# An Examen of Witches/Chapter 47

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Chapter XLVII.
Of the Metamorphosis of Men into Beasts, and Especially of Lycanthropes or Loups-garoux.
The same method of procedure which was used in the case of Françoise Secretain was followed in those of Jacques Bocquet, Clauda Jamprost, Clauda Jamguillaume, Thievenne Paget and Clauda Gaillard. Jacques Bocquet, otherwise known as Groz-Jacques, came from Savoy, and was apprehended on the accusation of Françoise Secretain. Clauda Jamprost was from Orcieres, and was accused by Groz-Jacques. Clauda Jamguillaume and Thievenne Paget were also from Orcieres, and were ​accused by Groz-Jacques and Clauda Jamprost. Clauda Gaillard was from Ebouchoux, and was imprisoned as the result of information arising from the preceding trials.
The first four of these confessed that they had turned themselves into wolves and that, in this shape, they had killed several children, namely, a child of Anathoile Cochet of Longchamois, one of Thievent Bondieu known as the rebel of Orcieres, four or five years old; another of big Claude Godard, and another of Claude the son of Antoine Gindre. Finally, they confessed that in the year 1597 they met in the neighbourhood of Longchamois two children of Claude Bault, a boy and a girl, who were gathering strawberries; that they killed the girl, and the boy saved himself by running away. They confessed also that they had eaten part of the children which we have mentioned, but that they never touched the right side. These murders were verified both by the evidence of the parents, and by that of several others in the villages of Longchamois and Orcieres, who deposed that all these children had been caught and eaten by wolves at such a time and such a place.
Clauda Jamguillaume added that she had nearly killed two other children, and that with the intent to do so she had hidden behind a hut in the mountains for about an hour, but had been prevented by a dog, which she killed in spite; but that nevertheless she contrived to wound one of the children in the thigh.
Jeanne Perrin also gave evidence that Clauda Gaillard had turned herself into a wolf, and had attacked her in that shape in a wood called ​Froidecombe. It was therefore very convenient that all these witches should have been tried together, since they had all turned themselves into wolves. Pierre Gandillon and his son George Gandillon would also have been tried with them, but that they were hurried too quickly to their execution; for these last two also confessed that they had turned themselves into wolves. Yet the son averred that he had never meddled with any children, but that, in company with his aunt Perrenette Gandillon, he had only killed certain goats, among them one belonging to his father, which, as he said, they had done by mistake.
All these witches confessed besides that they had many times been to the Sabbat, that there they had copulated, danced, eaten and made their ointment; and also that they had caused the death of countless persons and beasts. But since we have dealt in detail with these last matters in their proper place, I shall here confine myself to the consideration of the first of them, namely, lycanthropy and the metamorphosis of men into beasts.
There is much disputing as to whether it is possible for men to be changed into beasts, some affirming the possibility, whilst others deny it; and there are ample grounds for both views. For we have many examples of the fact. The family of Antæus in Arcadia used to become wolves at a certain season of the year. After Demenetus Parrasius had tasted the entrails of a child, he was changed into a wolf. Sigeb.Baianus, the son of a certain Simeon who was a chieftain of the Bulgarians, used to change himself into a wolf when he wished, as did Mœris, of whom Vergil speaks:
Mœris I often saw changed to a wolf And prowling in the woods.
Ovid reports that Lycaon did the same:
He was amazed, and howled in loneliness, Nor could he speak as he was wont to do.
Lib. 11. mirab. Cf. Jean Bauhund, a physician of a Duke of Wurttemberg, in his story of the raging of wolves.Job Fincel relates that he saw a Lycanthrope at Padua. Herodotus tells that the inhabitants of a district in Scythia used to turn into wolves; and this is also common among the peoples of Duke of the North. When the Romans were trying to prevent Hannibal from crossing the Alps, a wolf came amongst their army, rent those whom it met, and finally escaped without being hurt. In the year 1042 the people of Constantinople were much embarrassed by the appearance of more than 150 wolves at the same time. And in 1148 in the land of Geneva there was seen a wolf of unusual size, which killed thirty persons of both sexes and various ages. Who, then, can doubt but that these wolves were Lycanthropes?
