Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/104

Rh 90 LYCANTHKOPY potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra,&quot; was the dictum of St Thomas Aquinas. A Russian story tells how the apostles Peter and Paul turned an impious husband and wife into bears ; St Patrick transformed Vereticus, king of Wales, into a wolf ; and St Natalis cursed an illustrious Irish family, with the result that each member of it was doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is still more direct, while in Russia, again, men are supposed to become were-wolves through incurring the wrath of the devil. There is thus an orthodox as well as a heterodox were wolf ; and, if a survey be taken of the lycanthropous beliefs of non-Christian peoples, this distinction among shape- changers will be equally obvious. The gods of ancient mythology, Hindu, Persian, Greek, and Teutonic, had an apparently unlimited power of assuming animal forms. These gods, moreover, constantly employed themselves in changing men and women into beasts, sometimes in punishment of crime, sometimes out of compassion, and sometimes from pure voluptuousness. Thus Kabandha was changed by Indra into a monster, Trisanku by the- sons of Vasishtha into a bear, Lycaon by Zeus into a wolf, Callisto into a bear, lo into a heifer ; the enemies of Odin became boars, and so on. It is admittedly difficult to trace the original meaning of these legends, but the alleged metamorphosis of a god is at times clearly associated with his worship under the form of the animal he turned into in the region where the metamorphosis was said to have occurred. Indra in the form of a bull encountered the monster Vritra, and released the cows he had stolen ; Indra was invoked as a bull, and to him the bull and the cow were sacred among the Hindus. Derketo became a fish near Ascalon ; a fish-goddess identified with her was worshipped in Syria, and the fish sacred to her were not eaten. Poseidon, the inventor of horses, was, as a horse, the father of the steeds Arion and Pegasus, and the horse was sacred to him. Jupiter Ammon appeared as a ram in the deserts of Libya ; in Libya he had an oracle where the ram was sacred to him, and his image wore ram s horns. So too metamorphosis by gods is in some cases connected with local traditions. The Arcadians, or bear- tribe, sprang from the were-bear Callisto ; the Lycians, or wolf-tribe, were wolves when they conducted to the river Xanthus the were-wolf Leto, mother ef the Lycian Apollo. Turning from the gods to the heroes of classical romance, we find traditions more, interesting and more instructive, because they must have some real historical foundation. Yet they also abound in episodes of beast mothers and beast fathers, and also of lycanthropy proper. Cyrus was suckled by a bitch, the Servian hero Milosh Kobilitch by a mare, the Norse Sigurd by a hind, the German Dieterich and the Latin Romulus by wolves; the pro genitor of the Merovingian kings was a bull, of the Danish royal race a bear ; Sigmund and Sinfiotli in the Volsunga Saga become wolves, Nagli in the Eyrbyggia Saga a boar. The Berserkir of Iceland asserted their ability to become bears and wolves, and dressed themselves in the skins of these animals ; their existence, their garb, and their pretensions are historical facts. In the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, the hero Puloman becomes a wild boar to carry off the wife of Bhrigu ; the house of Brabant traced its origin to a transformed swan. Beast-form is, however, in mythology proper far oftener assumed for malignant than for benignant ends ; indeed the heroes and anthropo morphic gods of the great religious systems are principally distinguished for their victories over the semi-hiynan semi- bestial demons. The bull Indra fights the demon serpent Vritra, and so forth ; the Theban Cadmus, the Russian Ivan, the Norse Sigurd, all encounter dragons or serpents, which possess human characteristics. In most of such cases indeed the human as well as the beast form is distinctly attributed to the demon. It is because they may after all be properly associated with the undoubted phenomena of modern savage life that these facts of ancient mythology are here alluded to. Among savages there is the most confident belief in metamorphosis, metamorphosis effected for the most salutary and for the most baneful ends. In the neighbour hood of Tette on the Zambesi every chief is credited with the power of assuming lion shape ; every lion is respected as being a transformed chief or the spirit of a chief departed. Moreover, there is a special class of &quot; doctors &quot; or medicine-men, known as &quot; pondoros,&quot; scattered through the villages, who pretend to powers of metamorphosis, and thus are regarded with both respect and dread ; their kindly disposition they display by hunting for the community in lion shape, and then bringing home the game. Among the Arawaks of Guiana, the Kandhs of Orissa, and the Jakuns of the Malay peninsula, beast form is said to be assumed by those desiring to avenge themselves justly on enemies. Beast-parents and cases of women alleged to have borne beast children are also familiar to savages. But this is only one side of the picture. The &quot;kanaima- tiger&quot; (i.e., man-jaguar) of Arawak may be possessed by the spirit of a man devoted to bloodshed and cannibalism ; &quot; there is,&quot; writes the Rev. Mr Brett, &quot; no superstition more prevalent among the Indians than this, and none which causes more terror.&quot; In Ashango-land, where there are distinct traces of animal worship, a were-leopard was at the time of Du Chaillu s visit charged with murder and metamorphosis, and, confessing both, was slowly burnt to death, quite in the style of mediaeval Europe. Similar occurrences have been known among the Kols (of Chutia- Nagpur) and among the Arabs. The expedients supposed to be adopted for effecting change of shape may here be noticed. One of the simplest apparently was the removal of clothing, and in particular of a girdle of human skin, or the putting on of such a girdle, more commonly the putting on of a girdle of the skin of the animal whose form was to be assumed. This last device is doubtless a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin, which also is frequently found. In other cases the body is rubbed with a magic salve. To drink water out of the footprint of the animal in question, to partake of its brains, to drink of certain enchanted streams, were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian were-wolves were initiated by draining a cup of beer specially prepared, and repeating a set formula. Mr Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in .Russia. Various expedients also existed for removing the beast-shape. The simplest was the act of the enchanter (operat ing either on himself or on a victim) ; another was the removal of the animal girdle. To kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to be reproached with being a were-wolf, to be saluted with the sign of the cross, or addressed thrice by baptismal name, to be struck three blows on the forehead with a knife, or to have at least three drops of blood drawn were also effectual cures. The-last-mentioned was quite essential to the subsistence of the superstition. Its absurdity would have much sooner appeared, but for the theory that, directly the were-wolf was wounded, he resumed his human shape ; in every case where one accused of being a were-wolf was taken, lie was certain to be wounded, and thus the difficulty of his not being found in beast form was satisfactorily disposed of. The foregoing types of lycanthropy, in which the divine or diabolical agency is always emphasized, are presumably less primitive than those cases in which super human agency is not so prominent. The following cases, therefore, seem to be more intimately connected with the origin of the belief. (1) The Kandhs believe &quot;natural tigers to kill game only to benefit men, who generally find it but partially devoured and share it; while the tigers which kill men are either Tari (a goddess), who has assumed the form of a tiger for purposes of wrath, or men who, by the aid of a god, have assumed the form of tigers, and are called mleepa tigers. &quot; A distinction was previously drawn between friendly and hostile lycanthro-