spirit, fast!"

He then makes the following formal declaration:--

"I (here insert name) offer to thee, Great Spirit of the Unknown, this
night (here insert date), my body and soul, on condition that thou
grantest me, from this night to the hour of my death, the power of
metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a wolf. I beg, I pray, I implore
thee--thee, unparalleled Phantom of Darkness, to make me a werwolf--a
werwolf!"--and striking the ground three times with his forehead, he
gets up. As soon as the concoction in the vessel is boiling, he dips a
cup into it, and sprinkles the contents on the ground, repeating the
action until he has sprinkled the whole interior of the circle.

Then he kneels on the ground close to the fire, and in a loud voice
cries out, "Come, oh come!" and, if he is fortunate, a phantom suddenly
manifests itself over the fire. Sometimes the phantom is indefinite--a
cylindrical, luminous, pillar-like thing, about seven feet in height,
having no discernible features; sometimes it assumes a definite shape,
and appears either as a monstrous hooded figure with a death's head, or
as a sub-human, sub-animal type of Elemental.

Whatever form the Unknown adopts, it is invariably terrifying. It never
speaks, but indicates its assent by stretching out an arm, or what
serves as an arm, and then disappears. It never remains visible for more
than half a minute. As soon as it vanishes the supplicant, who is always
half mad with terror, springs from the ground and rushes home--or
anywhere to get again within reach of human beings. By the morning,
however, all his fears have departed; and at sunset he creeps off into
the forest, or into some equally secluded spot, to experience, for the
first time, the extraordinary sensations of metamorphosing into a wolf,
or, perhaps, a semi-wolf, _i.e._, a creature half man and half wolf; for
the degree of metamorphosis varies according to locality. The hour of
metamorphosis also varies according to locality--though it is at sunset
that the change most usually takes place, the transmutation back to man
generally occurring at dawn.

When a werwolf, in human shape at the time, is killed, he sometimes
(not always) metamorphoses into a wolf, and if in wolf's form at the
time he is killed he sometimes (not always) metamorphoses into a human
being--here again the nature of the transmutation depending on locality.

In certain of the forests of Sweden dwell old women called Vargamors,
w