merely changing the superhuman wolves into evil demons; and
finally the occurrence of cases of Berserker madness and
cannibalism, accompanied by lycanthropic hallucinations, being
interpreted as due to such demoniacal metamorphosis, gave rise
to the werewolf superstition of the Middle Ages. The
etymological proceedings, to which Mr. Cox would incontinently
ascribe the origin of the entire superstition, seemed to me to
have played a very subordinate part in the matter. To suppose
that Jean Grenier imagined himself to be a wolf, because the
Greek word for wolf sounded like the word for light, and thus
gave rise to the story of a light-deity who became a wolf,
seems to me quite inadmissible. Yet as far as such verbal
equivocations may have prevailed, they doubtless helped to
sustain the delusion.

Thus we need no longer regard our werewolf as an inexplicable
creature of undetermined pedigree. But any account of him
would be quite imperfect which should omit all consideration
of the methods by which his change of form was accomplished.
By the ancient Romans the werewolf was commonly called a
"skin-changer" or "turn-coat" (versipellis), and similar
epithets were applied to him in the Middle Ages The mediaeval
theory was that, while the werewolf kept his human form, his
hair grew inwards; when he wished to become a wolf, he simply
turned himself inside out. In many trials on record, the
prisoners were closely interrogated as to how this inversion
might be accomplished; but I am not aware that any one of them
ever gave a satisfactory answer. At the moment of change their
memories seem to have become temporarily befogged. Now and
then a poor wretch had his arms and legs cut off, or was