A few days later, having enjoyed a glorious hunt and devoured several antelopes, he trotted up to his wife in the disguise of a tiger, hoping she would not forget how to work the spell. When she saw the dangerous monster approaching her she began to scream. The animal jumped round about her, trying to remind her by dumb show of what she had to do, but the greater efforts he made the more frightened she grew and the louder became her cries. So annoyed was the man-tiger by her aggravating stupidity that he thought, "This is the most irritating woman I ever saw," and, flying into a terrible passion, he attacked and slew her. Then to his regret he remembered that no other human being knew the incantation necessary for his release and that he would have to remain a tiger for the rest of his days. He grew to hate all human beings after that and killed men whenever the chance occurred.
In the Sanjor and Nerbudda territories there is a saying that if a tiger has killed a man he will never slay another, because the dead man's spirit rides on his head and forces him to seek more lawful prey.
Some African tribes believe that tailless tigers are transformed men, probably because the wer-animal is frequently said to have no tail.
In early Christian times the wer-wolf was often regarded as a victim of the evil machinations of a sorcerer. There is a story in the seventh century of a man-wolf who defended the head of St. Edward the Martyr from the onslaught of other wild beasts. The apostles Peter and Paul, according to a Russian folk-tale, turned an evil-minded husband and wife into bears as a judgment for their sins.
An object which may have been an inducement to transformation was the hope of acquiring second sight, a gift with which many animals are thought to be endowed.
In the last century in France a connection of the old loup-garou existed in the person of the meneur des loups, who was said to have the gift of charming or taming wolves, which followed him across waste lands on midnight rambles after the style in which the rats followed the piping of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The loup-garou of the French is found in Italy under the name of the lupo manaro or versiero. The lupo manaro of the Middle Ages was a witch dressed as a wolf, but the same term was applied to a certain hobgoblin who was peculiar to the city of Blois and whose chief occupation seems to have been to inspire deadly fear in young children. The lupo marino, which might be thought to be another kind of wolf, is the name of a most ravenous fish, which does not appear to have had human attributes.
The great Gaston de Foix, known as Phœbus, who is famed for his book on the chase, expresses his opinion that the term garou in loup-garou is an ellipse of the phrase gardez-vous.
When wolves grew scarce in England it became the fashion for those who wished to be transformed to change into cats, weasels, or harmless hares; rather a mild amusement after the adventuresome exploits of the man-attacking beasts of prey, but one which led to some extraordinary proceedings akin to black magic.
In some old French Records the account is given of a man who buried a black cat in a box at a spot where four cross-roads met. In the box he placed bread soaked in holy water and holy oil, sufficient to keep the animal alive for three days. His intention was to dig up his innocent victim, slay him, and make a girdle of his skin, by which means he expected to be able to transform himself into an animal and gain the gift of clairvoyance. Unfortunately for his projects, however, the buried animal was exhumed by hounds. The whole affair came to public knowledge and ended in the courts, where the guilty man was condemned for sorcery.