Again, there are the three wolves which were seen on the 18th of July, 1603, in the district of Douvres and Jeurre about half an hour after a hailstorm had very strangely ruined all the fruit of that country. These wolves had no tails; and, moreover, as they ran through herds of cows and goats they touched none of them except one little kid, which one of them carried a little distance away without doing it any harm at all. It is apparent from this that these were not natural wolves, but were rather witches who had helped to cause the hailstorm, and had come to witness the damage which they had caused. ​Also there was one which was larger than the others, and always went in front; and Groz-Jacques Bocquet, Thievenne Paget, la Michollette and several others said that, when they ran about in the shape of wolves, Satan used also to assume the form of a wolf and led and guided them.
The people of this country ought to know as much as any others about were-wolves; for they have always been known here. In the year 1521 three witches were executed:—Michael Udon of Plane, which is a little village near Poligny; Philibert Montot; and one called Gros Pierre. These men confessed that they had changed themselves into wolves and in that form had killed and eaten several people. While he was in the shape of a wolf, Michael Udon was wounded by a gentleman, who followed and found him in his hut where his wife was bathing his wound; but he had then resumed the form of a man. There have for a long time been pictures of these three witches in the Church of the Jacobins at Poligny. And in 1573 Gilles Garnier also confessed that he had made himself into a wolf, and in that form had killed and eaten several children, and was burned alive at Dôle by order of the Court. Here it will be relevant to recount what happened in the year 1588 in a village about two leagues from Apchon in the highlands of Auvergne. One evening a gentleman, standing at the window of his château, saw a huntsman whom he knew passing by, and asked him to bring him some of his bag on his return. As the huntsman went his way along a valley, he was attacked by a large wolf and discharged his arquebus at it without hurting it. ​He was therefore compelled to grapple with the wolf, and caught it by the ears; but at length, growing weary, he let go of the wolf, drew back and took his big hunting knife, and with it cut off one of the wolf’s paws, which he put in his pouch after the wolf had run away. He then returned to the gentleman’s château, in sight of which he had fought the wolf. The gentleman asked him to give him part of his bag; and the huntsman, wishing to do so and intending to take the paw from his pouch, drew from it a hand wearing a gold ring on one of the fingers, which the gentleman recognised as belonging to his wife. This caused him to entertain an evil suspicion of her; and going into the kitchen, he found his wife nursing her arm in her apron, which he took away, and found that her hand had been cut off. Thereupon the gentleman seized hold of her; but immediately, and as soon as she had been confronted with her hand, she confessed that it was no other than she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter; and she was afterwards burned at Ryon. This was told me by one who may be believed, who went that way fifteen days after this thing had happened. So much for men being changed into the shape of wolves.
But they are sometimes also changed into the shapes of other animals. For we read that Circe changed the companions of Ulysses into swine:
Circe did with her chants accursed and strange The wretched comrades of Ulysses change.
And Lucian and Apuleius confessed that they were formerly changed into asses. It is probable that this is what happened to certain pilgrims ​who were crossing the Alps, according to the evidence of St. Augustine: De Civit. XVIII. 17.as also to an Englishman who, says Guillaume Archbishop of Tyre, was thus metamorphosed by a witch of Cyprus while kneeling in a church; and to another mentioned by Vincent of Beauvais in his “Mirror,”VII. 11.and by Baptista Fulgosus, who after he had been dipped in water returned to his former shape. Bodin.Others also have held that the ass which Belon in his “Observations” says that he saw in Cairo in Egypt was none other than a transformed man.
Cf. Bart. de Spin. de Strig. c. 19.Others have been changed into cats. In our own time one named Charcot of the bailiwick of Gez was attacked by night in a wood by a number of cats; but when he made the sign of the Cross they all vanished. And more recently a horseman was passing by the Château de Joux and saw several cats up a tree; he approached and discharged a carbine which he was carrying, thereby causing a ring with several keys attached to it to fall from the tree. These he took to the village, and when he asked for dinner at the inn, neither the hostess nor the keys of the cellar could be found. He showed the bunch of keys which he was carrying, and the host recognised them as his wife’s, who meanwhile came up, wounded in the right hip. Her husband seized her, and she confessed that she had just come from the Sabbat, where she had lost her keys after having been wounded in the hip by a shot from a carbine.
