Human Animals

by Frank Hamel

When St. Macarius encountered a poor old woman who had been changed into a horse, he restored her to human shape by sprinkling holy water over her. The same saint acted mercifully in another case of transformation.

A young girl refused to do the bidding of the man who asked her to be his wife. He was so infuriated by her refusal that he arranged with a wizard to turn her into a stoat. A wise man, endeavouring to explain this incident, says, "This was not a genuine transformation, but was an illusion of the devil, who so affected the imagination of the girl and the bystanders, that she appeared to them in the form of a stoat, although she was still a woman in reality."

The victim of the enchantment was then taken before the holy man of the name of Macarius, who, on account of his saintliness, could not suffer deception of the devil's wiles. He looked upon the maiden and saw that she was a human being and no stoat, and thus, uttering a prayer, freed her from the spell. This cure is of the hypnotic variety, in which several people are under the mental spell of one other.

Reginald Scott tells the story of a woman who sold an egg to a man who, when eating it, speedily turned into an ass. For three years she rode the animal to market. It was in the city of Salamin in Cyprus where a ship arrived laden with merchandise. Many of the sailors went ashore in the hope of procuring fresh provisions. A certain sturdy young Englishman went to a woman's shop some little way from the town, to see whether she could let him have some new-laid eggs. She promised to do so and went off to fetch them, but she was away so long that the young sailor called out that she must please make haste, as the tide was going out and he might be left behind when his ship set sail. At last she came out with the eggs and told him to come back to her house if the ship had gone. The sailor made the best of his way back to the vessel, but being hungry, ate an egg on the way. He was then struck dumb and his wits seemed to have left him. When he reached the side of the vessel and tried to go aboard, the mariners beat him back with cudgels crying, "What lacks the ass?" and "Whither the devil does the ass want to come?" Then the sailor realised that he had been bewitched by the woman's eggs he had eaten, and had turned into a donkey. Finding it impossible to board the ship and remembering the witch's words, he went back to her house and there served her for the space of three years, carrying the burdens she laid on his back.[69] Here no doubt the egg is used merely as an instrument for inducing a certain frame of mind in the victim. It may be presumed that the witch's words of suggestion were equally necessary in bringing about the transformation.

The sorceress Meroc in "The Metamorphosis or Golden Ass of Apuleius," had the power to change, by one word only, her lover into a beaver. "She likewise changed into a frog an innkeeper who was her neighbour and of whom she was on that account envious, and now that old man, swimming in a tub of his own wine, and merged in the dregs of it, calls on his ancient guests with a hoarse and courteously croaking voice."

"She likewise changed one of the advocates of the court into a ram because he had declaimed against her, and now that ram pleads causes."[70]

M. Henri Gelin, whose researches on Poitevin legends and folklore are very valuable,[71] discusses the conditions under which metamorphosis takes place, saying it is entirely involuntary and is the result of an agreement entered into with infernal powers. The soul of the sorcerer is supposed to remain in a state of distinct entity. But the narrators of these stories have done little to make clear the actual process which takes place when the transformation occurs of a man into a wolf, a sheep, or a colt, or a woman (who seems to be credited with gentler characteristics) into a goat, a bitch, or a hind. Perhaps the human body remains temporarily deprived of its soul, which, entering a new shape, substitutes itself for the obscure and undeveloped soul of the animal, or perhaps the wizard's body enjoys the faculty of anatomically modifying its organs, and varying its aspects something in the manner of the caterpillar which turns into a moth. Who shall say?

A shepherdess in the district of Niort noticed when driving her flock home that it had become augmented by the presence of a black sheep, the origin of which she could not trace. She penned up the extra animal with her own in the shed, and bolted the door, rejoicing at the addition to her flock. But as soon as night had fallen, a woman's voice was heard singing in the sheep's shed. The tune was a plaintive one, interspersed now and again with strident and prolonged laughter. Not one of the servants or neighbours dared to open the shed and face the flock to see who could be singing like that. In hushed voices they said "It's a witch!" The next day at the usual hour of departure, the shepherdess, in great dread of what she might see, partly opened the shed door. The black sheep rushed like a whirlwind into the open and was gone. Now and again, however, the apparition returned to the farm in the shape of a woman, clapping her hands and laughing loudly as though to mock at the people who had allowed her to escape so easily.

The following legend of a white hind comes from the same district, Souché, two miles from Niort. Its peculiar characteristic is that the young girl, who complains to her mother about the hounds chasing her, appears to be quite aware of what is happening to her in her dual personality of woman and hind at the same moment, an important detail when regarded in the light of scientific occultism.