A word about were-wolves, and I have done. Few superstitions are more familiar in modern times than this one. Certain men, it is believed, possess the power of turning themselves into wolves and back again at pleasure. Or they are forced to become wolves for a time, but may, under certain conditions, recover their human shape. All this was believed as firmly by superstitious people in antiquity as it has been believed by the same class of persons in modern times. There is a certain mountain in Arcadia which towers over its sister peaks, and commands from its top a prospect over a great part of the Morea. The mountain was known to the ancients as the Wolf Mountain (Mt. Lycæus), and on its summit stood the earthen altar of the Wolf God (Zeus Lycæus). East of the altar stood two columns, surmounted by gilt eagles. Once a year a mysterious sacrifice was offered at the altar, in the course of which a man was believed to be changed into a wolf. Accounts differ as to the way in which the were-wolf was chosen. According to one account, a human victim was sacrificed, one of his bowels was mixed with the bowels of animal victims, the whole was consumed by the worshippers, and the man who unwittingly ate the human bowel was changed into a wolf.[1] According to another account, lots were cast among the members of a particular family, and he upon whom the lot fell was the were-wolf. Being led to the brink of a tarn, he stripped himself, hung his clothes on an oak-tree, plunged into the tarn, and, swimming across it, went away into desert places. There he was changed into a wolf and herded with wolves for nine years. If he tasted human blood before the nine years were out he had to remain a wolf for ever. But if during the nine years he abstained from preying on men, then, when the tenth year came round, he recovered his human shape.[2] Similarly, there is a negro
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of the Ancients.
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