ollow in the
train, they seem to lose their human form, and to put on the appearance of
wolves. Several thousands thus assemble. The leader walks before with his
iron scourge; the crowd of those who, in their delusion, imagine that they
have become wolves, follow after. Wherever they meet with cattle they rush
upon them and rend them; they carry off such portions as they can, and do
much destruction; but to touch or injure mankind is not permitted to them.
When they come to rivers, the leader with a stroke of his whip divides the
waters, which stand apart, leaving a dry channel by which they cross.
After twelve days the band disperses, and every man resumes his own form,
the vulpine mask dropping off him. The way in which the change takes place
is this, as they allege: those who undergo the change, which occupies but
a moment, drop suddenly down as if struck with a fit, and so lie senseless
and like dead persons; but they do not in fact go away or change their
places at all; nor while lying in that seemingly lifeless state do they
exhibit any vulpine appearance whatever, but they go out of themselves
(and leave themselves) like dead bodies; and save that they are convulsed,
and roll about somewhat, they exhibit no sign or evidence of life. Hence
the opinion has arisen that their spirits only are taken forth of their
bodies, and put for a time into the phantasms of vulpine forms; and then,
after doing the bidding of the devil in that way, are remitted back to
their proper bodies, which thereupon are restored to animation; and the
were-wolves themselves confirm this belief by acknowledging that in truth
the human form is not withdrawn from their bodies, nor the vulpine
appearance substituted for it; but that it is their spirits only which are
impelled to leave their human bodily prisons, and enter into the bodies of
wolves, in which they dwell and are carried about for the prescribed space
of time. Some of those who have stated that they came long distances after
escaping from the chains of their wolfish imprisonment, being questioned
how they got out of that confinement, and why they returned, and how they
could cross such wide and deep rivers, gave answer that the imprisoning
forms no longer confined them, that they felt coerced to come out of them,
and passed over the rivers by aerial flight."

The same features marked the outbreak of lycanthropy in the years
1598-1600, among the Vaudois. The possessed fell into cataleps