Transmogrified

In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shape-shifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' and the ''Iliad''. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture.

Folklore and mythology

Popular shape-shifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), ichchadhari naag and ichchadhari naagin (shape-shifting cobras) of India, the huli jing of East Asia (including the Japanese ''kitsune'' and Korean ''kumiho''), and the gods, goddesses, and demons and demonesses like succubus and incubus and other numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. Shape-shifting to the form of a gray wolf is specifically known as lycanthropy, and such creatures who undergo such change are called lycanthropes. Therianthropy is the more general term for human-animal shifts, but it is rarely used in that capacity. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.

Other terms for shapeshifters include metamorph, the Navajo skin-walker, mimic, and therianthrope. The prefix "were-", coming from the Old English word for "man" (masculine rather than generic), is also used to designate shapeshifters; despite its root, it is used to indicate female shapeshifters as well.

While the popular idea of a shapeshifter is of a human being who turns into something else, there are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves as well.

Greco-Roman

Examples of shape-shifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', Circe's transforming of Odysseus' men to pigs in Homer's ''The Odyssey'', and Apuleius's Lucius becoming a donkey in ''The Golden Ass''. Proteus was noted among the gods for his shape-shifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his various changes. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason.

The Oceanid Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena, was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. In one story, she was so proud, that her husband, Zeus, tricked her into changing into a fly. He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. Metis, however, was already pregnant. She stayed alive inside his head and built armor for her daughter. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have a headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. Athena sprang from her father's head, fully grown, and in battle armor.

In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them.
* Zeus transformed King Lycaon and his children into wolves (hence lycanthropy) as a punishment for either killing Zeus' children or serving him the flesh of Lycaon's own murdered son Nyctimus, depending on the exact version of the myth.
* Ares assigned Alectryon to keep watch for Helios the sun god during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery and humiliation that morning. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows to signal the morning and the arrival of the sun.
* Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone. She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.
* Athena transformed Arachne into a spider for challenging her as a weaver and/or weaving a tapestry that insulted the gods. She also turned Nyctimene into an owl, though in this case it was an act of mercy, as the girl wished to hide from the daylight out of shame from being raped by her father.
* Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag for spying on her bathing, and he was later devoured by his own hunting dogs.
* Galanthis was transformed into a weasel or cat after interfering in Hera's plans to hinder the birth of Heracles.
* Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions after making love in a temple dedicated to Zeus or Cybele.
* Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was raped by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection.
* Hera punished young Tiresias by transforming him into a woman and, seven years later, back into a man.
* King Tereus, his wife Procne and her sister Philomela were all turned into birds (a hoopoe, a swallow and a nightingale respectively), after Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue, and in revenge she and Procne served him the flesh of his murdered son Itys (who in some variants is resurrected as a goldfinch).
* Callisto was turned into a bear by either Artemis or Hera for being impregnated by Zeus.
* Selene transformed Myia into a fly when she became a rival for the love of Endymion.

While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa, turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse (raped in Ovid's version) with Poseidon in Athena's temple – even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure. Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortals as a means of gaining access:
* Danaë as a shower of gold
* Europa as a bull
* Leda as a swan
* Ganymede, as an eagle
* Alcmene as her husband Amphitryon
* Hera as a cuckoo
* Aegina as an eagle or a flame
* Persephone as a serpent
* Io, as a cloud
* Callisto as either Artemis or Apollo
* Nemesis (Goddess of retribution) transformed into a goose to escape Zeus' advances, but he turned into a swan. She later bore the egg in which Helen of Troy was found.

Vertumnus transformed himself into an old woman to gain entry to Pomona's orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him.

In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from rape, and was transformed ( Daphne into laurel, Cornix into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other gods' shape-shifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed.

In one tale, Demeter transformed herself into a mare to escape Poseidon, but Poseidon counter-transformed himself into a stallion to pursue her, and succeeded in the rape. Caenis, having been raped by Poseidon, demanded of him that she be changed to a man. He agreed, and she became Caeneus, a form he never lost, except, in some versions, upon death.

