Another man whose friend threw doubts on his power to change into animal shape, quickly turned into a wolf to prove that his comrade was wrong and, being set upon by a pack of dogs, was deprived by them of one eye before he could resume his normal appearance.
A thief acted more cleverly. Being condemned to the gibbet, he saved his skin by taking the form of a wolf directly his would-be executioners opened the door of the cell in which he was imprisoned. During the panic of dismay which greeted the sight of him, he escaped into the woods.
One of the most marvellous stories of wer-wolves is related by Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Topography of Ireland."[6] A priest was journeying from Ulster to Meath accompanied only by a single youth when they were benighted in a wood.
They had kindled a fire when a huge wolf approached them and spoke, telling the travellers to fear nothing.
The priest adjured him by all that was sacred not to do them harm and begged him to say "what creature it was that in the shape of a beast uttered human words."
The story told by the wolf is as follows:—
"There are two of us, a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who, through the curse of one Natalis, saint and abbot, are compelled every seven years to put off their human form and assume that of wolves. At the end of seven years, if they chance to survive, two others being substituted, they return to their former shape. Now, she who is my partner in this visitation lies dangerously sick not far from hence. I beseech you, inspired by divine charity, to give her the consolations of your priestly office."
The priest followed the mysterious speaker into the thicket and performed the rites of the Church over the dying she-wolf, as far as the last Communion. But the wolf was not satisfied, and begged him to complete his good offices. The priest said this was impossible as he was not provided with the wherewithal for giving the viaticum. Then the man-wolf pointed to the priest's neck, suspended round which he carried a missal and consecrated wafers, entreating him not to deny the aid provided by Divine Providence. To remove the priest's doubts he tore off the she-wolf's skin and exposed the body of an old woman. The last Communion having been given, the wolf replaced the skin and reverently thanked the priest for the benefit which he had conferred.
These representative incidents go far to show how deeply ingrained is the belief in transformation among primitive people, but it is necessary to go back still further into the origins of folk-lore to discover the bedrock of thought in which the human-animal theory takes its rise.