Hubert or happen to be
carrying about you, without knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise
the bullet will merely rebound from the were-wolf like water from a
duck's back.[770] However, in Armenia they say that the were-wolf, who
in that country is usually a woman, can be killed neither by shot nor by
steel; the only way of delivering the unhappy woman from her bondage is
to get hold of her wolf's skin and burn it; for that naturally prevents
her from turning into a wolf again. But it is not easy to find the skin,
for she is cunning enough to hide it by day.[771] So with witches, it is
not only useless but even dangerous to shoot at one of them when she has
turned herself into a hare; if you do, the gun may burst in your hand or
the shot come back and kill you. The only way to make quite sure of
hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver sixpence or a silver button in
your gun.[772] For example, it happened one evening that a native of the
island of Tiree was going home with a new gun, when he saw a black sheep
running towards him across the plain of Reef. Something about the
creature excited his suspicion, so he put a silver sixpence in his gun
and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep became a woman with a drugget
coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her quite well, for she was a
witch who had often persecuted him before in the shape of a cat.[773]
[Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has transformed
herself are inflicted on the witch herself.
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