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009 - Chapter Ix Natural Causes Of Lycanthropy · Book of Werewolves

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine of the Book of Werewolves. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Amy Graymore The Book of Werewolves by Sabine
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  Speaker 1: Baring Gould, Chapter nine. The natural causes of lycanthropy Innate cruelty,
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  Speaker 1: its three forms De Mollard andres Bichel a Dutch priest.
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  Speaker 1: Other instances of inherent cruelty, cruelty united to refinement a
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  Speaker 1: Hungarian bather in blood, suddenness with which the passion is developed,
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  Speaker 1: cannibalism in pregnant women, in maniacs. Hallucination, how produced, solves
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  Speaker 1: the story of Lucius self deception. What I have related
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  Speaker 1: from the chronicles of antiquity or from the traditional lore
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  Speaker 1: of the people is veiled under the form of myth
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  Speaker 1: or legend. And it is only from the Scandinavian descriptions
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  Speaker 1: of those afflicted with the wolf madness, and from the
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  Speaker 1: trials of those charged with the crime of lycanthropy in
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  Speaker 1: the later Middle Ages, that we can arrive at the
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  Speaker 1: truth respecting that form of madness which was invested by
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  Speaker 1: the superstitious, with so much mystery. It was not till
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  Speaker 1: the close of the Middle Ages that lycanthropy was recognized
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  Speaker 1: as a disease. But it is one which has so
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  Speaker 1: much that is ghastly and revolting in its form, and
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  Speaker 1: is so remote from all our ordinary experience, that it
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  Speaker 1: is not surprising that the casual observer should leave the
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  Speaker 1: consideration of it as the subject isolated and perplexing, and
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  Speaker 1: be disposed to regard as a myth that which the
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  Speaker 1: feared investigation might prove a reality. In this chapter I
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  Speaker 1: purpose briefly examining the conditions under which men have been
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  Speaker 1: regarded as werewolves. Startling though the assertion may be, it
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  Speaker 1: is a matter of fact that man, naturally, in common
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  Speaker 1: with other kind arnivora, is actuated by an impulse to
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  Speaker 1: kill and by a love of destroying life. It is
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  Speaker 1: positively true that there are many to whom the sight
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  Speaker 1: of suffering causes genuine pleasure, and in whom the passion
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  Speaker 1: to kill or torture is as strong as any other passion.
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  Speaker 1: Witness the number of boys who assemble around a sheep
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  Speaker 1: or pig when it is about to be killed, and
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  Speaker 1: who watch the struggle of the dying brute, with hearts
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  Speaker 1: beating fast with pleasure, and eyes sparkling with delight. Often
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  Speaker 1: have I seen an eager crowd of children assembled around
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  Speaker 1: the slaughter house of French towns, absorbed in the expiring
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  Speaker 1: agonies of the sheep and cattle, and hushed into silence
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  Speaker 1: as they watched the flow of blood. The propensity, however,
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  Speaker 1: exists in different degrees, and some it is manifest simply
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  Speaker 1: as indifference to suffering. In others, it appears as simple
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  Speaker 1: pleasure in seeing killed, and in others again, it is
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  Speaker 1: dominant as an irresistible desire to torture and destroy. This
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  Speaker 1: prepare density is widely diffused. It exists in children and adults,
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  Speaker 1: in the gross minded and the refined, in the well
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  Speaker 1: educated and the ignorant, and those who have never had
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity of gratifying it, and those who gratify it
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  Speaker 1: habitually in spite of morality, religion, laws, so that it
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  Speaker 1: can only depend on constitutional causes. The sportsmen and the
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  Speaker 1: fishermen follow a natural instinct to destroy when they make
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  Speaker 1: war on bird, beast and fish. The pretense that the
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  Speaker 1: spoil is sought for the table cannot be made with justice,
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  Speaker 1: as the sportsman cares little for the game he has
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  Speaker 1: obtained when once it is consigned to his pouch. The
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  Speaker 1: motive for his eager pursuit of bird or beast must
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  Speaker 1: be sought elsewhere. It will be found in the natural,
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  Speaker 1: craving to extinguish life which exists in his soul. Why
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  Speaker 1: does a child impulsively strike at a butterfly as it
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  Speaker 1: flits past him. He cares nothing for the insect when
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  Speaker 1: once it is beaten down at his feet, unless it
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  Speaker 1: be quivering in its agony, when he will watch it
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  Speaker 1: with interest. The child strikes it to fluttering creature, because
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  Speaker 1: it has life in it, and he has an instinct
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  Speaker 1: within him impelling him to destroy life wherever he finds it.
