CHAPTER VIII.

FOLK-LORE RELATING TO WERE-WOLVES.


Barrenness of English Folk-lore--Devonshire Traditions--Derivation of
Were-wolf--Cannibalism in Scotland--The Angus Robber--The Carle of
Perth--French Superstitions--Norwegian Traditions--Danish Tales of
Were-wolves--Holstein Stories--The Werewolf in the Netherlands--Among
the Greeks; the Serbs; the White Russians; the Poles; the Russians--A
Russian Receipt for becoming a Were-wolf--The Bohemian
Vlkodlak--Armenian Story--Indian Tales--Abyssinian Budas--American
Transformation Tales--A Slovakian Household Tale--Similar Greek,
Béarnais, and Icelandic Tales.

ENGLISH folk-lore is singularly barren of were-wolf stories, the
reason being that wolves had been extirpated from England under the
Anglo-Saxon kings, and therefore ceased to be objects of dread to the
people. The traditional belief in were-wolfism must, however, have
remained long in the popular mind, though at present it has
disappeared, for the word occurs in old ballads and romances. Thus in
Kempion--

O was it war-wolf in the wood?
Or was it mermaid in the sea?
Or was it man, or vile woman,
My ain true love, that mis-shaped thee?