Clytie was a nymph who loved Helios, but he did not love her back. Desperate, she sat on a rock with no food or water for nine days looking at him as he crossed the skies, until she was transformed into a purple, sun-gazing flower, the heliotropium.

As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemon were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees.

Eos, the goddess of the dawn, secured immortality for her lover the Trojan prince Tithonus, but not eternal youth, so he aged without dying as he shriveled and grew more and more helpless. In the end, Eos transformed him into a cicada.

In some variants of the tale of Narcissus, he is turned into a narcissus flower.

Sometimes metamorphoses transformed objects into humans. In the myths of both Jason and Cadmus, one task set to the hero was to sow dragon's teeth; on being sown, they would metamorphose into belligerent warriors, and both heroes had to throw a rock to trick them into fighting each other to survive. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulated the world after a flood by throwing stones behind them; they were transformed into people. Cadmus is also often known to have transformed into a dragon or serpent towards the end of his life. Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea, a statue he had made. Aphrodite had pity on him and transformed the stone to a living woman.

British and Irish

Fairies, witches, and wizards were all noted for their shape-shifting ability. Not all fairies could shapeshift, some having only the appearance of shape-shifting, through their power, called "glamour," to create illusions, and some were limited to changing their size, as with the spriggans, and others to a few forms. But others, such as the Hedley Kow, could change to many forms, and both human and supernatural wizards were capable of both such changes, and inflicting them on others.

Witches could turn into hares and in that form steal milk and butter.

Many British fairy tales, such as ''Jack the Giant Killer'' and ''The Black Bull of Norroway'', feature shape-shifting.

Celtic mythology

Pwyll was transformed by Arawn into Arawn's own shape, and Arawn transformed himself into Pwyll's, so that they could trade places for a year and a day.

Llwyd ap Cil Coed transformed his wife and attendants into mice to attack a crop in revenge; when his wife is captured, he turned himself into three clergymen in succession to try to pay a ransom.

Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion transform flowers into a woman named Blodeuwedd, and when she betrays her husband Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who is transformed into an eagle, they transform her again, into an owl.

Gilfaethwy committed rape on Goewin, Math fab Mathonwy's virgin footholder, with help from his brother Gwydion. Both were transformed into animals, for one year each. Gwydion was transformed into a stag, sow and wolf, and Gilfaethwy into a hind, boar and she-wolf. Each year, they had a child. Math turned the three young animals into boys.

Gwion, having accidentally taken some of the wisdom potion that Ceridwen was brewing for her son, fled from her through a succession of changes that she answered with changes of her own, ending with his being eaten, a grain of corn, by her as a hen. She became pregnant, and he was reborn in a new form, as Taliesin.

Tales abound about the selkie, a seal that can remove its skin to make contact with humans for only a short amount of time before it must return to the sea. Clan MacColdrum of Uist's foundation myths include a union between the founder of the clan and a shape-shifting selkie. Another such creature is the Scottish selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In ''The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry'' the (male) selkie seduces a human woman. Such stories surrounding these creatures are usually romantic tragedies.

Scottish mythology features shapeshifters, which allows the various creatures to trick, deceive, hunt, and kill humans. Water spirits such as the each-uisge, which inhabit lochs and waterways in Scotland, were said to appear as a horse or a young man. Other tales include kelpies who emerge from lochs and rivers in the disguise of a horse or woman in order to ensnare and kill weary travelers. Tam Lin, a man captured by the Queen of the Fairies is changed into all manner of beasts before being rescued. He finally turned into a burning coal and was thrown into a well, whereupon he reappeared in his human form. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is a common thread in folktales.

