on bestial forms. Nor is
it strange that the hallucination under which these unfortunate wretches
laboured should have taken such a shape as to account to their feeble
intelligence for the existence of the appetites which they were
conscious of not sharing with their neighbours and contemporaries. If
a myth is a piece of unscientific philosophizing, it must sometimes
be applied to the explanation of obscure psychological as well as of
physical phenomena. Where the modern calmly taps his forehead and says,
"Arrested development," the terrified ancient made the sign of the cross
and cried, "Werewolf."

We shall be assisted in this explanation by turning aside for a
moment to examine the wild superstitions about "changelings," which
contributed, along with so many others, to make the lives of our
ancestors anxious and miserable. These superstitions were for the most
part attempts to explain the phenomena of insanity, epilepsy, and other
obscure nervous diseases. A man who has hitherto enjoyed perfect health,
and whose actions have been consistent and rational, suddenly loses all
self-control and seems actuated by a will foreign to himself. Modern
science possesses the key to this phenomenon; but in former times it was
explicable only on the hypothesis that a demon had entered the body
of the lunatic, or else that the fairies had stolen the real man and
substituted for him a diabolical phantom exactly like him in stature and
features. Hence the numerous legends of changelings, some of which
are very curious. In Irish folk-lore we find the story of one Rickard,
surnamed the Rake, from his worthless character. A good-natured, idle
fellow, he spent all his evenings in dancing,--an accomplishment in
which no one in the village could rival him. One night, in the midst of
a lively reel, he fell down in a fit. "He's struck with a fairy-dart,"
exclaimed all the friends, and they carried him home and nursed him; but
his face grew so thin and his manner so morose that by and by all began
to suspect that the true Rickard was gone and a changeling put in his
place. Rickard, with all his accomplishments, was no musician; and so,
in order to put the matter to a crucial test, a bagpipe was left in the
room by the side of his bed. The trick succeeded. One hot summer's day,
when all were supposed to be in the field making hay, some members
of the family secreted in a clothes-press saw the bedroom door open a
little way, and a lean, foxy fa