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THE BODY OF MAN
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has butchered all our cattle; but though he got off, it was no laughing matter for him, for a servant of ours ran him through with a pike.’ Hearing this, I could not close an eye; but as soon as it was daylight I ran home like a pedlar that has been eased of his pack. Coming to the place where the clothes had been turned into stone, I saw nothing but a pool of blood; and when I got home, I found my soldier lying in bed, like an ox in a stall, and a surgeon dressing his neck. I saw at once that he was a fellow who could change his skin, and never after could I eat bread with him—no, not if you would have killed me.

Bodin tells some transformation stories, and professes that he had them on good authority. He says that the Royal Procurator-General Bourdin had assured him that he had shot a wolf, and that the arrow had stuck in the beast’s thigh. A few hours after, the arrow was extracted from the thigh of a man lying wounded in bed. At Vernon, about the year 1566, the witches and warlocks gathered in great multitudes under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground with pertinacity, succeeded in slaying one puss, and in wounding many others. Next day a number of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge an accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their wounding.

Nynauld, who wrote a book on Lycanthropy