Perhaps the best-known Irish myth is that of Aoife who turned her stepchildren, the Children of Lir, into swans to be rid of them. Likewise, in the ''Tochmarc Étaíne'', Fuamnach jealously turns Étaín into a butterfly. The most dramatic example of shape-shifting in Irish myth is that of Tuan mac Cairill, the only survivor of Partholón's settlement of Ireland. In his centuries long life he became successively a stag, a wild boar, a hawk and finally a salmon prior to being eaten and (as in the Wooing of Étaín) reborn as a human.

The Púca is a Celtic faery, and also a deft shapeshifter. He can transform into many different, terrifying forms.

Sadhbh, the wife of the famous hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, was changed into a deer by the druid Fer Doirich when she spurned his amorous interests.

Norse

There is a significant amount of literature about shapeshifters that appear in a variety of Norse tales.

In the Lokasenna, Odin and Loki taunt each other with having taken the form of females and nursing offspring to which they had given birth. A 13th-century Edda relates Loki taking the form of a mare to bear Odin's steed Sleipnir which was the fastest horse ever to exist, and also the form of a she-wolf to bear Fenrir.

Svipdagr angered Odin, who turned him into a dragon. Despite his monstrous appearance, his lover, the goddess Freyja, refused to leave his side. When the warrior Hadding found and slew Svipdagr, Freyja cursed him to be tormented by a tempest and shunned like the plague wherever he went. In the '' Hyndluljóð'', Freyja transformed her protégé Óttar into a boar to conceal him. She also possessed a cloak of falcon feathers that allowed her to transform into a falcon, which Loki borrowed on occasion.

The Volsunga saga contains many shape-shifting characters. Siggeir's mother changed into a wolf to help torture his defeated brothers-in-law with slow and ignominious deaths. When one, Sigmund, survived, he and his nephew and son Sinfjötli killed men wearing wolfskins; when they donned the skins themselves, they were cursed to become werewolves.

The dwarf Andvari is described as being able to magically turn into a pike. Alberich, his counterpart in Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', using the Tarnhelm, takes on many forms, including a giant serpent and a toad, in a failed attempt to impress or intimidate Loki and Odin/Wotan.

Fafnir was originally a dwarf, a giant or even a human, depending on the exact myth, but in all variants he transformed into a dragon—a symbol of greed—while guarding his ill-gotten hoard. His brother, Ótr, enjoyed spending time as an otter, which led to his accidental slaying by Loki.

In Scandinavia, there existed, for example, the famous race of she-werewolves known with a name of Maras, women who took on the appearance of huge half-human and half-wolf monsters that stalked the night in search of human or animal prey. If a woman gives birth at midnight and stretches the membrane which envelopes the child when it is brought forth, between four sticks and creeps through it, naked, she will bear children without pain; but all the boys will be shamans, and all the girls Maras.

The Nisse is sometimes said to be a shapeshifter. This trait also is attributed to Hulder.

Gunnhild, Mother of Kings (''Gunnhild konungamóðir'') (c. 910  –  c. 980), a quasi-historical figure who appears in the Icelandic Sagas, according to which she was the wife of Eric Bloodaxe, was credited with magic powers – including the power of shape-shifting
and turning at will into a bird. She is the central character of the novel ''Mother of Kings'' by Poul Anderson, which considerably elaborates on her shape-shifting abilities.

Indian

* Shape-shifting cobra: A common male cobra will become an ''ichchadhari naag'' (male shape-shifting cobra) and a common female cobra will become an ''ichchadhari naagin'' (female shape-shifting cobra) after 100 years of tapasya (penance). After being blessed by Lord Shiva, they attain a human form of their own, have the ability to shape-shifting into any living creatures and could live for more than a hundred years without getting old.

*Yoginis were associated with the power of shape-shifting into female animals.

*In the Indian fable ''The Dog Bride'' from ''Folklore of the Santal Parganas'' by Cecil Henry Bompas, a buffalo herder falls in love with a dog that has the power to turn into a woman when she bathes.