The Inquisitors also tell that in their time there were seen three large cats near the town of Strasbourg, which afterwards resumed the shape of women.
​At other times men have been seen in the shape of a horse. Fulg. VIII. 2.Præstantius took the form of a horse; and an Egyptian’s wife cured by St. Macharius that of a mare.
Again, there have been those who have been accused of changing themselves into hares, as was Pierre Gandillon, who was burned alive in this place.
But even if we had no other proof than the history of Nabuchodonosor,Dan. 4. that would suffice for us to believe that the metamorphosis of a man into a beast is possible. For it is said that this Prince was changed into an ox, and lived for seven years like a beast, eating straw.
Gen. 19. Luke 17. I. 19.The fact of transformation can again be proved from the example of Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt which was still to be seen in the time of Josephus, as he himself testifies in his “Antiquities.” It is again instanced in the transmutation of all sorts of herbs and plants into various kinds of worms and serpents, which are all endowed with their appropriate forms and qualities, as we read in Cardan.De Subtil. XVIII. Also we observe that if a woman’s hair be hidden in dung, it is changed to a serpent, as also is a rotten rod or wand. Ibid.And in the town of Darien, a Province of the New World, drops of water are in summer turned to little green frogs.
Nevertheless it has always been my opinion that Lycanthropy is an illusion, and that the metamorphosis of a man into a beast is impossible. For it would necessitate one of two things:—either the man who is changed into a beast must keep his soul and power of reason, or he must lose this at the moment of metamorphosis. Now the first point cannot be admitted, since it is ​impossible for the body of a brute beast to contain a reasoning soul. We know by experience that the wisdom or folly of a man is governed by the temperature of his brain, and that those with small heads are not usually very wise: then how can we believe that a soul gifted with reason can make its lodging in the head of a wolf or an ass or a cat or a horse or a hare? Gen. 1.Besides, it is said in Genesis that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and this principally refers to the soul; and would it not be unspeakably absurd to maintain that so beautiful and holy a likeness should inhabit the body of a beast? Therefore I think that Homer was in error when, speaking of the companions of Ulysses who were changed into swine by Circe, he says that they had the hair, head and body of swine, but that their reason remained intact.
But if, on the other hand, a man loses his reasoning soul when he is metamorphosed, how is it possible for him to recover it, and for it to return into him when he resumes the shape of a man? Cf. Richard, Discours des Miracles, c. 38.If this were possible we should have to admit that the Devil can perform miracles, if we grant truth of the maxim of the Philosophers, that “That which is lost can never be recovered.” But then I ask, Where does Satan put the soul when it is separated from its body? Does he cause it to wander in the air, or does he shut it up somewhere until the Lycanthrope has resumed his human shape? Certainly I cannot think that God permits him who has sworn our utter ruin to play such tricks with us. Aristotle was far nearer the truth when he said that the soul no more leaves its body than a pilot leaves his ship. In conclusion I believe that the ​transmutation of a man into a beast in the manner we speak of is so much the less possible in that the truth is that He alone to whom creation belongs can change the forms of things. St. August. St. Thom. Binsfeld, de Confess. malef., 3. dub. princip. post præclud. conclud. 2. Psal. 8.And it would be a shameful thing for man, to whom all the beasts of the earth are subject, to be clothed in the form of a beast. For the Law has so much respect for the human face, since it was formed in the likeness of celestial beauty, that it has not permitted it to be disfigured even by branding or otherwise as a punishment for any crime. C. Episopi 26. q. 5.A Council has even pronounced those to be infidels who believe in Lycanthropy and the metamorphosis of a man into a beast.
St. Jerome, Epipha. and many others quoted by Binsfeld, d. 3. dub. conclus. 3.As for Nabuchodonosor, he was never changed into an ox; but he thought he was so changed, and therefore went with the brute beasts and lived as they did. This is very clearly shown by the words of the Holy Scripture, which are epeated three times in the same chapter:Dan. 4. “Thou shalt eat grass as oxen.” But even if we were to admit that this Prince was truly changed into an ox, it would not follow from that that witches have the power, with the help of Satan, to change themselves into wolves. For as to the former case, we must say with the magicians of Pharaoh:Exod. 8. “This is the finger of God.” In the same light I would regard what I have said of Lot’s wife.