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  Speaker 1: Parents and nurses know well that children, by nature are cruel,
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  Speaker 1: and that humanity has to be acquired by education. A
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  Speaker 1: child will gloat over the sufferings of a wounded animal
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  Speaker 1: till his mother bids him put it out of its misery.
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  Speaker 1: An unsophisticated child would not dream of terminating the poor
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  Speaker 1: creature's agonies abruptly, any more than he would swallow whole
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  Speaker 1: a bon bon till he had well sucked it inherent
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  Speaker 1: cruelty may be obscured by after impressions, or may be
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  Speaker 1: kept under moral restraint. The person who is constitutionally a
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  Speaker 1: nero may scarcely know his own nature till by some
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  Speaker 1: accident the master passion becomes dominant and sweeps all before it.
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  Speaker 1: A relaxation of the moral check, a shock to the
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  Speaker 1: controlling intellect, an abnormal condition of body are sufficient to
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  Speaker 1: allow the passion to assert itself. As I have already observed,
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  Speaker 1: this passion exists in different persons in different degrees. In some,
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  Speaker 1: it is exhibited in simple want of feeling for other
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  Speaker 1: people's sufferings. This temperament may lead to crime, for the
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  Speaker 1: individual who is regardless of pain in another, will be
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  Speaker 1: ready to destroy that other if it suits his own purposes.
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  Speaker 1: Such an one was the pauper de Molard, who was
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  Speaker 1: the murderer of at least six poor girls, and who
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  Speaker 1: attempted to kill several others. He seems not to have
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  Speaker 1: felt much gratification in murdering them, but to have been
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  Speaker 1: so utterly indifferent to their sufferings that he killed them
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  Speaker 1: solely for the sake of their clothes, which were of
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  Speaker 1: the poorest description. He was sentenced to the guillotine and
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  Speaker 1: executed in eighteen sixty two. In others, the pa ash
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  Speaker 1: and for blood is developed alongside with indifference to suffering. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: Andreas Bichel enticed young women into his house under the
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  Speaker 1: pretense that he was possessed of a magic mirror, and
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  Speaker 1: which he would show them their future husbands. When he
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  Speaker 1: had them in his power, he bound their hands behind
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  Speaker 1: their backs and stunned them with a blow. He then
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  Speaker 1: stabbed them and despoiled them of their clothes, for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of which he committed the murders. But as he
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  Speaker 1: killed the young women, the passion of cruelty took possession
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  Speaker 1: of him, and he hacked the poor girls to pieces
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  Speaker 1: whilst they were still alive. In his anxiety to examine
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  Speaker 1: their insides. Catherine Seidel he opened with a hammer and
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  Speaker 1: a wedge from her breasts downward, while still breathing. I
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  Speaker 1: may say he remarked at his trial that during the operation,
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  Speaker 1: I was so eager that I trembled all over, and
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  Speaker 1: I longed to rive off a piece and eat it.
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  Speaker 1: Andreas Bichell was executed in eighteen o nine. Again, a
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  Speaker 1: third class of persons are cruel in bloodthirsty, because in them,
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  Speaker 1: bloodthirstiness is a raging, insatiable passion. In a civilized country,
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  Speaker 1: those possessed by this passion are forced to control it
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  Speaker 1: through fear of the consequences, or to gratify it upon
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  Speaker 1: the brute creataux. But in earlier days, when the feudal
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  Speaker 1: lords were supreme in their domains, there have been frightful
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  Speaker 1: instances of their excesses. And the extent to which some
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  Speaker 1: of the Roman emperors indulge their passion for blood is
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  Speaker 1: matter of history. Gaul gives several authentic instances of bloodthirstiness.
