It was now broad daylight, but when he came to
the place where the clothes had been turned to stone, he found only a
pool of blood. He reached home, and there lay the soldier in bed like an
ox in the shambles, and the doctor was bandaging his neck. "Then I
knew," said Niceros, "that the man was a were-wolf, and never again
could I break bread with him, no, not if you had killed me for it."[767]
[Witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into
animals.]
These stories may help us to understand the custom of burning a
bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to
recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may
be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like
were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform
themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their
mischievous pranks;[768] and like were-wolves they can in their animal
disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in
drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a
cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the
skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend
the disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his
or her true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the
brow or between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a
were-wolf;[769] and it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have
had the bullet blessed in a chapel of St.
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