TRANSFORMATION 247 



but the highest culture are full of shape-shifting. It 

 would be as vain to attempt to persuade a peasant 

 in remote parts of our own country that some poor 

 old woman was not a witch capable of turning herself 

 upon occasion into a hare, and in fact known to do so, 

 as to persuade a Wiradjuri in New South Wales that 

 a bugin, or medicine-man, was not able to turn himself 

 at will into an animal, or even the stump of a tree or 

 other inanimate object. 



If such a change may take place in a living person 

 still more freely may it take place by means of death. 

 It is quite clear that in many of the instances mentioned 

 in the foregoing pages the change is regarded as a direct 

 bodily change and not a reincarnation of the soul ; and 

 these might be paralleled without any difficulty from all 

 parts of the world. Let it suffice to refer to the Welsh 

 tale of Math ab Mathonwy. I n that tale we are told of a 

 hero named Llew LlawgyfTes who could not be slain 

 except when dressing after a bath. The bath must be 

 arranged by the side of a river ; it must be well roofed 

 over ; a buck must be brought and put beside the 

 caldron ; then if the hero put one foot on the edge of 

 the caldron and the other on the buck's back, in that 

 attitude whoever struck him would cause his death. 

 His treacherous wife Blodeuwedd concerts measures 

 with her paramour Gronw Pebyr and succeeds in 

 fulfilling the conditions. Gronw flung a poisoned dart 

 and struck him on the side, so that the head of the 

 dart remained in the wound. Llew Llawgyffes flew up 

 in the form of an eagle and disappeared. He was 

 afterwards traced by Gwydion, son of Don, and found 

 in a^miserable condition with his flesh putrefying from 

 the wound. By means of incantations Gwydion got 