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  Speaker 1: A Dutch priest had such desire to kill and to
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  Speaker 1: see killed, that he became chaplain to a regiment that
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  Speaker 1: he might have the satisfaction of seeing deaths occurring wholesale
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  Speaker 1: in engagements. The same man kept a large collection of
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  Speaker 1: various kinds of domestic animals that he might be able
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  Speaker 1: to torture their young. He killed the animals for his kitchen,
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  Speaker 1: and was acquainted with all the hangings in the country
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  Speaker 1: who sent him notice of executions, and he would walk
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  Speaker 1: for days that he might have the gratification of seeing
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  Speaker 1: a man executed in the field of battle. The passion
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  Speaker 1: is variously developed. Some feel positive delight in slaying, others
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  Speaker 1: are indifferent. An old soldier who had been in Waterloo
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  Speaker 1: informed me that to his mind there was no pleasure
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  Speaker 1: equal to running a man through the body, and that
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  Speaker 1: he could lie awake at night musing on the pleasurable
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  Speaker 1: sensations afforded him by the act. Highwaymen are frequently not
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  Speaker 1: content with robbery, but manifest a bloody inclination to torment
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  Speaker 1: and kill. John Rosbeck, for instance, is well known to
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  Speaker 1: have invented and exercised the most atrocious cruelties merely that
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  Speaker 1: he might witness the sufferings of his victims, who were
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  Speaker 1: especially women in children. Neither fear nor torture could break
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  Speaker 1: him of the dreadful passion till he was executed. Gall
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  Speaker 1: tells of a violin player who, being arrested, confessed to
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  Speaker 1: thirty four murders, all of which he had committed not
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  Speaker 1: from enmity or intent to rob but solely because it
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  Speaker 1: afforded him an intense pleasure to kill. Spurzheim tells of
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  Speaker 1: a priest at Strasbourg, who, though rich and uninfluenced by
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  Speaker 1: envy or revenge, from exactly the same motive killed three persons.
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  Speaker 1: Gaul relates the case of a brother of the Duke
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  Speaker 1: of Bourbon, Conde, Count of Cholois, who from infancy had
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  Speaker 1: an inveterate pleasure in torturing animals. Growing older, he lived
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  Speaker 1: to shed the blood of human beings and to exercise
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  Speaker 1: various kinds of cruelty. He also murdered many from no
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  Speaker 1: other motive, and shot at slatter's for the pleasure of
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  Speaker 1: seeing them fall from the roofs of houses. Louis the
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  Speaker 1: eleventh of France caused the death of four thousand people
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  Speaker 1: during his reign. He used to watch their executions from
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  Speaker 1: a neighboring lattice. He had gibbets placed outside his own palace,
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  Speaker 1: and himself conducted the executions. It must not be supposed
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  Speaker 1: that cruelty exists merely in the course and ruin. It
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  Speaker 1: is quite as frequently observed in the refined and educated.
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  Speaker 1: Among the former, it is manifest chiefly in insensibility to
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  Speaker 1: the sufferings of others. In the latter it appears as
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  Speaker 1: a passion, the indulgence of which causes intense pleasure those
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  Speaker 1: bloody tyrants. Nero and Caligula, Alexander Borgia and Robespierre, whose
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  Speaker 1: highest enjoyment consisted in witnessing the agonies of their fellow men,
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  Speaker 1: were full of delicate sensibilities and great refinement of taste
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  Speaker 1: and manner. I have seen an accomplished young woman, of
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  Speaker 1: considerable refinement and of a highly strong nervous temperament, string
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  Speaker 1: flies with her needle on a piece of thread, and
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  Speaker 1: watch complacently their flutterings. Cruelty may remain latent till by
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  Speaker 1: some accident it is aroused, and then it will break
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  Speaker 1: forth in a devouring flame. It is the same with
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  Speaker 1: the passion for blood, as with the passions of love
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  Speaker 1: and hate. We have no conception of the violence with
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  Speaker 1: which they can rage till circumstances are which call them
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  Speaker 1: into action. Love or hate will be dominant in a
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  Speaker 1: breast which has been in serenity, till suddenly the spark falls,
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  Speaker 1: passion blazes forth, and the serenity of the quiet breast
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  Speaker 1: is shattered forever. A word, a glance, a touch are
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  Speaker 1: sufficient to fire the magazine of passion in the heart,
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  Speaker 1: and to desolate forever in existence. It is the same
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  Speaker 1: with bloodthirstiness. It may lurk in the deeps of some
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  Speaker 1: heart very dear to us. It may smolder in the
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  Speaker 1: bosom which is most cherished by us, and we may
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  Speaker 1: be perfectly unconscious of its existence there. Perhaps circumstances will
