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"Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus (fl. late 3rd to early 2nd century BC) was a Roman military officer and Senator who was elected Roman consul twice, and appointed dictator once. He fought in the Second Punic War and the First and Second Macedonian Wars. First consulship and the First Macedonian War A member of the Patrician gens Sulpicia, Sulpicius Galba was the son of Servius Sulpicius Galba. Although he had held no previous curule magistracy, the crisis of the Second Punic War saw him elected consul in 211 BC, alongside Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus Maximus. Entering his office on the Ides of March, both consuls defended the city of Rome against a surprise attack by the Carthaginian general Hannibal.Broughton, pgs. 272 & 277 Once the immediate crisis abated, and Hannibal retreated back to the south of Italy, provinces were allotted to the consuls. Although both were assigned to Apulia, the Senate, believing that Hannibal no longer posed a grave threat, decreed that one of the consuls only should remain in Apulia, and that the other should be assigned Macedonia for his province.In this context, “province” meant theatre of command, as there was no province of Macedonia yet. When lots were drawn as to who was to leave Apulia, Sulpicius Galba was appointed proconsul in Macedonia, succeeding Marcus Valerius Laevinus. There he continued fighting the First Macedonian War against Philip V of Macedon.Broughton, pg. 272 In early 210 BC, at the end of his consulship, his imperium was prolonged for another year, but due to the exaggerated reports which Laevinus had made of his own achievements during his proconsulship, Sulpicius Galba was ordered to disband his army, and retained the command of only one legion and of the socii navales (or the local fleet), and he was given a sum of money to ensure his troops were well supplied and provisioned. Given the size of his forces, Sulpicius Galba could not do much in 210 BC, but he did achieve the feat of leading the first Roman fleet into the Aegean Sea and capturing Aegina, which was plundered and given to the Aetolians, who were allied with the Romans. That same year he unsuccessfully tried to relieve Echinus, which was besieged by Philip of Macedon.Broughton, pg. 280 For the following year (209 BC), his imperium was again prolonged, with Macedonia and Greece as his provinces. Besides allying themselves with the Aetolian League, the Romans also allied themselves with Attalus I of Pergamon against Philip. Galba provided 1,000 Romans to help the Aetolians in the First Battle of Lamia, while he himself was stationed at Naupactus. When Philip appeared at Dyme on his march against Elis, Galba had landed with fifteen of his ships on the northern coast of the Peloponnesus, where his soldiers were ravaging and plundering the country. However, Philip's sudden arrival forced them to return to their camp at Naupactus. When Philip was forced to return to Macedon, which was threatened with an invasion by some neighbouring tribes, Galba sailed to Aegina, where he joined the fleet of Attalus, and where both took up their winter quarters.Broughton, pg. 287 In the spring of 208 BC, Galba and Attalus united their fleets of sixty ships in a joint operation, sailed to Lemnos, while Philip pulled together all of his resources to prepare for the expected assault. Attalus attacked Peparethus, and then crossed with Galba over to Nicaea. From there they moved to Euboea, to attack the town of Oreus, which was occupied by a Macedonian garrison, but was betrayed from within and surrendered to Galba. Encouraged by this easy conquest, he also made an attempt to take Chalcis, but found it was too difficult a task. He therefore sailed to Kynos, a port town of Locris.Broughton, pg. 292 With Attalus being driven back to Asia Minor, Galba returned to Aegina, and remained in Greece for the remainder of his proconsulship, during which time he gave little further assistance to the Aetolian League in their war against Philip.Broughton, pgs. 296 & 300 In 205 BC, he was replaced as proconsul in Greece by Publius Sempronius Tuditanus.Broughton, pg. 303 Dictatorship, second consulship and the Second Macedonian War In 203 BC, Sulpicius Galba was appointed Dictator, with Marcus Servilius Pulex Geminus appointed his Master of the Horse. Galba was given the task of holding the comitia elections and to possibly prevent the consul Gnaeus Servilius Caepio from crossing over to Africa to confront Hannibal. He also spent the rest of the year investigating cities and prominent individuals who had been alienated by the war with Carthage.Broughton, pg. 311 In 200 BC, Sulpicius Galba was elected consul for a second time, this time with Gaius Aurelius Cotta as his colleague. During his consulship, he pushed to secure a renewal of the war against Philip V of Macedon. The people at Rome were very unhappy with a fresh war being undertaken before they had been able to recover from the ravages of the Second Punic War. When the prospect of war was proposed to the Roman assembly, it was rejected. However, Sulpicius reconvened the Assembly and made a speech warning the Roman people against ignoring the threat of Philip V. Fearing that Philip would come to invade Italy like Pyrrhus or Hannibal, the Assembly gave their assent and the Second Macedonian War against Philip was launched. When the consuls drew their lots for their consular commands, Galba once again obtained Macedonia as his province. Livy, 31.7-8 Galba was permitted to recruit from the army which Scipio Africanus had brought back from Africa any that were willing to serve again, but none of those veterans were to be compelled. After having selected his men and his ships, he sailed from Brundisium and landed at Apollonia, as per the plan to invade Macedonia from the west. On his arrival he met some Athenian ambassadors, who asked for his protection against the Macedonians, and he at once sent Gaius Claudius Centho with 20 ships and 1,000 men to their