in 1603, ridiculed the beliefs of "some
Irish who will be believed as men of credit," that men in Ossory were
"yearly turned into wolves."[390] But an ancient Irish MS. puts the
matter much more clearly in the statement that the "descendants of the
wolf are in Ossory,"[391] while the evidence of Spenser and Camden
explains the popular beliefs upon even more exact lines. Spenser says
"that some of the Irish doe use to make the wolf their gossip;"[392]
and Camden adds that they term them "Chari Christi, praying for them
and wishing them well, and having contracted this intimacy, professed
to have no fear from their four-footed allies." Fynes Moryson
expressly mentions the popular dislike to killing wolves, and they
were not extirpated until the eighteenth century.[393] Aubrey adds
that "in Ireland they value the fang-tooth of an wolfe, which they set
in silver and gold as we doe ye Coralls;"[394] and Camden notes the
similar use of a bit of wolf's skin.[395]

In the local superstitions of Ossory, therefore, we have several of
the cardinal features of savage totemism, the descent from the
totem-animal, the ascription to the totem of a sacred character, the
belief in its protection, and a taboo against killing it. I will
venture to suggest, however, that to these important features there is
to be added a parallel in survival to the Semang and Arunta features
where the local circumstances of birth are the determining forces
which supply the totem name, for the relationship of "gossip,"
"god-sib," is clearly of the same character as that of the soul-tree
of the Semang and the alcheringa of the Australian.[396] The condition
of survival has altered the detail of the parallel, but the parallel
is on the same plane.

The wolf as gossip to the men of Ossory leads us on to inquire whether
any other animal had such close connections with human beings. In
Erris, a part of Connaught, "the people consider that foxes perfectly
understand human language, that they can be propitiated by kindness,
and even moved by flattery. They not only make mittens for Reynard's
feet to keep him warm in winter, and deposit these articles carefully
near their holes, but they make them sponsors for their children,
supposing that under the close and long-established relationship of
Gossipred they will be induced to befriend them."[397] Thus it appears
that the selfsame conception which the men of Ossory had in the
thirteenth century for the wolf, the me