In case there should be any who desire to transform themselves into a wolf without the trouble and expense of resorting to a witch, I will close this chapter with a spell warranted to produce the desired effect without any further outlay than the price of a small copper knife. It is of Russian origin, and is quoted from Sacharow by Mr. Baring Gould. "He who desires to become an oborot (oborot = 'one transformed' = were-wolf) let him seek in the forest a hewn-down tree; let him stab it with a small copper knife and walk round the tree, repeating the following incantation: On the sea, on the ocean, on the island, on Bujan, On the empty pasture gleams the moon, on an ash-stock lying In a greenwood, in a gloomy vale. Towards the stock wandereth a shaggy wolf, Horned cattle seeking for his sharp white fangs; But the wolf enters not the forest, But the wolf dives not into the shadowy vale. Moon, moon, gold-horned moon Check the flight of bullets, blunt the hunters' knives, Break the shepherds' cudgels, Cast wild fear upon all cattle, On men, on all creeping things, That they may not catch the grey wolf, That they may not rend his warm skin! My word is binding, more binding than sleep, More binding than the promise of a hero! "Then he springs thrice over the tree and runs into the forest, transformed into a wolf." CHAPTER V THE WITCH'S ATTRIBUTES In his very learned and exhaustive treatise, "De la Démonomanie des Sorciers," the worthy Bodin, with enterprise worthy of a modern serial-story writer, keeps his reader's curiosity whetted to its fullest by darkly hinting his knowledge of awesome spells and charms commonly employed by Satan's servants. Unlike the modern writer, however, he refrains from detailing them at length in his last chapter, fearing to impart knowledge which may easily be put to the worst account. However valuable a testimony to his good faith and discretion, this would certainly have brought down upon him the strictures of modern critics, and might indeed have entailed serious loss to the world had not other less conscientious writers more than rectified the omission. It were, of course, impossible to include within the limits of such a volume as is this--or of a hundred like it--one tithe of the great store of spells, charms, and miscellaneous means towards enchantment gathered together in the long centuries since the birth of the first witch. So also it is impossible to select any particular stage in her long evolution as the most characteristic, as regards her manners and customs, of all that we imply by the word "witch." On the other hand, she has definitely crystallised in the minds of those of us who have ever been children, in the shape of the "horrid old witch" of fairy lore; and just as, in a preceding chapter, I have endeavoured to reproduce one of her working days--as imaged in the popular mind--so the witch of the Middle Ages may best be chosen when we would reconstruct her more human aspect.