assistance. However, as the autumn was approaching when Galba arrived in his province, he took up his winter quarters in the vicinity of Apollonia.Broughton, pg. 323 In the spring of 199 BC, Sulpicius Galba advanced with his army through the lands of the Dassaretii, where all the towns and villages along his route surrendered to him, with only a few being taken by force. Both Philip and Galba were ignorant of each other’s movements, until Macedonian and Roman scouting parties encountered each other by accident, during which a skirmish took place. Near the passes of Eordaia the two armies set up camp some distance from each other, and several minor engagements took place, in one of which the Romans sustained considerable losses. This was followed by a cavalry engagement, in which the Romans were again beaten, but the Macedonians, who were too eager in their pursuit of the enemy, suddenly found themselves attacked on their flanks, and were forced to retreat, during which Philip nearly lost his life. Immediately after this defeat Philip sent a messenger to Galba to ask for a truce; the Roman commander deferred his decision till the next day, but during the night Philip and his army secretly left the camp, without the Romans knowing in which direction Philip had gone. After having stayed for a few days longer, Galba marched towards Pluvina, and then set up his camp on the banks of the river Osphagus, not far from the place where Philip had established his camp. Here Galba spent his time securing the territory and taking a number of towns, but did not directly engage Philip in battle. In the autumn Galba went back with his army to Apollonia. Although the campaign was considered only a minor military success, it did convince the Aetolians to ally with Rome. In 198 BC, Sulpicius Galba was replaced in Macedonia by Publius Villius Tappulus, whereupon he returned to Rome. Then in 197 BC, both he and Villius Tappulus were appointed legates under Titus Quinctius Flamininus in Macedonia.Broughton, pg. 334 In the next year (196 BC), when it was decreed at Rome that ten senatorial commissioners should be sent to help Flamininus settle political issues in Greece, as well as arrange a treaty between Rome and Macedonia, Galba and Tappulus were ordered to act as two of those commissioners.Broughton, pg. 338 In 195 BC, he may have accompanied Tappulus on his mission to report on the aggressive movements of Antiochus III the Great.Broughton, pgs. 341-342 In 193 BC, Galba was sent as an ambassador to Antiochus III along with Villius Tappulus. They first stopped to have discussions with Eumenes II of Pergamon, as they had been ordered, where the king urged the Romans to attack Antiochus at once. While staying at Pergamon, Galba fell ill. Once he had recovered, he and Tappulus travelled to Ephesus, where, instead of Antiochus, they met with Minion, whom the king had granted with full power to negotiate with the Romans. After futile negotiations, Galba returned to Rome, whereupon the Senate decided to declare war against Antiochus III, launching the Roman-Syrian War.Smith, pg. 204 Sources * Broughton, T. Robert S., The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Vol I (1951) * Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Vol. II (1867) * Livy, "History of Rome" References 3rd-century BC births 2nd-century BC deaths Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Ancient Roman dictators Ancient Roman generals Roman Republican consuls Senators of the Roman Republic 3rd-century BC Romans 2nd-century BC Romans Galba Maximus, Publius 3rd-century BC rulers First Macedonian War Second Macedonian War "
"The Culture of Domesticity (often shortened to Cult of Domesticity) or Cult of True Womanhood is a term used by historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th Century in the United States and the United Kingdom. This value system emphasized new ideas of femininity, the woman's role within the home and the dynamics of work and family. "True women", according to this idea, were supposed to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. The idea revolved around the woman being the center of the family; she was considered "the light of the home". The women and men who most actively promoted these standards were generally white and Protestant; the most prominent of them lived in New England and the Northeastern United States.Lindley, Susan Hill (1996). "The Ideal American Woman". In You have stepped out of your place: a history of women and religion in America. Louisville, Kentucky.: Westminster John Knox Press, p. 56. . Although all women were supposed to emulate this ideal of femininity, black, working class, and immigrant women were often excluded from the definition of "true women" because of social prejudice.Patton, Venetria K. (2000). "The Cult of True Womanhood and its Revisions", In Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women's Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 29–30. .Yee, Shirley J. (1992). "Black Women and the Cult of True Womanhood", In Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828–1860. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, p. 41. .Tyson, Lois (2001). Learning for a Diverse World: Using Critical Theory to Read and Write about Literature, New York: Routledge, pp. 88–89. .O'Brien, Jodi A.; Newman, David M. (2010). