A WITCH STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 208, 2 September 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

A WITCH STORY.

One of the oldest forms of magic was the transformation of a person into the shape of some animal or bird. In the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, the hero looks through the keyhole to see a witch change herself into an owl, and while trying a similar experiment is himself changed into an ass. Unfortunately he does not know the secret of resuming his own shape, except that he must Avait through the winter until the spring brings back the roses, when he must devour a rosebud, which will restore him. The book contains an account of his adventures and sufferings in this disguise. Now I have found a story in a chronicle, writes Sir Walter Besant, which is evidently a reminiscence of this superstition. The story is assigned to the eleventh csentury, a thousand years after Apuleius wrote. There were two old women living in a cottage near Rome. If a stranger came to a house alone, these ladies transformed him into a pig or a horse or some other animal, and sold him, spending the guilty proceeds in "wicked gluttony." Old .vomen, ay© know, are so very prone to the A'ice of gluttony. One day there passed along the road a young man who was by calling a minstrel and dancer. Him they transformed into a donkey. The victim preserved intellects and his skill after the transformation, and performed all his former feats and tricks in asinine shape. Nothing more wonderful was ever seen than a donkey who could do conjuring tricks, and could also dance and execute the most graceful capers ypu can imagine. Accordingly, these ladies Avere enabled to sell the animal for a large sum of money. A rich man bought him, and, whenever he had company, sent for him to amuse his friends. But the witches warned him that ho must neA^er suffer the donkey to be within, reach of running water. In the end the performing animal managed to reach a stream, he drank of the water, and instantly resumed his shape. "Where is my donkey?" asked Dives, bewildered and baffled. "I am the donkey," tlie young man replied. They took him to the Pope, who' heard the story, sent for the witches, and made short work with them.