It is always at night that the fit comes on. The lycanthropist dashes
out of a window, springs into a well, and, after having struggled in
the water for a few moments, rises from it, dripping, and invested with
a goatskin which the devil has given him. In this condition, the
louléerous run upon four legs, pass the night in ranging over the
country, and in biting and devouring all the dogs they meet. At break
of day they lay aside their goatskins and return home. Often they are
ill in consequence of having eaten tough old hounds, and they vomit up
their undigested paws. One great nuisance to them is the fact that they
may be wounded or killed in their louléerou state. With the first
effusion of blood their diabolic covering vanishes, and they are
recognized, to the disgrace of their families.
A were-wolf may easily be detected, even when devoid of his skin; for
his hands are broad, and his fingers short, and there are always some
hairs in the hollow of his hand.
In Normandy, those who are doomed to be loups-garoux, clothe themselves
every evening with a skin called their _hère_ or _hure_, which is a
loan from the devil. When they run in their transformed state, the evil
one accompanies them and scourges them at the foot of every cross they
pass. The only way in which a werewolf can be liberated from this cruel
bondage, is by stabbing him three times in the forehead with a knife.
However, some people less addicted to allopathic treatment, consider
that three drops of blood drawn by a needle, will be sufficient to
procure release.
According to an opinion of the vulgar in the same province, the
loup-garou is sometimes a metamorphosis forced upon the body of a
damned person, who, after having been tormented in his grave, has torn
his way out of it. The first stage in the process consists in his
devouring the cerecloth which enveloped his face; then his moans and
muffled howls ring from the tomb, through the gloom of night, the earth
of the grave begins to heave, and at last, with a scream, surrounded by
a phosphorescent glare, and exhaling a fœtid odour, he bursts away as a
wolf.
In Le Bessin, they attribute to sorcerers the power of metamorphosing
certain men into beasts, but the form of a dog is that principally
affected by them.
In Norway it is believed that there are persons who can assume the form
of a wolf or a bear (Huse-björn), and again resume their own; this
property is either imparted to them by the Trollmen, or those
possessing it are themselves Trolls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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