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, an Imprint of Sage Publications, p. 294. . Since the idea was first advanced by Barbara Welter in 1966, many historians have argued that the subject is far more complex and nuanced than terms such as "Cult of Domesticity" or "True Womanhood" suggest, and that the roles played by and expected of women within the middle-class, 19th-Century context were quite varied and often contradictory; for example, it has been argued that much of what has been considered as anti-feminist in the past, in fact, helped lead to feminism.Rupp, Leila J. (2002). "Woman's History in the New Millennium: A Retrospective Analysis of Barbara Welter's "The Cult of True Womanhood." Journal of Women's History 14.1. Virtues Godey's Lady's Book was a highly influential women's magazine which reinforced many of the values of the Cult of Domesticity.Endres, Kathleen L.; Lueck; Therese L. (1995). Women's Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. xii. . Part of the separate spheres ideology, the "Cult of Domesticity" identified the home as women's "proper sphere". Women were supposed to inhabit the private sphere, running the household and production of food (including servants), rearing the children, and taking care of the husband. According to Barbara Welter (1966), "True Women" were to hold and practice the four cardinal virtues: #Piety – Religion was valued because—unlike intellectual pursuits—it did not take a woman away from her "proper sphere," the home, and because it controlled women's longings. #Purity – Virginity, a woman's greatest treasure, must not be lost until her marriage night, and a married woman had to remain committed only to her husband. #Submission – True women were required to be as submissive and obedient "as little children" because men were regarded as women's superiors "by God's appointment". #Domesticity – A woman's proper place was in the home and her role as a wife was to create a refuge for her husband and children. Cooking, needlework, making beds, and tending flowers were considered naturally feminine activities, whereas reading anything other than religious biographies was discouraged. According to Welter, an ideal True Woman was "frail", too mentally and physically weak to leave her home. The care of her home supposedly made her feminine, and she depended on men to protect her within the shelter of it. Wilma Mankiller agrees, claiming that a "True Woman" was expected to be delicate, soft, and weak. She should not engage in strenuous physical activity that would damage her “much more delicate nervous system." Frances B. Cogan, however, described an overlapping but competing ideology that she called the ideal of "Real Womanhood," in which women were encouraged to be physically fit and active, involved in their communities, well educated, and artistically accomplished, although usually within the broader idea that women were best suited to the domestic sphere. The conflation of "Domesticity" and "True Womanhood" can be misleading in that dedication to the domestic sphere did not necessarily imply purity, submission, or weakness.Cogan, Frances B., All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth- Century America, University of Georgia Press 2010. The characteristics of "True Womanhood" were described in sermons, books, and religious texts as well as women's magazines.Brannon, Linda (2005). Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, pp. 154–155. . Prescriptive literature advised women on how to transform their homes into domestic sanctuaries for their husbands and children. Fashion was also stressed because a woman had to stay up to date in order to please her husband. Instructions for seamstresses were often included in magazines. Magazines which promoted the values of the "Cult of Domesticity" fared better financially than those competing magazines which offered a more progressive view in terms of women's roles. In the United States, Peterson's Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book were the most widely circulated women's magazines and were popular among both women and men.Matthews, Glenna (1987). "Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 6, 42. . With a circulation of 150,000 by 1860,Fackler, Mark; Lippy, Charles H. (1995). Popular Religious Magazines of the United States. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. 241. . Godey's reflected and supported some of the ideals of the "Cult of True Womanhood." The magazine's paintings and pictures illustrated the four virtues, often showing women with children or behind husbands. It also equated womanhood with motherhood and being a wife, declaring that the "perfection of womanhood (...) is the wife and mother".Green, Harvey; Perry, Mary-Ellen (1983). The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, p. 180. .Wayne, Tiffany K. (2007). Women's roles in nineteenth-century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. 1, . The magazine presented motherhood as a woman's natural and most satisfying role and encouraged women to find their fulfillment and their contributions to society mainly within the home.Mitchell, Sarah (2009). "A Wonderful Duty: A Study of Motherhood on Godey's Magazine". In: Sachsman, David B.; Rushing, S. Kittrell; Morris, Roy (eds). Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, pp. 171–178. . At the same time, the long-time editor of Godey's, Sarah Josepha Hale, encouraged women to improve themselves intellectually, to write, and to take action that would improve the moral character of their communities and their nation. Hale promoted Vassar College, advocated for female physicians, and published many of the most important female writers of the nineteenth century. Frances B. Cogan argued that Godey's supported "Real Womanhood" more than "True Womanhood." Reflecting the ideals of both "True Womanhood" and "Real Womanhood," Godey's considered mothers as crucial in preserving the memory of the American Revolution and in securing its legacy by raising the next generation of citizens. Influence The Cult of Domesticity affected married women's labor market participation in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century.Bose, Christine E. (1987). "Dual Spheres". In Hess, Beth B.; Ferree, Myra Marx. Analyzing Gender: A Handbook of Social Science Research. