Human Animals

Human Animals is a book that contains records and accounts of traditions dealing with the belief that certain men and women can transform themselves into animals. The causes of transformation are various: contact with a wer-animal, touching what a wer-animal has touched, wearing an animal skin, rubbing the body with ointment, slipping on a girdle, buckling on a strap, and many other expedients, magical and otherwise, that may bring about the metamorphosis. Chapters include: Transformation; The Bush-Soul; Human Souls in Animal Bodies; Animal Dances; Man-Animal and Animal-Man; Scapegoat and Saint; The Wer-Wolf Trials; The Wer-Wolf in Myth and Legend; Lion- and Tiger-Men; Wer-Fox and Wer-Vixen; Witches; Familiars; Transformation in Folk-lore and Fairy-tale; Fabulous Animals and Monsters; Human Serpents; Cat and Cock Phantoms; Bird-Women; Family Animals; Animal Ghosts; The Phantasmal Double; Animal Elementals; and, Animal Spirits in Ceremonial Magic.