My own true love, that misshaped thee?

A heavier weird shall light on her

Than ever fell on vile woman,

Her hair shall grow rough and her teeth grow lang,

And on her fore feet shall she gang.

See Grimm. Deutsche Mythologie, 1047. In the war of 1808 it was commonly believed in Sweden that those of their countrymen who were made prisoners by the Russians were changed by them into wer or were-wolves, and sent home to plague their country. The classical reader will remember the Scythian people mentioned by Herodotus, who all and several used to turn wolves for a few days in every year. The Swedes go still further in their reluctance to call certain animals by their real names. Not only do they call the bear the old one, or grandfather, and the wolf grey-foot, but the fox is blue-foot, or he that goes in the forest; the seal is brother Lars, while such small deer as rats and mice are known respectively as the long-bodied and the small-grey.

[6] Still the mountain châlet is now no longer known here by the name of “sæter,” but by that of “stöl.” “Sæter” is most probably derived from the word “sitte,” to sit = to dwell; the technical phrase for a person being at the mountain dairy being “sitte paa stölen.”

[7] I asked this same question of the intelligent and obliging curator of the Bergen Museum. He replied that it was generally believed to be the case, though bear-stories, unless well authenticated, must be taken cum grano.

The following statistics of the amount of wild animals destroyed in Norway in three years may be interesting—

Bears.Wolves.Lynxes.Gluttons.Eagles.Owls.Hawks.
1848264247144572498369527
1849325197110762142343485
1850246191118392426268407