f burning a
bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to
recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may
be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like
were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform
themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their
mischievous pranks;[768] and like were-wolves they can in their animal
disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in
drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a
cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the
skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend
the disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his
or her true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the
brow or between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a
were-wolf;[769] and it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have
had the bullet blessed in a chapel of St. Hubert or happen to be
carrying about you, without knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise
the bullet will merely rebound from the were-wolf like water from a
duck's back.[770] However, in Armenia they say that the were-wolf, who
in that country is usually a woman, can be killed neither by shot nor by
steel; the only way of delivering the unhappy woman from her bondage is
to get hold of her wolf's skin and burn it; for that naturally prevents
her from turning into a wolf again. But it is not easy to find the skin,
for she is cunning enough to hide it by day.[771] So with witches, it is
not only useless but even dangerous to shoot at one of them when she has
turned herself into a hare; if you do, the gun may burst in your hand or
the shot come back and kill you. The only way to make quite sure of
hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver sixpence or a silver button in
your gun.[772] For example, it happened one evening that a native of the
island of Tiree was going home with a new gun, when he saw a black sheep
running towards him across the plain of Reef. Something about the
creature excited his suspicion, so he put a silver sixpence in his gun
and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep became a woman with a drugget
coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her quite well, for she was a
witch who had often persecuted him before in the shape of a cat.[773]

[Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has tr