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  Speaker 1: not cause its development. Perhaps moral principle may have bound
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  Speaker 1: it down with fetters it can never break. Michael Wagoner
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  Speaker 1: relates a horrible story which occurred in Hungry, suppressing the
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  Speaker 1: name of the person as it was that of a
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  Speaker 1: still powerful family in the country. It illustrates what I
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  Speaker 1: have been saying and shows how trifling a matter may
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  Speaker 1: develop the passion in its most hideous proportions. Elizabeth Blank
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  Speaker 1: was wont to dress well in order to please her husband,
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  Speaker 1: and she spent half the day over her toilet. On
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  Speaker 1: one occasion, a lady's maid saw something wrong in her
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  Speaker 1: head dress, and, as a recompense for observing it, received
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  Speaker 1: such a severe box on the ears that the blood
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  Speaker 1: gushed from her nose and spurted on to her mistress's face.
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  Speaker 1: When the blood drops were washed off her face, her
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  Speaker 1: skin appeared much more beautiful, whiter, and more transparent on
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  Speaker 1: the spots where the blood had been. Elizabeth formed the
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  Speaker 1: resolution to bathe her face and her whole body in
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  Speaker 1: human blood as to enhance her beauty. Two old women
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  Speaker 1: in a certain fitsco assisted her in her undertaking. This
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  Speaker 1: monster used to kill the luckless victim, and the old
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  Speaker 1: women caught the blood in which Elizabeth was wont to
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  Speaker 1: bathe at the hour of four in the morning. After
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  Speaker 1: the bath, she appeared more beautiful than before. She continued
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  Speaker 1: this habit after the death of her husband sixteen o
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  Speaker 1: four in the hopes of gaining new suitors. The unhappy
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  Speaker 1: girls who were allured to the castle under the plea
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  Speaker 1: that they were to be taken into service there were
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  Speaker 1: locked up in a cellar. Here they were beaten till
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  Speaker 1: their bodies were swollen. Elizabeth not unfrequently tortured the victims herself.
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  Speaker 1: Often she changed their clothes, which dripped with blood, and
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  Speaker 1: then renewed her cruelties. The swollen bodies were then cut
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  Speaker 1: up with razors. Occasionally she had the girls burned and
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  Speaker 1: then cut up, but the great majority were beaten to death.
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  Speaker 1: At last, her cruelty became so great that she would
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  Speaker 1: stick needles into those who sat with her in a carriage,
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  Speaker 1: especially if they were of her own sex. One of
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  Speaker 1: her servant girls she stripped naked smeared her with honey,
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  Speaker 1: and so drove her out of the house. When she
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  Speaker 1: was ill and could not indulge her cruelty, she bit
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  Speaker 1: a person who came near her sick bed, as though
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  Speaker 1: she were a wild beast. She caused in all the
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  Speaker 1: death of six hundred and fifty girls, some in Tuscuita
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  Speaker 1: on the neutral ground, where she had a cellar constructed
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  Speaker 1: for that purpose, others in different localities. For murder and
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  Speaker 1: bloodshed became with her a necessity. When at last the
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  Speaker 1: parents of the lost children could no longer be cajoled,
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  Speaker 1: the castle was seized and the traces of the murders
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  Speaker 1: were discovered. Her accomplices were executed, and she was in
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  Speaker 1: prison for life. An equally remarkable example will be found
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  Speaker 1: in the account of the Marchal Dray, given at some
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  Speaker 1: length in the sequel. He was an accomplished man, a scholar,
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  Speaker 1: an able general, and a courtier, but suddenly the impulse
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  Speaker 1: to murder and destroy came upon him while sitting in
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  Speaker 1: the library reading Suetonius. He yielded to the impulse and
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  Speaker 1: became one of the greatest monsters of cruelty the world
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  Speaker 1: has produced. The case of Sivaatek. The Galician cannibal is
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  Speaker 1: also to the purpose. This man was a harmless pauper
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  Speaker 1: till one day accident brought him to the scene of
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  Speaker 1: a conflagration. Hunger impelled him to taste of the roast
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  Speaker 1: fragments of a human being who had perished in the fire,
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  Speaker 1: and from that moment he ravened for man's flesh. Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: Bertond was a French gentleman of taste and education. He
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  Speaker 1: one day lounged over the churchyard wall in a quiet
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  Speaker 1: country village and watched a funeral. Instantly, an overwhelming desire
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  Speaker 1: to dig up and rend the corpse, which he had
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  Speaker 1: seen committed to the ground came upon him, and for
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  Speaker 1: years he lived as a human hyena, preying upon the dead.
