The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No IIVarious
History
The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II
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Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
their proper bodies, which thereupon are restored to animation; and the
were-wolves themselves confirm this belief by acknowledging that in truth
the human form is not withdrawn from their bodies, nor the vulpine
appearance substituted for it; but that it is their spirits only which are
impelled to leave their human bodily prisons, and enter into the bodies of
wolves, in which they dwell and are carried about for the prescribed space
of time. Some of those who have stated that they came long distances after
escaping from the chains of their wolfish imprisonment, being questioned
how they got out of that confinement, and why they returned, and how they
could cross such wide and deep rivers, gave answer that the imprisoning
forms no longer confined them, that they felt coerced to come out of them,
and passed over the rivers by aërial flight."
The same features marked the outbreak of lycanthropy in the years
1598-1600, among the Vaudois. The possessed fell into catalepsy, and lay
senseless during the time they imagined themselves in their bestial
transformation. The disease was almost uniformly complicated with
demonopathy, or the possession of witchcraft.
There seems no reason to doubt that lycanthropism was a disease as
constant in its character and as well defined in its symptoms as _delirium
tremens_, or any of the ordinary forms of mania. The evidences of its
existence are, however, considerably stronger than those of witchcraft;
for where on the one hand no credible witness ever saw a witch either at
the sabbath, or on her way to it, or on her return from it, there are not
wanting distinct proofs on oath, corroborated by admitted facts in
judicial proceedings, of persons afflicted with lycanthropy traversing the
woods on all-fours, and being found bloody from the recent slaughter both
of beasts and human victims; and in one of these cases, that of Jacques
Roulet, tried before the Parliament of Paris in 1598, the body of a newly
slain child, half mangled, and with all the marks of having been gnawed by
canine teeth, was found close to the place where the maniac was arrested.
It is worthy of remark that both lycanthropists and witches ascribed the
power of disembodying themselves to the use of ointments. Antiquity
furnishes no parallel to the horrors of these malignant and homicidal
manias. Their analogues may be found in the fabled styes of Circe, or in
the frenzied raptures of the Sybilline and Delphic priestesses; but the
extent, the variety, and the hideousness of the disease in modern times,
infinitely surpass all that was ever dreamt of in Pagan credulity. The
points of resemblance, however, are not yet exhausted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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