the 'Twelve Wild Ducks', No. viii, the wicked stepmother persuades
the king that Snow-white and Rosy-red is a witch, and almost
persuades him to burn her alive. In 'Tatterhood', No. xlvii, a whole
troop of witches come to keep their revels on Christmas eve in the
Queen's Palace, and snap off the young Princess's head. It is hard,
indeed, in tales where Trolls play so great a part, to keep witch and
Troll separate; but the above instances will show that the belief in
the one, as distinct from the other, exists in the popular
superstitions of the North.

The frequent transformation of men into beasts, in these tales, is
another striking feature. This power the gods of the Norseman
possessed in common with those of all other mythologies. Europa and
her Bull, Leda and her Swan, will occur at once to the reader's mind;
and to come to closer resemblances, just as Athene appears in the
Odyssey as an eagle or a swallow perched on the roof of the hall
[Od., iii, 372; and xxii, 239], so Odin flies off as a falcon, and
Loki takes the form of a horse or bird. This was only part of that
omnipotence which all gods enjoy. But the belief that men, under
certain conditions, could also take the shape of animals, is
primaeval, and the traditions of every race can tell of such
transformations. Herodotus had heard how the Neurians, a Slavonic
race, passed for wizards amongst the Scythians and the Greeks settled
round the Black Sea, because each of them, once in the year, became a
wolf for a few days, and then returned to his natural shape. Pliny,
Pomponius Mela, and St. Augustin, in his great treatise, _De
Civitate Dei_, tell the same story, and Virgil, in his Eclogues,
has sung the same belief [24]. The Latins called such a man, a
_turnskin--versipellis_, an expression which exactly agrees with
the Icelandic expression for the same thing, and which is probably