wolf state, by which, when they resumed the human form, they were identified as werwolves are exactly like the stories told of witches. In Septem- ber. 1.573, we find .a court of Parliament sitting at Dole, in rranche-Comte. authorizing the coun- try people to take their weapons and beat the woods for a werwolf, who had already — thus went the recital — "carried off several little chil- dren, so that they had not since been heard of, and done injury to some horsemen, wdio kept them off only with great difficulty and danger to their persons." Throughout Europe the judicial cognizance of witchcraft and of lycanthropy ceased at the same time. In Great Britain, where wolves had early been exterminated, the were- wolf was only known by rumors coming from abroad, although (Jervase of Tilbury m the thirteenth century says they were often seen at the changes of the moon. The belief, however, that witches could transform themselves into cats and hares, which did prevail, was analogous to the belief in werwolves, especially in its later forms. Consult (jould. The Hook of W'ercicolves (London, 1865). WESEL, va'zcl, A town of Prussia on the liliine, .'i2 nules north-northwest of Diisseldorf (.Map: Prussia, B .S). Of its churches, the W'illibroed Kirehe, consecrated in 1181, is one of the finest Gothic edifices on the Lower Rhine. W'esel has sugar refineries, brick kilns, wire and lead w-orks, soap factories, fiour and saw mills, and ship yards. Population, in 1900, 22,547. WESEB, va'zer. A river of Germany, formed by the junction of the Werra, which rises in the Thiiringerwald, and the Fulda, rising in the Rhrmgebirge, on the frontiers of Prussia and Bavaria. These streams, after a northern course, unite at Miinden, near the southern extremity of the Prussian ])rovinee of Hanover, whence the Weser flows north, mainly watering Prussian territory, till, passing Bremen, it. forms for about 40 miles the boundary between Oldenburg and Hanover, and enters the North Sea by a wide estuary, much interrupted by sand flats (Map: Germany, C 2), Its length from the confluence of the headstreams is 280 miles, and from the source of the Werra, 447 miles. It is navigable at high water to Munden and small vessels pro- ceed some distance up the Werra, while the Fulda has been canalized as far as Cassel. A canal con- nects the estuary with that of the Elbe, and ex- tensive improvements of the river below Bremen were completed in 1894 at a cost of nearly $8,000,- 000. The principal affliient of the Weser is the iVlIer, which has a large tributary in the Leine. WES'LEY, CiiAKLES (1707-88). An English clergyman, brother of John Wesley, with whom he was closely associated. He was born at Ep- worth, the eighteenth child of Samuel Wesley. At nine years of age he entered Westminster School, from which he went to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1726. Here, with some friends, he began the observance of a strict system of life, persuading them "to observe the method of study prescribed by the statutes of the university." "This gained me," he says, "the harmless nick- name of methodist" — which seems at first not to have had a i-eligious significance. After tak- ing his degree, he had pupils for a while, whom lie influenced in the spiritual life, though at this time he had not decided to take orders. He was, however, ordained in. 1735, just before joining his brother .John in the Georgia mission. His sojourn in America was even shorter than John's: it was marked by unpopularity due to the same cause of what was thought excessive strictness in life and doctrine. Returning to England, he became curate of Saint Mary's, Islington, and threw himself vigorously into evangelistic work. In 1739, after some unfriend- liness and censure from the constituted authori- ties of the Church, he entered definitely on the itinerant ministry, which he pursued with great
