When _loup-garou_ the rabble call me,
When vagrant shepherds hoot,
Pursue, and buffet me to boot,
It doth not for a moment gall me;
I seek not palaces or halls,
Or refuge when the winter falls;
Exposed to winds and frosts at night,
My soul is ravished with delight.
Me claims my she-wolf (_Loba_) so divine:
And justly she that claim prefers,
For, by my troth, my life is hers
More than another's, more than mine.

Job Fincelius [1] relates the sad story of a farmer of Pavia, who,
as a wolf, fell upon many men in the open country and tore them to
pieces. After much trouble the maniac was caught, and he then assured
his captors that the only difference which existed between himself and
a natural wolf, was that in a true wolf the hair grew outward, whilst
in him it struck inward. In order to put this assertion to the proof,
the magistrates, themselves most certainly cruel and bloodthirsty
wolves, cut off his arms and legs; the poor wretch died of the
mutilation. This took place in 1541. The idea of the skin being
reversed is a very ancient one: _versipellis_ occurs as a name of
reproach in Petronius, Lucilius, and Plautus, and resembles the Norse
_hamrammr_.

[1. FINCELIUS _de Mirabilibus_, lib. xi.]

Fincelius relates also that, in 1542, there was such a multitude of
were-wolves about Constantinople that the Emperor, accompanied by his