688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the assistance of the Vilas, and may also become more or less of 

 their kind and acquire various arts from them. Men thus some- 

 times obtain the mystic power of changing themselves at pleasure 

 into an animal, as a horse or a wolf, and of doing much mischief. 

 Wizards and medical practitioners, men and women, boast of their 

 relationship and ascribe their skill to it. A dwarfish herdsman, 

 about forty years old, living in a cave in Odvorci, is distinguished 

 as a cheiromancist, and can tell from the lines of the hand what 

 herbs are good for a patient. He asserts that the Vilas had him 

 under instruction for seven years. A Bracara lives at Petersdorf, 

 to whom suffering Mohammedans come from Bosnia and pay two 

 golden ducats for a cure. He gets such prices because he pro- 

 fesses to be able in serious cases to hold consultations with the 

 Vilas. 



Toma Miemkovic, of Pleternica, told me the following story of 

 a woman changing into a wolf, vouching for its truth, because, as 

 he pretended, he had himself seen the person in question. There 

 lived a very rich man at Trapari, who possessed a great flock of 

 sheep, over which he put two shepherds and six dogs. Every day 

 a wolf appeared, ate up a sheep, and vanished, without any one 

 being able to see it. The overseer raged, and the sheep kept disap- 

 pearing till three fourths of them were gone. At last he became 

 desperate, when he was told by some one that there was no real 

 wolf, and was advised to get up early in the morning, put on all 

 his clothes, from his shoes to his cap, wrong-side out, drive the 

 sheep to the brook in the pasture, climb a tree and wait ; by means 

 of which he would be able to find out who the wolf was. He fol- 

 lowed this counsel. About noon an old woman of the neighbor- 

 hood came down with a pail on her head and drew water from 

 the brook. Then she lay on the grass, turned three somersaults, 

 changed into a wolf, seized the fattest wether — a four-year-old — 

 and ate him, wool, entrails, hoofs, and all. The man was on the 

 point of shooting her from the tree, but, as he knew her, thought 

 it better to punish her well at home. After the wolf had eaten 

 the sheep, it executed three more somersaults and turned back 

 into the old woman. The overseer came down from the tree and 

 chastised her well ; and, when her sons heard what she had been 

 doing, they cudgeled her so thoroughly that she could hardly bear 

 to have anything touch her. From that time on she never changed 

 into a wolf, or ate any more strange sheep. 



The womanly nature of the Vilas appears in their insatiable 

 revenge for scorn of their love. The following story corresponds 

 with the legend of the youth who knew no fear. The outcome in 

 the present case is the discomfiture of the rash man ; for, instead 

 of the usual ghost, Vilas appear as the spirits of revenge. 



There was once a Magyar who was so handsome that one could 



