acceptance is destitute of a foundation of truth; and if we discover
the myth of the were-wolf to be widely spread, not only throughout
Europe, but through the whole world, we may rest assured that there is
a solid core of fact, round which popular superstition has
crystallized; and that fact is the existence of a species of madness,
during the accesses of which the person afflicted believes himself to
be a wild beast, and acts like a wild beast.

In some cases this madness amounts apparently to positive possession,
and the diabolical acts into which the possessed is impelled are so
horrible, that the blood curdles in reading them, and it is impossible
to recall them without a shudder.



CHAPTER V.

THE WERE-WOLF IN THE MIDDLE-AGES.


Olaus Magnus relates that--"In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania,
although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of
wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle,
which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they
stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a
serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.

"On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of
wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot,
arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous