side. She told him that while he was absent an old woman
had called, asking for something to eat, and that as she seemed to have
met with some accident, because there was blood running down her face,
she invited her in, and told her she might eat what her husband had left
untasted.

Sitting down at the table, the old woman commenced eating without
asking a blessing on the food; and when she had finished she approached
the bed, and, looking at the infant, she muttered some words and left
the house hurriedly.

The husband and wife were very much afraid that the old woman was a
witch; but as the child went on growing and seemed well they gradually
forgot their visitor.

The infant was baptized, and was named John; and when he was old enough
he was sent out to work to help his parents. All the labourers noticed
that John could get through more work than any man, he was so strong and
active; but he was very silent.

The remarkable strength of the boy got to be so spoken about in the
village that at last the wise woman, who was always consulted, said that
there was no doubt but that John was a wolf-child; and this having come
to the ears of his parents, his body was carefully examined, and the
mark of the crescent was found under his arm.

Nothing now remained to be done but to take John to the great wise woman
of Arifana, and have him disenchanted.

The day had arrived for the parents to take John with them to Arifana,
but when they looked for him he could nowhere be found. They searched
everywhere--down the well, in the river, in the forest--and made
inquiries at all the villages, but in vain; John had disappeared.

Weeks went by without any sign of him; and the winter having set in, the
wolves, through hunger, had become more undaunted in their attacks on
the flocks and herds. The farmer, afraid of firing at them, lest he
might shoot his son, had laid a trap; and one morning, to his delight,
he saw that a very large wolf had been caught, which one of his
fellow-labourers was cudgelling. Fearing it might be the lost
wolf-child, he hastened to the spot, and prevented the wolf receiving
more blows; but it was too late, apparently, to save the creature's
life, for it lay motionless on the ground as if dead. Hurrying off for
the wise woman of the village, she returned with him; and, close to the
head of the wolf, she gathered some branches of the common pine-tree,
and lighting them, as some were green and others dry, a