As for the herbs, and drops of water, and woman’s hair which are changed into worms and serpents and frogs, this comes about through corruption and putrefaction, by which imperfect animals are engendered; but this does not apply in the case of Lycanthropes.
There have been those who have flatly ​contradicted the changing of a man into a beast, holding that the Lycanthrope did its work in the spirit only, whilst its body lay lifeless behind some bush. But there is no more truth in this than in the former opinion; for if it be true that, when the soul is separated from the body, death must necessarily ensue, how is it possible for Satan to bring the witch back to life, seeing that to do so is possible with God only, Chap. 17.as we have fully shown elsewhere?
My own opinion is that Satan sometimes leaves the witch asleep behind a bush, and himself goes and performs that which the witch has in mind to do, giving himself the appearance of a wolf; but that he so confuses the witch’s imagination that he believes he has really been a wolf and has run about and killed men and beasts. He acts in just the same way as when he causes witches to believe firmly that they have been to the Sabbat, although they have really been lying in their beds; and it is likely that the ointment with which they rub themselves only serves to deaden their senses so that they do not awake for a long time. And when it happens that they find themselves wounded, it is Satan who immediately transfers to them the blow which he has received in his assumed body.
Notwithstanding, I maintain that for the most part it is the witch himself who runs about slaying: not that he is metamorphosed into a wolf, but that it appears to him that he is so. And this comes from the Devil confusing the four Humours of which he is composed, so that he represents whatever he will to his fantasy and imagination. This will be easier to believe when it is considered that there are natural maladies of ​such a nature that they cause the sick to believe that they are cocks, or pigs, or oxen. de Subtil. lib. 18.And here I shall set down what Cardan relates of André Osiander of Nuremberg, a man well versed in theology. This man was in his youth afflicted with a quartan fever; and when it attacked him, he thought that he was in a forest and that many serpents and other savage beasts attacked him; and there was no means of persuading him that he was only imagining this, and that he was all the time in his father’s house. And whenever his father came to him, he always came back to his senses and recognised the house, the room and his friends; but when his father went away again, he again fell into his former sickness and imaginings, which continued for as long as the fever lasted. It is in the same way that those who are feverish, having their palates out of order, cannot correctly discriminate between different dishes. And when people see the witch in this shape, and think that it is really a wolf, the fact is that the Devil befogs and deceives their sight so that they think they see what is not; for such fascination is commonly used by the Devil and his demons, as we know from several examples. Simon Magus told the Emperor Nero that he might cut off his head, and he would come to life again on the third day; but he substituted a sheep, which they beheaded thinking that it was he. Clem. de recogn. lib. 10.He also so troubled the eyes of St. Clement and several other holy persons that they mistook Simon for Faustinian. Again, there was once brought to St. Macharius a young woman whom everybody took to be a mare. About twelve years ago at Uzelle, which is a village in the department of Baume in our country, a certain man’s house ​appeared to be all on fire, so that all the inhabitants ran to extinguish it as they usually do in such cases; but after about an hour they saw the house standing whole and quite undamaged; and this happened on three separate occasions, and was contrived by a certain chambermaid, as I was told by Monsieur Jean Cretenet, the Lord of Thalenay, a Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Besançon, who was himself present on one of these occasions. I also know of this from the report of the trial sent to me by the Lord Ayme Morel of Besançon. Consider also our card manipulators. I have seen an Italian Count named l’Escot, who practised this marvellously: he would put a ten of spades in your hand, and you would always end by finding that it was the king of hearts, or some other different card. Those in whose presence he did these tricks were men of wit who were very careful to make sure whether it was only a matter of sleight of hand. There is no doubt but that he cast some glamour over their eyes; for he also turned his back to them and muttered I know not what between his teeth when he did these sleight-of-hand tricks.