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  Speaker 1: His story is given in detail in the fifteenth chapter.
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  Speaker 1: An abnormal condition of body sometimes produces this desire for blood.
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  Speaker 1: It is manifest in certain cases of pregnancy, when the
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  Speaker 1: constitution loses its balance and the appetite becomes diseased. Skank
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  Speaker 1: gives instances a pregnant woman saw a baker carrying loaves
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  Speaker 1: on his bare shoulder. She was at once filled with
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  Speaker 1: such a craving for his flesh, that she refused us
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  Speaker 1: to taste any food till her husband persuaded the baker
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  Speaker 1: by the offer of a large sum to allow his
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  Speaker 1: wife to bite him. The man yielded, and the woman
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  Speaker 1: flushed her teeth in his shoulder twice, but he held
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  Speaker 1: out no longer. The wife bore twins on three occasions,
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  Speaker 1: twice living, the third time dead. A woman in an
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  Speaker 1: interesting condition near Andanak on the Rhine murdered her husband,
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  Speaker 1: to whom she was warmly attached, ate half his body
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  Speaker 1: and salted the rest. When the passion left her, she
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  Speaker 1: became conscious of the horrible nature of her act, and
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  Speaker 1: she gave herself up to justice. In fifteen fifty three,
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  Speaker 1: a wife cut her husband's throat and gnawed the nose
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  Speaker 1: in the left arm, whilst the body was yet warm.
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  Speaker 1: She then gutted the corpse and salted it for future consumption.
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  Speaker 1: Shortly after, she gave birth to three children, and she
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  Speaker 1: only became conscious of what she had done when her
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  Speaker 1: neighbors asked after the father that they might announce to
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  Speaker 1: him the arrival of the little one. In the summer
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  Speaker 1: of eighteen forty five, the Greek papers contained an account
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  Speaker 1: of a pregnant woman murdering her husband for the purpose
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  Speaker 1: of roasting and eating his liver. That the passion to
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  Speaker 1: destroy is prevalent in certain maniacs is well known. This
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  Speaker 1: is sometimes accompanied by cannibalism. Groner gives an account of
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  Speaker 1: a shepherd who was evidently deranged who killed in eight
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  Speaker 1: two men. Mark relates that a woman of unter alsace,
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  Speaker 1: during the absence of her husband, a poor laborer, murdered
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  Speaker 1: her son, a lad fifteen months old. She chopped off
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  Speaker 1: his legs and stewed them with cabbage. She ate a
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  Speaker 1: portion and offered the rest to her husband. It is
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  Speaker 1: true that the family were very poor, but there was
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  Speaker 1: food in the house at the time. In prison, the
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  Speaker 1: woman gave evident signs of derangement. The cases in which
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  Speaker 1: bloodthirstiness and cannibalism are united with insanity are those which
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  Speaker 1: properly fall under the head of lycanthropy. The instance is
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  Speaker 1: recorded in the preceding chapter point unmistakably to hallucination accompanying
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  Speaker 1: the lust for blood. Jean gregnre Roulat and others were
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  Speaker 1: firmly convinced that they had undergone transformation. A disordered condition
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  Speaker 1: of mind or body may produce hallucination in a form
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  Speaker 1: depending on the character and instincts of the individual. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: an ambitious man laboring under monomania will imagine himself to
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  Speaker 1: be a king. A covetous man will be plunged in despair,
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  Speaker 1: believing himself to be penniless, or exalt at the vastness
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  Speaker 1: of the treasure which he imagines that he has discovered.
