Note 119 — Chapter V
Reading edition
A still more sensational case happened at a village in the mountains of Auvergne. A gentleman while hunting was suddenly attacked by a savage wolf of monstrous size. Impenetrable by his shot, the beast made a spring upon the helpless huntsman, who in the struggle luckily, or unluckily for the unfortunate lady, contrived to cut off one of its fore-paws. This trophy he placed in his pocket, and made the best of his way homewards in safety. On the road he met a friend to whom he exhibited a bleeding paw, or rather a woman's hand (so it was produced from the hunter's pocket) upon which was a wedding ring. His wife's ring was at once recognised by the other. His suspicions aroused, he immediately went in search of his wife, who was found sitting by the fire in the kitchen, her arm hidden beneath her apron: when the husband seizing her by the arm found his terrible suspicions verified. The bleeding stump was there, evidently just fresh from the wound. She was given into custody, and in the event was burned at Riom in presence of thousands of spectators. Among some of the races of India, among the Khonds of the mountains of Orissa, a superstition obtains like that of the loup-garou of France. In India the tiger takes the place of the wolf, and the metamorphosed witch is there known as the Pulta-bag.
A kindred prejudice, Vampirism, has still many adherents in Eastern Europe. The vampire is a human being who in his tomb maintains a posthumous existence by ascending in the night and sucking the bodies of the living. His punishment was necessarily less tremendous than that of the witch: the dead body only being burned to ashes. An official document, quoted by Horst, narrates the particulars of the examination and burning of a disinterred vampire.