*In Kerala, there was a legend about the ''Odiyan'' clan, who in Kerala folklore are men believed to possess shape-shifting ability and can assume animal forms. Odiyans are said to have inhabited the Malabar region of Kerala before the widespread use of electricity.

Armenian

In Armenian mythology, shapeshifters include the ''Nhang'', a serpentine river monster than can transform itself into a woman or seal, and will drown humans and then drink their blood; or the beneficial ''Shahapet'', a guardian spirit that can appear either as a man or a snake."Armenian Mythology"
by Mardiros H. Ananikiam, in ''Bullfinch's Mythology''

Philippines

Philippine mythology includes the Aswang, a vampiric monster capable of transforming into a bat, a large black dog, a black cat, a black boar or some other form in order to stalk humans at night. The folklore also mentions other beings such as the Kapre, the Tikbalang and the Engkanto, which change their appearances to woo beautiful maidens. Also, talismans (called "''anting-anting''" or "''birtud''" in the local dialect), can give their owners the ability to shape-shifting. In one tale, ''Chonguita the Monkey Wife'', a woman is turned into a monkey, only becoming human again if she can marry a handsome man.

Tatar

Tatar folklore includes Yuxa, a hundred-year-old snake that can transform itself into a beautiful young woman, and seeks to marry men in order to have children.

Chinese

Chinese mythology contains many tales of animal shapeshifters, capable of taking on human form. The most common such shapeshifter is the huli jing, a fox spirit which usually appears as a beautiful young woman; most are dangerous, but some feature as the heroines of love stories. ''Madame White Snake'' is one such legend; a snake falls in love with a man, and the story recounts the trials that she and her husband faced.

Japanese

In Japanese folklore obake are a type of yōkai with the ability to shape-shifting. The fox, or kitsune is among the most commonly known, but other such creatures include the bakeneko, the mujina and the tanuki.

Korean

Korean mythology also contains a fox with the ability to shape-shifting. Unlike its Chinese and Japanese counterparts, the kumiho is always malevolent. Usually its form is of a beautiful young woman; one tale recounts a man, a would-be seducer, revealed as a kumiho. The kumiho has nine tails and as she desires to be a full human, she uses her beauty to seduce men and eat their hearts (or in some cases livers where the belief is that 100 livers would turn her into a real human).

Somali

In Somali mythology ''Qori ismaris'' ("One who rubs himself with a stick") was a man who could transform himself into a " Hyena-man" by rubbing himself with a magic stick at nightfall and by repeating this process could return to his human state before dawn.

Southern Africa

ǀKaggen is Mantis, a demi-urge and folk hero of the ǀXam people of southern Africa. He is a trickster god who can shape shift, usually taking the form of a praying mantis but also a bull eland, a louse, a snake, and a caterpillar.

Trinidad and Tobago

The Ligahoo or loup-garou is the shapeshifter of Trinidad and Tobago's folklore. This unique ability is believed to be handed down in some old creole families, and is usually associated with witch-doctors and practitioners of African magic.

Mapuche (Argentina and Chile)

The name of the Nahuel Huapi Lake in Argentina derives from the toponym of its major island in Mapudungun (Mapuche language): "Island of the Jaguar (or Puma)", from ''nahuel'', "puma (or jaguar)", and ''huapí'', "island". There is, however, more to the word "Nahuel" – it can also signify "a man who by sorcery has been transformed into a puma" (or jaguar).

Slavic Mythology

In Slavic Mythology, one of the main gods Veles was a shape-shifting god of animals, magic and the underworld. He was often represented as a bear, wolf, snake or owl. He also became a dragon while fighting Perun, the Slavic storm god.

