Page:Book of Were-wolves.djvu/81

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
60
THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVES.

she-wolf peel off her wolf-skin from her head to her navel, exhibiting the features of an aged woman.

Marie de France says in the Lais du Bisclaveret:—[1]

Bisclaveret ad nun en Bretan
Garwall l'apelent li Norman.

****

Jadis le poet-hum oir
Et souvent suleit avenir,
Humes pluseirs Garwall deviendrent
E es boscages meisun tindrent.

There is an interesting paper by Rhanæus, on the Courland were-wolves, in the Breslauer Sammlung.[2] The author says,—"There are too many examples derived not merely from hearsay, but received on indisputable evidence, for us to dispute the fact, that Satan—if we do not deny that such a being exists, and that he has his work in the children of darkness—holds the Lycanthropists in his net in three ways:—

"1. They execute as wolves certain acts, such as seizing a sheep, or destroying cattle, &c., not changed into wolves, which no scientific man in Courland believes, but in their human frames, and with their

  1. An epitome of this curious were-wolf tale will be found in Ellis's Early English Metrical Romances.
  2. Supplement III. Curieuser und nutzbarer Anmerkungen von Natur und Kunstgeschichten, gesammelt von Kanold. 1728.