As soon as Apuleius found out the trick that had been played on him he was no less amused than the rest, but in the midst of his mirth a sudden thought struck him.
‘How was it you managed to make them alive?’ asked he, ‘for alive they were, and battering themselves against the door of the house.’
‘Oh, that is simple enough when one has a sorceress for a mistress,’ answered a damsel, who was standing by. ‘She burned the hairs of some goats and wove spells over them, so that the animals to whom the hairs and skins had once belonged became endowed with life and tried to enter their former dwelling.’
‘They may well say that Thessaly is the home of wonders,’ cried the young man. ‘But do you think that your mistress would let me see her at work? I would pay her well—and you also,’ he added.
‘It might be managed perhaps, without her knowledge,’ answered Fotis, for such was the girl’s name; ‘but you must hold yourself in readiness after nightfall, for I cannot tell what evening she may choose to cast off her own shape.’
Apuleius promised readily that he would not stir out after sunset, and the damsel went her way.
That very evening, Hesperus had scarcely risen from his bed when Fotis knocked at the door of the house.
‘Come hither, and quickly,’ she said; and without stopping to question her Apuleius hastened by her side to the dwelling of the witch Pamphile. Entering softly, they crept along a dark passage, where they could peep through a crack in the wall and see Pamphile at work. She was in the act of rubbing her body with essences from a long row of bottles which stood in a cupboard in the wall, chanting to herself spells as she did so. Slowly, feathers began to sprout from her head to her feet. Her arms vanished, her nails became claws, her eyes grew round and her nose hooked, and a little brown owl flew out of the window.