Folktales

* In the Finnish tale ''The Magic Bird'', three young sorceresses attempt to murder a man who keeps reviving. His revenge is to turn them into three black mares and have them harnessed to heavy loads until he is satisfied.
* In ''The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh'', a Northumbrian legend from about the thirteenth century, Princess Margaret of Bamburgh is transformed into a dragon by her stepmother; her motive sprung, like Snow White's stepmother's, from the comparison of their beauty.
* In Child ballad 35, "Allison Gross", the title witch turns a man into a wyrm for refusing to be her lover. This is a motif found in many legends and folktales.
* In the German tale ''The Frog's Bridegroom'', recorded by folklorist and ethnographer Gustav Jungbauer, the third of three sons of a farmer, Hansl, is forced to marry a frog, which eventually turns out to be a beautiful woman transformed by a spell.
* In some variants of the fairy tales, both ''The Frog Prince'' or more commonly ''The Frog Princess'' and Beast, of ''Beauty and the Beast'', are transformed as a form of punishment for some transgression. Both are restored to their true forms after earning a human's love despite their appearance.
* In the most famous Lithuanian folk tale ''Eglė the Queen of Serpents'', Eglė irreversibly transforms her children and herself into trees as a punishment for betrayal while her husband is able to reversibly morph into a serpent at will.
* In ''East of the Sun and West of the Moon'', the hero is transformed into a bear by his wicked stepmother, who wishes to force him to marry her daughter.
* In ''The Marmot Queen'' by Italo Calvino, a Spanish queen is turned into a rodent by Morgan le Fay.
* In The Mare of the Necromancer, a Turin Italian tale by Guido Gozzano, the Princess of Corelandia is turned into a horse by the baron necromancer for refusing to marry him. Only the love and intelligence of Candido save the princess from the spell.
* The Deer in The Wood, a Neapolitan tale written by Giambattista Basile, describes the transformation of Princess Desiderata into a doe by a jealous fairy.
* From a Croatian book of tales, Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources by A. H. Wratislaw, the fable entitled "The she-wolf" tells of a huge she-wolf with a habit of turning into a woman from time to time by taking off her skin. One day a man witnesses the transformation, steals her pelt and marries her.
* ''The Merchant's Sons'' is a Finnish story of two brothers, one of whom tries to win the hand of the tsar's wicked daughter. The girl does not like her suitor and endeavors to have him killed, but he turns her into a beautiful mare which he and his brother ride. In the end he turns her back into a girl and marries her.
* In ''Dapplegrim'' if the youth found the transformed princess twice, and hid from her twice, they would marry.
* In literary fairy tale ''The Beggar Princess'', in order to save her beloved prince, Princess Yvonne fulfills the tasks of cruel king Ironheart and is changed into an old woman.

Themes

shape-shifting may be used as a plot device, such as when Puss in Boots in the fairy tales tricks the ogre into becoming a mouse to be eaten. Shape-shifting may also include symbolic significance, like the Beast's transformation in ''Beauty and the Beast'' indicates Belle's ability to accept him despite his appearance.

When a form is taken on involuntarily, the thematic effect can be one of confinement and restraint; the person is ''bound'' to the new form. In extreme cases, such as petrifaction, the character is entirely disabled. On the other hand, voluntary shape-shifting can be a means of escape and liberation. Even when the form is not undertaken to resemble a literal escape, the abilities specific to the form allow the character to act in a manner that was previously impossible.

Examples of this are in fairy tales. A prince who is forced into a bear's shape (as in ''East of the Sun and West of the Moon'') is a prisoner, but a princess who takes on a bear's shape voluntarily to flee a situation (as in ''The She-Bear'') escapes with her new shape. In the Earthsea books, Ursula K. Le Guin depicts an animal form as slowly transforming the wizard's mind, so that the dolphin, bear or other creature forgets it was human, making it impossible to change back. This makes an example for a voluntary shape-shifting becoming an imprisoning metamorphosis.
Beyond this, the uses of shape-shifting, transformation, and metamorphosis in fiction are as protean as the forms the characters take on. Some are rare, such as Italo Calvino's "The Canary Prince" is a Rapunzel variant in which shape-shifting is used to gain access to the tower.

