"What shall we do with the beastly thing?" Von Grumboldt asked. "It doesn't seem right to leave it here, in case some one else, with less sense than you, should find it and a dreadful catastrophe result."
"We must burn it," Nina said. "That's the only way of getting rid of the evil influence. Let us do so at once."
Von Grumboldt was nothing loath, and in a few minutes all that remained of the lycanthropous girdle was a tiny heap of ashes.
To burn the object to which the lycanthropous property is attached is the only recognized method of destroying that property. I have had many proofs, too, of the efficacy of burning in the case of superphysical influences other than lycanthropy; such, for example, as haunted furniture, trees, and buildings; and I am quite sure the one and only way to get rid of an occult presence attached to any particular object is to burn that object.
I have been told of "burning" having been successfully practised in the following cases:—
Case No. 1.—A barrow in the North of England that had long been haunted by a Barrowian order of Elemental. (The barrow was excavated, and when the remains therein had been burnt, the hauntings ceased.)
Case No. 2.—A cave in Wales haunted by the phantasm of a horse, though, whether the real spirit of the horse or merely an Elemental I cannot say. (On the soil in the cave being excavated, and the several skeletons, presumably of prehistoric animals, found being burnt, there were no longer any disturbances.)
Case No. 3.—A house in London containing an oak chest, attached to which was the phantasm of an old woman, who used to disturb the inmates of the place nightly. (On the chest being burnt she was seen no more.)
Case No. 4.—A tree in Ireland, haunted every night by a Vagrarian. (Immediately after the tree had been burnt the manifestations ceased.)
Burial is a great mistake. As long as a single bone remains, the spirit of the dead person may still be attracted to it, and consequently remain earthbound; but when the corpse is cremated, and the ashes scattered abroad, then the spirit is set free. And, for this reason alone, I advocate cremation as the best method possible of dealing with a corpse.