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  Speaker 1: The old man suffering from rheumatism or gout conceives himself
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  Speaker 1: to be formed of China or glass, and the fox
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  Speaker 1: hunter tally hoose at each new moon as though he
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  Speaker 1: were following a pack. In like manner. The naturally cruel man,
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  Speaker 1: if the least affected in his brain, will suppose himself
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  Speaker 1: to be transformed into the most cruel and bloodthirsty animal
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  Speaker 1: with which he is acquainted. The hallucinations under which lycanthropists
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  Speaker 1: suffered may have arisen from various causes. The older writers,
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  Speaker 1: as Forestus in Burton, regard the werewolf mania as a
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  Speaker 1: species of melancholy madness, and some do not deem it
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  Speaker 1: necessary for the patient to believe in his transformation for
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  Speaker 1: them to regard him as lacanthropist. In the present state
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  Speaker 1: of medical knowledge, we know that very different conditions may
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  Speaker 1: rise to hallucinations. In fever cases, the sensibility is so
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  Speaker 1: disturbed that the patient is often deceived as to the
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  Speaker 1: space occupied by his limbs, and he supposes them to
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  Speaker 1: be preternaturally distended or contracted. In the case of typhus,
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  Speaker 1: it is not uncommon for the sick person with deranged
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  Speaker 1: nervous system to believe himself to be double in the bed,
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  Speaker 1: or to be severed in half, or to have lost
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: his limbs. He may regard his members as composed of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: foreign and other fragile materials as glass, or he may
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: so lose his personality as to suppose himself to have
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: become a woman. A monomaniac who believes himself to be
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: some one else seeks to enter into the feelings, thoughts,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and habits of the assumed personality, and from the facility
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: with which this is effected, he draws an argument conclusive
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to himself of the reality of the change. He thenceforth
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: speaks of himself under the assumed character and experiences all
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: its needs, wishes, passions, and the like. The closer the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: identification becomes, the more confirmed is the monomaniac in his
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: madness the character of which varies with the temperament of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the individual. If the person's mind be weak or rude
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and uncultivated, the tenacity with which he clings to his
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: metamorphosis is feebler, and it becomes more difficult to draw
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the line between his lucid and insane utterances. Thus, Jean Grenier,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: who labored under this form of mania, said in his
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: trial much that was true, but it was mixed with
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the ramblings of insanity. Hallucination may also be produced by
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: artificial means, and there are evidences afforded by the confessions
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of those tried for lycanthropy, that these artificial means were
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: employed by them. I refer to the salve so frequently
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: mentioned in which in werewolf trials. The following passage is
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: from the charming Golden ass of vapool Eus. It proves
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that salves were extensively used by witches for the purpose
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: of transformation, even in his day. Fotis showed me a
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: crack in the door and bade me look through it,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: upon which I looked and saw pomp Field, first divest
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: herself of all her garments, and then, having unlocked her chest,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: take from it several little boxes in open, one of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the latter, which contained a certain ointment. Rubbing this ointment
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a good while previously between the palms of her hands,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: she anointed her whole body, from the very nails of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: her toes to the hair on the crown of her head.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And when she was anointed all over, she whispered many
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: magic words to a lamp, as if she were talking
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to it. Then she began to move her arms, first
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: with tremulous jerks, and afterwards by a gentle undulating motion,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: till a glittering downy surface by degrees overspread her body.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Feathers and strong quills burst forth. Suddenly her nose became
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a hard, crooked beak, her toes changed to curved talons,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and pump feel was no longer pump feel, but it
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was an owl I saw before me, and now uttering
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a harsh, quarrelous scream. Leaping from the ground by little
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and little in order to try her powers, and presently
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: poising herself aloft on her pinions, she stretched forth her
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: wings on either side to their full extent, and flew
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: straight away. Having now been actually a witness of the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: performance of the magical art, and of the metamorphosis of
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: pamp feel. I remained for some time in a stupefied
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: state of astonishment. At last, after I had rubbed my
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: eyes some time, had recovered a little from the amazement
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and abstraction of mind, and begun to feel a consciousness
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of the reality of things about me, I took hold