But why should we find anything very strange in this fascination by which Satan makes a man appear like a wolf to us? For, among other naturalists, Albert, Cardan and Giovanni Battista Porta of Naples have taught us how to cause men’s heads to seem like those of horses and asses and other animals, and their snouts like a dog’s. They even have means to make men appear like angels. And therefore I am the less surprised at the formulas which they also give for causing a house to appear silvery, luminous, ​green, full of serpents, and to assume other terrible forms. This is consonant with what we have just said of the house at Uzelle.
The following examples also are pertinent to our subject with regard to the last point which we have just touched upon.
About three years ago Benoist Bidel of Naizan, a lad of fifteen or sixteen, climbed a tree to pick some fruit, leaving his younger sister at the foot of the tree. The girl was then attacked by a wolf without a tail; whereupon the brother quickly climbed down from the tree. The wolf then left the girl and turned to the boy, and took from him a knife which he was carrying, and wounded him in the neck with it. People ran to the boy’s assistance, and led him into his father’s house, where he died of his wounds in a few days. But before he died he declared that the wolf which had wounded him had its two forefeet like a man’s hands covered on the top with hair. They knew then that it was Perrenette Gandillon who had killed him; for she tried to make her escape after striking the blow, and was killed by the peasants.
Similarly Jeanne Perrin deposed that while she was going through a wood with Clauda Gaillard, Clauda said to her that she had received more alms than she; and then she went behind a bush, and Jeanne saw come from it a wolf without a tail, which pranced round her and so frightened her that she let fall her alms and ran away, after having protected herself with the sign of the Cross; and she added that this wolf had toes on its hind feet like a human being. There is a strong presumption that this wolf was no other than Clauda Gaillard; for she afterwards told ​Jeanne that the wolf which attacked her would not have done her any harm. And as for the hands and the toes which were recognised by Benoist Bidel and Jeanne Perrin, are they not evidence that Perrenette Gandillon and Clauda Gaillard were not really transformed into wolves? We may say the same of the wife of the gentleman of Auvergne, of whom we wrote above, whose hand was found in the hunter’s pouch instead of a paw. This agrees also with what Job Fincel says of his Lycanthrope of Padua, namely, that, when its paws were cut off, the man was found with his hands and feet cut off.
The confessions of Jacques Bocquet, Françoise Secretain, Clauda Jamguillaume, Clauda Jamprost, Thievenne Paget, Pierre Gandillon and George Gandillon are very relevant to our argument; for they said that, in order to turn themselves into wolves, they first rubbed themselves with an ointment, and then Satan clothed them in a wolf’s skin which completely covered them, and that they then went on all-fours and ran about the country chasing now a person and now an animal according to the guidance of their appetite. They confessed also that they tired themselves with running. I remember once asking Clauda Jamprost how she was so well able to follow the others, even when they had to climb up rocks, seeing that she was both old and lame; and she answered me that she was borne along by Satan. But this in no way renders them immune from fatigue. Remy, Demonol. I. 24.For they who are carried by the Devil to the Sabbat say that when they arrive there, or when they return to their houses, they are quite weary and fatigued.
​In company with the Lord Claude Meynier, our Recorder, I have seen those I have named go on all-fours in a room just as they did when they were in the fields; but they said that it was impossible for them to turn themselves into wolves, since they had no more ointment, and they had lost the power of doing so by being imprisoned. I have further noted that they were all scratched on the face and hands and legs; and that Pierre Gandillon was so much disfigured in this way that he bore hardly any resemblance to a man, and struck with horror those who looked at him. Finally, the clothes of the children which they have killed and eaten have been found in the fields quite whole and without a single tear; so that there was every appearance of the children having been undressed by human hands.
Who now can doubt but that these witches themselves ran about and committed the acts and murders of which we have spoken? For what was the cause of the fatigue which they experienced? If they had been sleeping behind some bush, how did they become fatigued? What caused the scratches on their persons, if it was not the thorns and bushes through which they ran in their pursuit of man and animals? Again, is it not the work of human hands to unclothe a child in the manner we have described? I say nothing of their confessions, which are all in agreement with one another.
