In Italy also it is believed that there is a noxious¹ influence in the eye of a wolf; it is supposed that it will instantly take away the voice of a man, if it is the first to see him.[94] Africa and Egypt produce wolves of a sluggish² and stunted³ nature; 86 those of the colder climates are fierce and savage⁴. That men have been turned into wolves, and again restored to their original form, we must confidently look upon as untrue, unless, indeed, we are ready to believe all the tales, which, for so many ages, have been found to be fabulous⁵. But, as the belief of it has become so firmly fixed⁶ in the minds of the common people, as to have caused the term “Versipellis”[95] to be used as a common form of imprecation, I will here point out its origin. Euanthes, a Grecian author of no mean reputation, informs us that the Arcadians assert that a member of the family of Anthus is chosen by lot, and then taken to a certain lake in that district, where, after suspending his clothes on an oak, he swims across the water and goes away into the desert, where he is changed into a wolf and associates with other animals of the same species for a space of nine years. If he has kept himself from beholding⁷ a man during the whole of that time, he returns to the same lake, and, after swimming across it, resumes his original form, only with the addition of nine years in age to his former appearance. To this Fabius adds, that he takes his former clothes as well. It is really wonderful to what a length the credulity[96] of the Greeks will go! There is no falsehood, if ever so barefaced⁸, to which some of them cannot be found to bear testimony⁹.