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, pp. 278–279. . "True Women" were supposed to devote themselves to unpaid domestic labor and refrain from paid, market-oriented work. Consequently, in 1890, 4.5% of all married women were "gainfully employed," compared with 40.5% of single women. Women's complete financial dependence upon their husbands proved disastrous, however, when wives lost their husbands through death or desertion and were forced to fend for themselves and their children. This division between the domestic and public spheres had effects on women's power and status. In the society as a whole, particularly in political and economic arenas, women's power declined. Within the home, however, they gained symbolic power.Rotman, Deborah L. Historical Archaeology of Gendered Lives. New York; London: Springer, 2009, p. 19. . The legal implications of this ideology included the passage of protective labor laws, which also limited women's employment opportunities outside the home. These laws, as well as subsequent Supreme Court rulings such as Muller v. Oregon, were based on the assumption that women's primary role was that of mother and wife, and that women's non-domestic work should not interfere with their primary function. As a result, women's working hours were limited and night work for women was prohibited, essentially costing many female workers their jobs and excluding them from many occupations. The Cult of Domesticity “privatized” women’s options for work, for education, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform. Arguments of significant biological differences between the sexes (and often of female inferiority) led to pronouncements that women were incapable of effectively participating in the realms of politics, commerce, or public service. Women were seen as better suited to parenting. Also, because of the expected behaviors, women were assumed to make better teachers of younger children. Catharine Beecher, who proselytised about the importance of education and parenting, once said, "Woman's great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures [children] to obey the laws of God...first in the family, then in the school, then in the neighborhood, then in the nation, then in the world...." Beecher, Catharine, Woman's Suffrage and Woman's Profession, Hartford 1871. One of the first public jobs for women was teaching. One estimate says that, with the growth of public education in the northern tier of states, one-quarter of all native-born Massachusetts women in the years between 1825 and 1860 were schoolteachers at some point in their lives.Bernard, Richard and Maris Vinovskis, "The Female Schoolteacher in Ante-Bellum Massachusetts," Journal of Social History v. 10 #3, March 1977. Connection to the women's movement A New Court of Queen's Bench, an 1849 caricature by George Cruikshank, mocking the idea of women taking over the all-male world of the high courts of law. Women's rights advocates of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Harriet Martineau, were widely accused of disrupting the natural order of things and condemned as unfeminine. "They are only semi-women, mental hermaphrodites," wrote Henry F. Harrington in the Ladies' Companion. However, after the Jacksonian Era (1812 to 1850) saw the expansion of voting rights to virtually all white males in the United States, many women believed it was their opportunity for increased civil liberties. Early feminist opposition to many of the values promoted by the Cult of Domesticity (especially concerning women's suffrage, political activism, and legal independence) culminated in the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Susan M. Cruea postulated that although the “Cult of True Womanhood” set many societal restrictions that took away women's working rights and freedom, it nonetheless laid the groundwork for the later development of feminism by crediting women with a moral authority which implicitly empowered them to extend their moral influence outside the home. The ideal woman was expected to act as a status symbol for men and reflect her husband's wealth and success, and was to create babies and care for them so that her husband’s legacy of success would continue, but she was also seen as the “Angel in the House” whose purpose was to guide her family morally. Because of the perceived importance of the role, this ideology was imprinted on girls at a very young age; these girls were taught to value their virginity as the “‘pearl of great price’ which was her greatest asset” and to develop the skills to manage a household and rear children, but they were also taught to see themselves as “a pillar of strength and virtue” who was key not only in providing her husband a proper image but in raising boys who would later have a direct impact on the success of the nation. During the Progressive Era,Lindenmeyer, Kriste (2000). Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives: Women in American History. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, p. 134. . the ideal of the New Woman emerged as a response to the Cult of True Womanhood."The Cult of Domesticity and the Reaction: From True Women to New Women". In Lorence, James J.; Boyer, Paul S. (200). Enduring Voices: document sets to accompany The Enduring Vision, a History of the American People. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, p. 85, . The New Woman, frequently associated with the suffrage movement,Patterson, Martha H. (2008). The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894–1930. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, p. 6. . represented an ideal of femininity which was strongly opposed to the values of the Cult of True Womanhood.Trites, Roberta Seelinger (2007). Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, p. 92. . With demands expressed in the Declaration of Sentiments, written at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, women finally gained ratification of a constitutional amendment and the right to vote in 1920. After emancipation, these New Women could be identified by as “cigarette-smoking, lipsticked and rouged, jazz-dancing, birth-control-using types known as ‘modern girls’ or flappers.” World War II brought about a restructuring of the labor market as women stepped into the war effort on the home front. In the era after World War II, many of the ideas of the "Cult of Domesticity" were stressed again as American society sought to integrate veterans and emphasize the revival of family life. Once the troops returned home, men were encouraged to embrace family life and enter companionship marriages. Veterans returned home to be the head of the family and women who had been involved in high-paying and high-skilled wartime jobs were pushed back into the home. The remaking of the private life was central to this era. Anticommunism structured much of the American life, emphasizing the free enterprise system which brought about a period of economic prosperity and a consumer culture. In the 1950s television shows often presented series that depicted fictional families in which the mother's primary work was to raise the children and run the household. Men's and women's spheres were increasingly separated as many families lived in suburban settings, from which men commuted to other cities for work. However, this image of separate spheres disguised the reality that all groups of women continued to work for pay; many did not stop working after the men returned home from the war, they were instead forced into lower-paying jobs. Wages were low and there was little room for advancement. Women that did enter into professional fields were under intense scrutiny for going against the feminine domestic ideal. Despite neo- domestic ideals, many middle-class mothers were burdened by women’s double shift of working in the home and also a job. At the same time, women had independent lives during the day and were often active in volunteer and community activities, particularly around issues of education, health, children, and welfare. The "Cult of Domesticity" paved the way for the nuclear family. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique summed up the expectations of female nature of this time, with a focus on “consumerism, sexualized marriage, and civic activism.” Opposition to those ideas influenced the second wave of feminism.Ford, Lynne E. (2008). Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics. New York: Facts On File, pp. 136–37. . See also *Father Knows Best *Gender role *Girl next door *Glass ceiling *Good Wife, Wise Mother *Home economics *Ideal womanhood *Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl *Kinder, Küche, Kirche *María Clara *Martha Stewart *Molly Mormon *Motherhood *New Woman *Separate Spheres *The Angel in the House *The Feminine Mystique *The Stepford Wives *Yamato nadeshiko References ;Notes 1. The home and the idea of domesticity were so important in 19th century culture that historians speak of the "cult" of domesticity. The phrase "True Womanhood" was used by mid-19th Century authors who wrote about the subject of women. ;Citations ;Bibliography External links * Catherine Lavender, "Notes on The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood" * PBS: Cult of True Womanhood * National Humanities Center sources on the Cult of Domesticity Women's rights in Europe Women's rights in the Americas "
"Tsarevna Frog (or The Frog Princess), by Viktor Vasnetsov, tells of a frog that metamorphoses into a princess. Louhi, Mistress of the North, attacking Väinämöinen in the form of a giant eagle with her troops on her back when she trying to steal Sampo; in the Finnish epic poetry Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot. (The Defense of the Sampo, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1896) "The giant Galligantua and the wicked old magician transform the duke's daughter into a white hind." by Arthur Rackham Loge feigns fear as Alberich turns into a giant snake. Wotan stands in the background; illustration by Arthur Rackham to Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shapeshifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existant literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common trope in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture. Folklore and mythology 1722 German woodcut of a werewolf transforming Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), the huli jing of East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune and Korean kumiho), and the gods, goddesses, and demons of numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. Shapeshifting to the form of a 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= Vertumnus, in the form of an old woman, wooing Pomona, by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. Examples of shapeshifting 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 shapeshifting; 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 Titan 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. The Children of Lir, transformed into swans in Irish tales 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 the other gods 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. * 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. While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa, turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse 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:Richard M. Dorson, "Foreword", p xxiv, Georgias A. Megas, Folktales of Greece, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970 * 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 * Leto as a quail * Semele as a mortal shepherd * Io, as a cloud * 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. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Apollo pursuing an unwilling Daphne who transforms into a laurel tree 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' shapeshifting, 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. As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemon were transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees. In some variants of the tale of Narcissus, he is turned into a narcissus flower. "Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's Teeth" by Maxfield Parrish 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 shapeshifting ability. Not all fairies could shapeshift, and some were limited to changing their size, as with the spriggans, and others to a few forms and other fairies might have only the appearance of shapeshifting, through their power, called "glamour," to create illusions.Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, "Glamour", p. 191. 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.Eddie Lenihan and Carolyn Eve Green, Meeting The Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland, p. 80 Many British fairy tales, such as Jack the Giant Killer and The Black Bull of Norroway, feature shapeshifting. 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 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 shapeshifting selkie.Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans: indigenous education in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world Margaret Szasz 2007 University of Oklahoma Press 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. Kelpie by Herbert James Draper: transformed into a human 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.Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, "Shape-shifting", p360. 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 shapeshifting 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= 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. ; Stephan Grundy, "Shapeshifting and Berserkergang," in Translation, Transformation, and Transubstantiation, ed. Carol Poster and Richard Utz (Evanston: IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), pp. 104–22. 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 shapeshifting 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 the night looking for huge half- human and half-wolf monsters. If a female at midnight stretches the membrane which envelopes the foal 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 Huldra. 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 shapeshifting and turning at will into a bird. She is the central character of the novel Mother of Kings by Poul Anderson,Tor Books, 2003 which considerably elaborates on her shapeshifting abilities. =Other lore= 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 Indian Ancient Indian mythology tells of Nāga, snakes that can sometimes assume human form. Scriptures describe shapeshifting Rakshasa (demons) assuming animal forms to deceive humans. The Ramayana also includes the Vanara, a group of apelike humanoids who possessed supernatural powers and could change their shapes.Vanamali, Mataji Devi (2010). Hanuman: The Devotion and Power of the Monkey God Inner Traditions, USA. . pp. 13.Goldman, Robert P. (Introduction, translation and annotation) (1996). Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India, Volume V: Sundarakanda. Princeton University Press, New Jersey. 0691066620. pp. 45–47. 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. 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 shapeshift. In one tale, Chonguita the Monkey Wife,Fansler, Dean s.; Filipino Popular Tales; 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. "Madame White Snake" Picture on long veranda in the Summer Palace, Beijing, China 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 Kuzunoha the fox woman, casting a fox shadow In Japanese folklore ōbake are a type of yōkai with the ability to shapeshift. 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 shapeshift. 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.Heinz Insu Fenkl, "A Fox Woman Tale of Korea " 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.Dorothea F. Bleek, 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.Bleek (1875) A brief account of Bushman folklore and other texts 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). =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.Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh" * 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.Maria Tatar, p. 193, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, * 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.Brady, Loretta Ellen. The Green Forest Fairy Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1920. pp. 132-169. Themes Shapeshifting 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. Shapeshifting 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 shapeshifting 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.Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales And Their Tellers, p. 353 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 shapeshifting becoming an imprisoning metamorphosis. Beyond this, the uses of shapeshifting, 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 shapeshifting 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. John Bauer =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 shapeshifting, 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.Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale, p 57, This obstacle chase is literally found worldwide, in many variants in every region.Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p. 56, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977 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).Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p. 89, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977 In a similar effect, a captive may shapeshift in order to break a hold on him. Proteus and Nereus's shapeshifting 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.John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Transformation", p 960 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 shapeshifting 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.Stith Thompson, The Folktale, pp. 55–6, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977 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, by Anne Anderson 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= Valkyries as swan maidens, having shed their swan skins. 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. Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, in The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, included a version of the story with the typical elements (fisherman sees mermaids dancing on an island and steals the sealskin of one of them, preventing her from becoming a seal again so that he could marry her) and linked it to the founding of the city of Stockholm Online text of Ch. VII in The Wonderful Adventures of Nils =Inner conflict= The power to externally transform can symbolize an internal savagery; a central theme in many strands of werewolf mythology, and the inversion of the "liberation" theme, as in Dr Jekyll's transformation into Mr. Hyde. =Usurpation= Sister Alenushka Weeping about Brother Ivanushka by Viktor Vasnetsov, Russian variant of Brother and Sister: Alenushka laments her brother's transformation into a goat. Some transformations are performed to remove the victim from his place, so that the transformer can usurp it. Bisclaveret's wife steals his clothing and traps him in wolf form because she has a lover. A witch, in The Wonderful Birch, changed a mother into a sheep to take her place, and had the mother slaughtered; when her stepdaughter married the king, the witch transformed her into a reindeer so as to put her daughter in the queen's place. In the Korean Transformation of the Kumiho, a kumiho, a fox with magical powers, transformed itself into an image of the bride, only being detected when her clothing is removed. In Brother and Sister, when two children flee from their cruel stepmother, she enchants the streams along the way to transform them. While the brother refrains from the first two, which threaten to turn them into tigers and wolves, he is too thirsty at the third, which turns him into a deer. The Six Swans are transformed into swans by their stepmother, as are the Children of Lir in Irish mythology. =Ill-advised wishes= Many fairy-tale characters have expressed ill-advised wishes to have any child at all, even one that has another form, and had such children born to them.Maria Tatar, Off with Their Heads! p. 60 At the end of the fairy tale, normally after marriage, such children metamorphose into human form. Hans My Hedgehog was born when his father wished for a child, even a hedgehog. Even stranger forms are possible: Giambattista Basile included in his Pentamerone the tale of a girl born as a sprig of myrtle, and Italo Calvino, in his Italian Folktales, a girl born as an apple. Sometimes, the parent who wishes for a child is told how to gain one, but does not obey the directions perfectly, resulting in the transformed birth. In Prince Lindworm, the woman eats two onions, but does not peel one, resulting in her first child being a lindworm. In Tatterhood, a woman magically produces two flowers, but disobeys the directions to eat only the beautiful one, resulting her having a beautiful and sweet daughter, but only after a disgusting and hideous one. Less commonly, ill-advised wishes can transform a person after birth. The Seven Ravens are transformed when their father thinks his sons are playing instead of fetching water to christen their newborn and sickly sister, and curses them.Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, p 136 In Puddocky, when three princes start to quarrel over the beautiful heroine, a witch curses her because of the noise. =Monstrous bride/bridegroom= Such wished-for children may become monstrous brides or bridegrooms. These tales have often been interpreted as symbolically representing arranged marriages; the bride's revulsion to marrying a stranger being symbolized by his bestial form.Maria Tatar, Off with Their Heads! pp. 140–141 The heroine must fall in love with the transformed groom. The hero or heroine must marry, as promised, and the monstrous form is removed by the wedding. Sir Gawain thus transformed the Loathly lady; although he was told that this was half-way, she could at his choice be beautiful by day and hideous by night, or vice versa, he told her that he would choose what she preferred, which broke the spell entirely. In Tatterhood, Tatterhood is transformed by her asking her bridegroom why he didn't ask her why she rode a goat, why she carried a spoon, and why she was so ugly, and when he asked her, denying it and therefore transforming her goat into a horse, her spoon into a fan, and herself into a beauty. Puddocky is transformed when her prince, after she had helped him with two other tasks, tells him that his father has sent him for a bride. A similar effect is found in Child ballad 34, Kemp Owyne, where the hero can transform a dragon back into a maiden by kissing her three times. Sometimes the bridegroom removes his animal skin for the wedding night, whereupon it can be burned. Hans My Hedgehog, The Donkey and The Pig King fall under this grouping. At an extreme, in Prince Lindworm, the bride who avoids being eaten by the lindworm bridegroom arrives at her wedding wearing every gown she owns, and she tells the bridegroom she will remove one of hers if he removes one of his; only when her last gown comes off has he removed his last skin, and become a white shape that she can form into a man.Terri Windling, "Married to Magic: Animal Brides and Bridegrooms in Folklore and Fantasy " In some tales, the hero or heroine must obey a prohibition; the bride must spend a period of time not seeing the transformed groom in human shape (as in East of the Sun and West of the Moon), or the bridegroom must not burn the animals' skins. In The Brown Bear of Norway, The Golden Crab, The Enchanted Snake and some variants of The Frog Princess, burning the skin is a catastrophe, putting the transformed bride or bridegroom in danger. In these tales, the prohibition is broken, invariably, resulting in a separation and a search by one spouse for the other. =Death= Ghosts sometimes appear in animal form. In The Famous Flower of Serving-Men, the heroine's murdered husband appears to the king as a white dove, lamenting her fate over his own grave. In The White and the Black Bride and The Three Little Men in the Wood, the murdered – drowned – true bride reappears as a white duck. In The Rose Tree and The Juniper Tree, the murdered children become birds who avenge their own deaths. There are African folk tales of murder victims avenging themselves