HUMAN ANIMALS
HUMAN ANIMALS
BY
FRANK HAMEL
AUTHOR OF
"THE DAUPHINES OF FRANCE," "FAIR WOMEN AT FONTAINEBLEAU,"
ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES Co.
PUBLISHERS
PREFACE
From the abundant records and traditions dealing withthe curious belief that certain men and women cantransform themselves into animals I have collected anumber of instances and examples which throw freshlight on the subject both from the point of view offolk-lore and occultism. The causes of transformationare various: contact with a wer-animal, touching whathe has touched, wearing an animal skin, rubbing the bodywith ointment, slipping on a girdle, buckling on a strap,and many other expedients, magical and otherwise, maybring about the metamorphosis. Removing the skin,burning it, or piercing it with the stab of a knife, or theshot from a gun, so that blood is drawn, are among thebest-known methods for causing the human shape to beresumed, but the stab should be on the brow or betweenthe eyes, and the bullet should be made of silver and isall the better for having been blessed in a chapel of St.Hubert, otherwise the attempt to break the enchantmentmay fail. The penalty for being a wer-animal is death,but sentence is not passed until after some ordeal hasbeen gone through, such as dipping the finger intoboiling resin, innocence being established if the finger bedrawn out unhurt. Any wound inflicted on the transformed[Pg viii]animal is simultaneously inflicted on the humanbody, and in many other characteristics the natureof the wer-animal is similar to that of the witch orwizard.
In "Balder the Beautiful" Dr. J. G. Frazer, aftertelling many typical stories, endeavours to establish aparallelism between witches and wer-animals, the analogyappearing to confirm the view that the reason for burninga bewitched animal alive is a belief that the human beingis in the animal, and that by burning you compel him toassume another shape. Since the sum of energy in theuniverse is held to be constant and invariable, the chainof transformation is thus continued, and form followsform, endlessly linked together. By some such theorythe phenomena of life and death may be explained andthe doctrine of immortality, usually applied only to thesoul of man, can be reasonably extended to animals.
The belief that human and animal souls possess powerand entity when externalised and apart from the livingbody is less widely held than that of persistence afterdeath. It is one that bears strongly on the subject ofanimal transformation, as well as on the affinity whichcertain animals possess for some families, an affinity thatis akin to totemism.
These preliminary suggestions will enable readers tograsp the scope of my book, which is intended to providea comprehensive view of the subject and to familiarisethem with the nature of the phenomena, even though ithas been well-nigh impossible to classify and tabulatethem fully, or to explain them satisfactorily.
I wish to express my thanks to Miss J. A. Middleton,author of "The Grey Ghost Book," for her kindness inreading my work in MS., and to her and others forsuggesting interesting material.
FRANK HAMEL