The belief that a human being is capable of assuming an animal’s form, most frequently that of a wolf, is an almost worldwide superstition. Such a transformed person is the Germanic werewolf, or man-wolf; that is, a wolf which is really a human being. 2 So the werewolf was a man in wolf’s form or wolf’s dress, 2 seen mostly at night, 3 and believed generally to be harmful to man. 4 The origin of this werewolf superstition has not been satisfactorily explained. Adolf Erman 5 explains the allusion

1 Note. —After the author had written the following article, she gathered most of the material contained in the notes. That the origin and development of the use of masks as given in the Annual Report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, p. 73 fol. (see note 32 ) is similar to the origin and development of the werewolf superstition itself, as given in the following pages, was an unexpected coincidence. The author has italicized some words in the quotations. 2 According to Mogk, in

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