I am well aware that there are those who cannot believe that witches eat human flesh. But such people ought to consider that from all time there have been tribes which use this practice, even if they were not were-wolves, and that they have therefore been called Anthropophagi; and that ​it is even said that there are still a great number of them in Brazil and the lands of the New World, whose chief boast is to have eaten many of their enemies. Witches go even further; for they take down the corpses from gibbets in order to eat their flesh. Lucan says:
She gnaws the rope through with her witch’s teeth, She drags the gibbet down, unhangs the corpse, And then in cruel banqueting tears out The stomach’s entrails and the marrow bones.
Horace also gives us sufficient evidence that witches are hungry for human flesh:
From the bloated body of an aged witch They cut a child which was not yet quite dead.
And Apuleius in the “Golden Ass” says that there were witches in Thessaly who used to search everywhere for dead bodies, so that if a corpse was not carefully guarded it would be found all gnawed about the nose and cheeks and mouth and several other parts. Cf. Bodin, Demonom. IV. 5.Not long ago at Nancy in Lorraine the corpse of one who had been tortured was left in the road outside the town; and it was found that during the night a thigh and a leg had been cut off from the body. There were many various opinions concerning this event; but for my part I maintain that only a witch did this deed; for on the same night there was seen a spectre hovering about the body, which so frightened a passer-by that, although he put his hand to his sword, he was compelled to run away into the town.
Fulgosus also mentions a villager who was ​burned alive because she had killed several children and salted them to keep as food for herself.
I am only puzzled by the fact that our witches said that they could not eat the head or the right side of those whom they killed, Groz-Jacques stated that he could not touch the head, by reason of the Holy Chrism with which it is anointed; and Clauda Jamguillaume said that they did not touch the right side because the sign of the Cross is made with the right hand. But I do not know that these are sufficient reasons, although they are largely substantiated by the strength and power which lies in the Cross and the Holy Chrism, of which we shall hereafter speak more fully.
And if anyone ask with what instrument witches, when appearing to be wolves, effect the death of those whom they kill, I shall answer that they have only too many contrivances for this purpose. For sometimes they use knives and swords, as did Perrenette Gandillon, who killed Benoist Bidel with his own knife; and therefore he who painted the three were-wolves of Poligny represented them as each carrying a knife in its right paw. At other times they drag their victims through rocks and stones, and so kill them. Clauda Jamprost, Clauda Jamguillaume and Thievenne Paget confessed that they did this. I make no doubt also that, for the most part, they strangle them.
For the rest, Jacques Bocquet and Pierre Gandillon said that, when they wished to turn into wolves, they rubbed themselves with an ointment given them by the Devil. Michel Udon, Gros Pierre and others confessed the same.
​They said also that, when they wished to resume their former shape, they rolled in the dew or washed themselves with water. This agrees with Sprenger’s statement that a man who has been changed into a beast loses that shape when he is bathed in running water. Again, the man mentioned by Vincent of Beauvais, who was changed into an ass, resumed his human shape when he was dipped in the water. Apuleius gives another method for restoring a man from the shape of an ass, which is to eat fresh roses or else anise and laurel leaves together with, spring water. Pierre Burgot similarly said that, to lose his wolf’s shape, he rubbed himself with certain herbs. But since, as we have shown, the metamorphosis of a man into a beast is for countless reasons a very controversial subject, we must not pay much attention to these remedies. Moreover, I believe that most often witches who think that they are wolves neither wash nor anoint themselves in order to resume their natural shape. I had nearly omitted to say that were-wolves couple with natural wolves according to the confessions of Michel Udon and Gros Pierre, who said that they had as much pleasure in the act as if they had been embracing their wives.
So much have I thought good to set down concerning Lycanthropes or were-wolves. Yet I should be sorry to leave this subject without reprimanding those who would excuse them and cast the blame for all that they do upon Satan, as if they were entirely innocent. For it is apparent from what I have said that it is the witches themselves who run about and kill people; so that we may here apply the Proverb which says: “Man is a wolf to man.” And even if they were ​guilty in nothing but their damnable intention, they should still be thought worthy of death, L. 1. de Siccar. cum similib.seeing that the law takes cognisance of the intention even in matters which are not very serious, although nothing has actually resulted from such intention. I may add that such people never have this intention, except those who have first renounced God and Heaven.