[NPPF] Canto Four: Versipellis

[s~Z]

Perhaps Mr. Shade's seizures were a bit stranger than we thought:

And that odd muse of mine,
My versipel, is with me everywhere,
In carrel and in car, and in my chair.

Thus we need no longer regard our werewolf as an inexplicable creature of
undetermined pedigree. But any account of him would be quite imperfect which
should omit all consideration of the methods by which his change of form was
accomplished. By the ancient Romans the werewolf was commonly called a "skin
changer" or "turn-coat" (versipellis), and similar epithets were applied to
him in the Middle Ages. The medieval theory was that, while the werewolf
kept his human form, his hair grew inwards; when he wished to become a wolf,
he simply turned himself inside out. In many trials on record, the prisoners
were closely interrogated as to how this inversion might be accomplished but
I am not aware that any one of them ever gave a satisfactory answer. At the
moment of change their memories seem to have become temporarily befogged.
Now and then a poor wretch had his arms and legs cut off or was partially
flayed, in order that the ingrowing hair might be detected. Another theory
was, that the possessed person had merely to put on a wolf's skin, in order
to assume instantly the lupine form and character; and in this may perhaps
be seen a vague reminiscence of the alleged fact that Berserkers were in the
habit of haunting the woods by night, clothed in the hides of wolves or
bears. Such a wolf-skin was kept by the boy Grenier. Roulet, on the other
hand, confessed to using a magic salve or ointment. A fourth method of
becoming a werewolf was to obtain a girdle, usually made of human skin.
Several cases are related in Thorpe's "Northern Mythology." One hot day in
harvest-time some reapers lay down to sleep in the shade; when one of them,
who could not sleep, saw the man next him arise quietly and gird him with a
strap, whereupon he instantly vanished, and a wolf jumped up from among the
sleepers and ran off across the fields. Another man, who possessed such a
girdle, once went away from home without remembering to lock it up. His
little son climbed up to the cupboard and got it, and as he proceeded to
buckle it around his waist, he became instantly transformed into a
strange-looking beast. Just then his father came in, and seizing the girdle
restored the child to his natural shape. The boy said that no sooner had he
buckled it on than he was tormented with a raging hunger.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/1871aug/fiskej.htm