Punitive changes

In many cases, imposed forms are punitive in nature. This may be a just punishment, the nature of the transformation matching the crime for which it occurs; in other cases, the form is unjustly imposed by an angry and powerful person. In fairy tales, such transformations are usually temporary, but they commonly appear as the resolution of myths (as in many of the Metamorphoses) or produce origin myths.

Transformation chase

In many fairy tales and ballads, as in Child Ballad #44, '' The Twa Magicians'' or ''Farmer Weathersky'', a magical chase occurs where the pursued endlessly takes on forms in an effort to shake off the pursuer, and the pursuer answers with shape-shifting, as, a dove is answered with a hawk, and a hare with a greyhound. The pursued may finally succeed in escape or the pursuer in capturing.

The Grimm Brothers fairy tale ''Foundling-Bird'' contains this as the bulk of the plot.Vladimir Propp, ''Morphology of the Folk Tale'', p. 57, In the Italian Campania Fables collection of ''Pentamerone'' by Gianbattista Basile, tells of a Neapolitan princess who, to escape from her father who had imprisoned her, becomes a huge she-bear. The magic happens due to a potion given to her by an old witch. The girl, once gone, can regain her human aspect.

In other variants, the pursued may transform various objects into obstacles, as in the fairy tale "The Master Maid", where the Master Maid transforms a wooden comb into a forest, a lump of salt into a mountain, and a flask of water into a sea. In these tales, the pursued normally escapes after overcoming three obstacles. This obstacle chase is literally found worldwide, in many variants in every region.

In fairy tales of the Aarne–Thompson type 313A, The Girl Helps the Hero Flee, such a chase is an integral part of the tale. It can be either a transformation chase (as in ''The Grateful Prince'', ''King Kojata'', ''Foundling-Bird'', ''Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter'', or ''The Two Kings' Children'') or an obstacle chase (as in ''The Battle of the Birds'', '' The White Dove'', or ''The Master Maid'').

In a similar effect, a captive may shape-shifting in order to break a hold on him. Proteus and Nereus's shape-shifting was to prevent heroes such as Menelaus and Heracles from forcing information from them. Tam Lin, once seized by Janet, was transformed by the faeries to keep Janet from taking him, but as he had advised her, she did not let go, and so freed him. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through many transformations is found in folktales throughout Europe,Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, pp. 336–7, Dover Publications, New York 1965 and Patricia A. McKillip references it in her '' Riddle-Master trilogy'': a shape-shifting Earthmaster finally wins its freedom by startling the man holding it.

Powers

One motif is a shape change in order to obtain abilities in the new form. Berserkers were held to change into wolves and bears in order to fight more effectively. In many cultures, evil magicians could transform into animal shapes and thus skulk about.

In many fairy tales, the hero's talking animal helper proves to be a shapeshifted human being, able to help him in its animal form. In one variation, featured in ''The Three Enchanted Princes'' and ''The Death of Koschei the Deathless'', the hero's three sisters have been married to animals. These prove to be shapeshifted men, who aid their brother-in-law in a variant of tale types.

In an early Mayan text, the Shapeshifter, or Mestaclocan, has the ability to change his appearance and to manipulate the minds of animals. In one tale, the Mestaclocan finds a dying eagle. Changing into the form of an eagle, he convinces the dying bird that it is, in fact, not dying. As the story goes they both soar into the heavens, and lived together for eternity.

Bildungsroman

''Beauty and the Beast'' has been interpreted as a young woman's coming-of-age, in which she changes from being repulsed by sexual activity and regarding a husband therefore bestial, to a mature woman who can marry.

Needed items

Some shapeshifters are able to change form only if they have some item, usually an article of clothing. In ''Bisclavret'' by Marie de France, a werewolf cannot regain human form without his clothing, but in wolf form does no harm to anyone. The most common use of this motif, however, is in tales where a man steals the article and forces the shapeshifter, trapped in human form, to become his bride. This lasts until she discovers where he has hidden the article, and she can flee. Selkies feature in these tales. Others include swan maidens and the Japanese ''tennin

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