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of the hand of Potus and said, sweet Damsel, bring me.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I beseech thee a portion of the ointment with which
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: thy mistress hath just now anointed. And when thou hast
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: made me a bird, I will be thy slave. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: even weighed upon thee like a winged cupid. Accordingly, she
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: crept gently into the apartment, quickly returned with the box
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of ointment, hastily placed it in my hands, and then
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: immediately departed. Elated to an extraordinary degree at the sight
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of the precious treasure, I kissed the box several times successively,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: and uttering repeated aspirations, in hopes of a prosperous flight,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I stripped off my clothes as quickly as possible, dipped
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: my fingers greedily into the box, and, having thence extracted
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a good large lump of ointment, rubbed it all over
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: my body and limbs. When I was thoroughly anointed. I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: swung my arms up and down in imitation of the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: movement of a bird's pinions, and continued to do so
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a little while, when, instead of any perceptible token of
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: feathers or wings making their appearance, my own thin skin
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: alas grew into a hard leathern hide covered with bristly hair.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: My fingers and toes disappeared, The palms of my hands
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and the soles of my feet became four solid hoofs,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and from the end of my spine a long tail projected.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: My face was enormous, my mouth wide, my nostrils gaping,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: my lips pendulous, and I had a pair of immoderately long,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: rough hairy ears. In short, when I came to contemplate
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: my transformation to its full extent, I found that instead
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of a bird, I had become an ass Of what
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: these magical salves were composed, we know they were composed
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of narcotics to wit solanum, somniferum, aconite, hyosciamus, belladonna opium
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a chorus bulgaris sium. These were boiled down with oil
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: or the fat of little children who were murdered for
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the purpose. The blood of a bat was added, but
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: its effects could have been nil. To these may have
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: been added other foreign narcotics, the names of which have
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: not transpired. Whatever may have been the cause of the hallucination,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it is not surprising that the lycanthropist should have imagined
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: himself transformed into a beast. The cases I have instanced
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: are those of shepherds who are, by nature of their employment,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: brought into collision with wolves, And it is not surprising
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that these persons, in a condition liable to hallucinations, should
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: imagine themselves to be transformed into wild beasts, and that
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: their minds, reverting to the injuries sustained from these animals,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: they should, in their state of temporary insanity, accuse themselves
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: of the acts of rapacity committed by the beasts into
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: which they believed themselves to be transformed. It is a
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: well known fact that men men whose minds are unhinged,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: will deliver themselves up to justice, accusing themselves of having
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: committed crimes which have actually taken place. And it is
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: only on investigation that their self accusation proves to be false.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And yet they will describe the circumstances with the greatest
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: minuteness and be thoroughly convinced of their own criminality. I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: need give but a single instance. In the War of
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the French Revolution, the Hermione frigate was commanded by Captain Pigot,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a harsh man and a severe commander. His crew mutinied
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and carried the ship into an enemy's port, having murdered
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the captain and several of the officers. Under circumstances of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: extreme barbarity, one midshipman escaped, by whom many of the criminals,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: who were afterwards taken and delivered over to justice one
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: by one were identified mister Finlay's son, the government actuary,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: who at that time held an official situation in the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Admiral States. In my own experience, I have known, on
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: separate occasions more than six sailors who voluntarily confessed to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: having struck the first blow at Captain Pijot. These men
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: detailed all the horrid circumstances of the mutiny with extreme
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: minuteness and perfect accuracy. Nevertheless, not one of them had
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: ever been in the ship, nor had so much as
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: seen Captain Pijot in their lives. They had obtained by
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: tradition from their messmates. The particulars of the story. When
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: long on a foreign station, hungering and thirsting for home,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: their minds became enfeebled. At length they actually believed themselves
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: guilty of the crime over which they had so long brooded,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and submitted, with a gloomy pleasure, to being sent to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: England in irons for judgment at the Admiralty. We were
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: always able to detect and establish their innocence in defiance
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of their own solemn asservations. London Judicial Gazette, January eighteen
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: o eight, end of Chapter nine