lace
the worship of dead ancestors with wolf totems originated the notion
of the transformation of men into divine or superhuman wolves; and this
notion was confirmed by the ambiguous explanation of the storm-wind
as the rushing of a troop of dead men's souls or as the howling of
wolf-like monsters. Mediaeval Christianity retained these conceptions,
merely changing the superhuman wolves into evil demons; and finally the
occurrence of cases of Berserker madness and cannibalism, accompanied by
lycanthropic hallucinations, being interpreted as due to such demoniacal
metamorphosis, gave rise to the werewolf superstition of the Middle
Ages. The etymological proceedings, to which Mr. Cox would incontinently
ascribe the origin of the entire superstition, seemed to me to have
played a very subordinate part in the matter. To suppose that Jean
Grenier imagined himself to be a wolf, because the Greek word for wolf
sounded like the word for light, and thus gave rise to the story of a
light-deity who became a wolf, seems to me quite inadmissible. Yet as
far as such verbal equivocations may have prevailed, they doubtless
helped to sustain the delusion.

Thus we need no longer regard our werewolf as an inexplicable creature
of undetermined pedigree. But any account of him would be quite
imperfect which should omit all consideration of the methods by which
his change of form was accomplished. By the ancient Romans the werewolf
was commonly called a "skin-changer" or "turn-coat" (versipellis), and
similar epithets were applied to him in the Middle Ages The mediaeval
theory was that, while the werewolf kept his human form, his hair grew
inwards; when he wished to become a wolf, he simply turned himself
inside out. In many trials on record, the prisoners were closely
interrogated as to how this inversion might be accomplished; but I am
not aware that any one of them ever gave a satisfactory answer. At
the moment of change their memories seem to have become temporarily
befogged. Now and then a poor wretch had his arms and legs cut off,
or was partially flayed, in order that the ingrowing hair might be
detected. [82] Another theory was, that the possessed person had merely
to put on a wolf's skin, in order to assume instantly the lupine form
and character; and in this may perhaps be seen a vague reminiscence of
the alleged fact that Berserkers were in the habit of haunting the woods
by night, clothed in the hides of wolves or bears. [83] Su