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s followed by great exhaustion, [1] and that the wolf is given clothes to tear, much as in the Danish stories already related. There does not seem to be any indication of his Laving changed his shape, at least no change is mentioned, his hands are spoken of, and he swears and curses his daughter in broad Slovakian. The fit very closely resembles that to which Skallagrim, the Icelander, was subject. It is a pity that the maid Bràk in the Icelandic tale did not fall upon her legs like the young lady in the hay.
[1. Compare this with the exhaustion following a Berserkir fit, and that which succeeded the attacks to which M. Bertrand was subject.]
CHAPTER IX.
NATURAL CAUSES OF LYCANTHROPY.
Innate Cruelty--Its Three Forms--Dumollard--Andreas Bichel--A Dutch Priest--Other instances of Inherent Cruelty--Cruelty united to Refinement--A Hungarian Bather in Blood--Suddenness with which the Passion is developed--Cannibalism; in pregnant Women; in Maniacs--Hallucination; how Produced--Salves--The Story of Lucius--Self-deception.
WHAT I have related from the chronicles of antiquity, or from the traditional lore of the people, is veiled under the form of myth or legend; and it is only from Scandinavian descriptions of those afflicted with the wolf-madness, and from the trials of those charged with the crime of lycanthropy in the later Middle Ages, that we can arrive at the truth respecting that form of madness which was invested by the superstitious with so much mystery.
It was not till the close of the Middle Ages that lycanthropy was recognized as a disease; but it is one which has so much that is ghastly and revolting in its form, and it is so remote from all our ordinary experience, that it is not surprising that the casual observer should leave the consideration of it, as a subject isolated and perplexing, and be disposed to regard as a myth that which the feared investigation might prove a reality.
In this chapter I purpo