“I related to him my misfortune with my flock. He bade me pluck up my
spirits, and promised that his master would henceforth take charge of
and protect my flock., if I would only rely upon him. He told me, as
well, that I should find my strayed sheep very shortly, and he promised
to provide me with money. We agreed to meet again in four or five days.
My flock I soon found collected together. At my second meeting I
learned of the stranger that he was a servant of the devil. I forswore
God and our Lady and all saints and dwellers in Paradise. I renounced
Christianity, kissed his left hand, which was black and ice-cold as
that of a corpse. Then I fell on my knees and gave in my allegiance to
Satan. I remained in the service of the devil for two years, and never
entered a church before the end of mass, or at all events till the holy
water had been sprinkled, according to the desire of my master, whose
name I afterwards learned was Moyset.
“All anxiety about my flock was removed, for the devil had undertaken
to protect it and to keep off the wolves.
“This freedom from care, however, made me begin to tire of the devil’s
service, and I recommenced my attendance at church, till I was brought
back into obedience to the evil one by Michel Verdung, when I renewed
my compact on the understanding that I should be supplied with money.
“In a wood near Chastel Charnon we met with many others whom I did not
recognize; we danced, and each had in his or her hand a green taper
with a blue flame. Still under the delusion that I should obtain money,
Michel persuaded me to move with the greatest celerity, and in order to
do this, after I had stripped myself, he smeared me with a salve, and I
believed myself then to be transformed into a wolf. I was at first
somewhat horrified at my four wolf’s feet, and the fur with which I was
covered all at once, but I found that I could now travel with the speed
of the wind. This could not have taken place without the help of our
powerful master, who was present during our excursion, though I did not
perceive him till I had recovered my human form. Michel did the same as
myself.
“When we had been one or two hours in this condition of metamorphosis,
Michel smeared us again, and quick as thought we resumed our human
forms. The salve was given us by our masters; to me it was given by
Moyset, to Michel by his own master, Guillemin.”
Pierre declared that he felt no exhaustion after his excursions, though
the judge inquired particularly whether he felt that prostration after
his unusual exertion, of which witches usually complained. Indeed the
exhaustion consequent on a were-wolf raid was so great that the
lycanthropist was often confined to his bed for days, and could hardly
move hand or foot, much in the same way as the berserkir and _ham
rammir_ in the North were utterly prostrated after their fit had left
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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