in the form of crocodiles that can shapeshift into human form. In some fairy tales, the character can reveal himself in every new form, and so a usurper repeatedly kills the victim in every new form, as in Beauty and Pock Face, A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers, and The Boys with the Golden Stars. This eventually leads to a form in which the character (or characters) can reveal the truth to someone able to stop the villain. Similarly, the transformation back may be acts that would be fatal. In The Wounded Lion, the prescription for turning the lion back into a prince was to kill him, chop him to pieces, burn the pieces, and throw the ash into water. Less drastic but no less apparently fatal, the fox in The Golden Bird, the foals in The Seven Foals, and the cats in Lord Peter and The White Cat tell the heroes of those stories to cut off their heads; this restores them to human shape.Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, pp. 174–5, In the Greek tale of Scylla, Scylla's father Nisus turns into an eagle after death and drowns her daughter for betraying her father. Modern =Fiction= * In George MacDonald's The Princess and Curdie (1883) Curdie is informed that many human beings, by their acts, are slowly turning into beasts. Curdie is given the power to detect the transformation before it is visible, and is assisted by beasts that had been transformed and are working their way back to humanity.Stephen Prickett, Victorian Fantasy p. 86 * L. Frank Baum concluded The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) with the revelation that Princess Ozma, sought by the protagonists, had been turned into a boy as a baby, and that Tip (who had been searching for her) is that boy. He agrees to have the transformation reversed, but Glinda the Good disapproves of shapeshifting magic, so it is done by the evil witch Mombi.Jack Zipes, When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition, pp. 176–7 * The science fiction short story "Who Goes There?" written by John W. Campbell (later adapted to film as The Thing from Another World and The Thing) concerns a shapeshifting alien lifeform that can assume the form and memories of any creature it absorbs. *T. H. White, in the 1938 book The Sword in the Stone, has Merlin and Madam Mim fight a wizards' duel, in which the duelists would endlessly transform until one was in a form that could destroy the other.This scene is omitted in the story as depicted in The Once and Future King; see L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p. 266 He also had Merlin transform Arthur into various animals as an educational experience.John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Transformation", p. 960 * In C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, Eustace Scrubb transforms into a dragon,Erik J. Wielenberg, "Aslan the Terrible" pp. 226–7 Gregory Bassham ed. and Jerry L. Walls, ed. The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy and the war-monger Rabadash into a donkey.James F. Sennett, "Worthy of a Better God" p. 243 Gregory Bassham ed. and Jerry L. Walls, ed. The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy Eustace's transformation is not strictly a punishment – the change simply reveals the truth of his selfishness. It is reversed after he repents and his moral nature changes. Rabadash is allowed to reverse his transformation, providing he does so in a public place, so that his former followers will know that he had been a donkey. He is warned that, if he ever leaves his capital city again, he will become a donkey permanently, and this prevents him leading further military campaigns. * Both the Earthmasters and their opponents in Patricia A. McKillip's 1976 The Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy make extensive use of their shapeshifting abilities for the powers of their new forms.John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Shapeshifting", p. 858 * James A. Hetley's contemporary fantasy books Dragon's Eye and Dragon's Teeth centers on the Morgan family of Stonefort, Maine - present-day Americans who are secretly able to turn themselves into seals at will (and making extensive use of that ability in their fighting with various other characters). =Popular culture= *Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country featured a shapeshifting female prisoner who was involved in nearly killing James Kirk, but was killed herself. *Founders (Star Trek) name of a race of Shapeshifting/changelings featured in Star Trek Series:Deep Space Nine. *The Twilight Saga also features shapeshifters that can transform into wolves and have inhuman strength, speed, body temperature and aging process. *In the Doctor Who episode "Terror of the Zygons", the main antagonists, called the Zygons, can shapeshift into humans and other animals (such as horses). However, they need to keep the copied person or animal alive in order to be able to change back into their natural form. See also * Glamour * Marvel Comics' Skrull extraterrestrial beings (1962–present) * Resizing (fiction) * Skin-walker * Soul eater (folklore) * The Thing (1982 film) Notes =Citations= =Bibliography= Kachuba, John B. 2019. Shapeshifters: A History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Further reading Wood, Felicity. "The Shape- Shifter on the Borderlands: A Comparative Study of the Trickster Figure in African Orality and in Oral Narratives Concerning one South African Trickster, Khotso Sethuntsa." English in Africa (2010): 71-90. *Zaytoun, Kelli D. "“Now Let Us Shift” the Subject: Tracing the Path and Posthumanist Implications of La Naguala/The Shapeshifter in the Works of Gloria Anzaldúa." MELUS: Multi- Ethnic Literature of the United States 40.4 (2015): 69-88. External links *Real Shapeshifters Website Dedicated to the study of shapeshifting phenomena (realshapeshifters.com) *Shapeshifters in Love – A series of articles about shapeshifting characters in romance and speculative fiction. Fantasy tropes Mythological powers Science fiction themes Supernatural legends "