ce, with a pair of deep-sunken eyes, peer
anxiously about the premises. Having satisfied itself that the coast
was clear, the face withdrew, the door was closed, and presently such
ravishing strains of music were heard as never proceeded from a bagpipe
before or since that day. Soon was heard the rustle of innumerable
fairies, come to dance to the changeling's music. Then the "fairy-man"
of the village, who was keeping watch with the family, heated a pair
of tongs red-hot, and with deafening shouts all burst at once into the
sick-chamber. The music had ceased and the room was empty, but in at the
window glared a fiendish face, with such fearful looks of hatred, that
for a moment all stood motionless with terror. But when the fairy-man,
recovering himself, advanced with the hot tongs to pinch its nose, it
vanished with an unearthly yell, and there on the bed was Rickard, safe
and sound, and cured of his epilepsy. [81]

Comparing this legend with numerous others relating to changelings,
and stripping off the fantastic garb of fairy-lore with which popular
imagination has invested them, it seems impossible to doubt that they
have arisen from myths devised for the purpose of explaining the obscure
phenomena of mental disease. If this be so, they afford an excellent
collateral illustration of the belief in werewolves. The same mental
habits which led men to regard the insane or epileptic person as a
changeling, and which allowed them to explain catalepsy as the temporary
departure of a witch's soul from its body, would enable them to
attribute a wolf's nature to the maniac or idiot with cannibal
appetites. And when the myth-forming process had got thus far, it would
not stop short of assigning to the unfortunate wretch a tangible lupine
body; for all ancient mythology teemed with precedents for such a
transformation.

It remains for us to sum up,--to tie into a bunch the keys which
have helped us to penetrate into the secret causes of the werewolf
superstition. In a previous paper we saw what a host of myths,
fairy-tales, and superstitious observances have sprung from attempts to
interpret one simple natural phenomenon,--the descent of fire from the
clouds. Here, on the other hand, we see what a heterogeneous multitude
of mythical elements may combine to build up in course of time a single
enormous superstition, and we see how curiously fact and fancy have
co-operated in keeping the superstition from falling. In the first p