‘After three yeares were passed ouer, in a morning betimes he went to towne before his dame; who, upon some occasion, staied a little behind. In the meane time, being neere to a church, he heard a little saccaring bell ring to the eleuation of a morrowe masse, and, not daring to go into the churche, least he should have beene beaten and driuen out with cudgells, in great deuotion he fell downe in the churchyard, upon the knees of his hinder legs, and did lift his forefeet ouer his head, as the preest doth hold the sacrament at the eleuation. Which prodigious sight, when certeine merchants of _Genua_ espied, and with woonder beheld; anon commeth the witch with a cudgell in hir hand, beating foorth the asse. And bicause (as it hath beene said) such kinds of witchcrafts are verie usuall in those parts; the merchants aforesaid made such meanes, as both the asse and the witch were attached by the iudge. And she, being examined and set upon the racke, confessed the whole matter, and promised that, if she might have libertie to go home, she would restore him to his old shape: and, being dismissed, she did, accordinglie. So, as notwithstanding, they apprehended hir againe, and burned hir: and the yoong man returned into his countrie with a ioifull and merrie hart.’ Credulous as James I. was, yet he could not swallow lycanthropy: ‘But to tell you simply my opinion in this, if any such thing hath beene, I take it to haue proceeded but of a naturall super-aboundance of Melancholie, which, as we reade, that it hath made some thinke themselues Pitchers, and some, horses, and some, one kinde of beast or other. So suppose I, that it hath so viciat the imagination and memory of some, as _per lucida interualla_, it hath so highly occupied them, that they haue thought themselues very Woolfes indeed, at these times: and so haue counterfeited their actiones in going on their hands and feete, preassing to deuoure women and barnes,[34] fighting and snatching with all the towne dogges, and in using such like other bruitish actiones, and so to become beastes by a strong apprehension as _Nabucad-netzar_ was seuen yeares.’ But popular opinion still inclined to the belief in the ability of witches to change their form: and we will take only one instance, which occurs in the play of ‘The Late Lancashire Witches,’ by Heywood and Broome (London, 1634): ‘MEG. Then list yee well, the hunters are This day, by vow, to kill a hare, Or else the sport they will forsweare; And hang their dogs up. MAWD. Stay, but where Must the long threatened hare be found? GIL. They’l search in yonder meadow ground. MEG. There will I be, and like a wily wat, Untill they put me up, ile squat.’ And this belief has descended to quite modern times, for Mr. E. J. Wood, writing in _Notes and Queries_, October 25, 1862, says: