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hunted as a werewolf for two years, "when asked by the judges if his body took part in the hunt, or if
only his soul was transmuted, Hans confirmed that he had found a dog's teeth-marks on his own leg,
which he had received while a werewolf. Further asked wether he felt himself to be a man or a beast
while transmuted, he told that he felt himself to be beast."(page 271)
Madar writes: "It was acknowledged that people could be transmuted not only into werewolves, but also
into bears."
So as a lawyer I must ask why they were confessing that they were hunting as werewolves in Estonia.
The answer must be torture. Torture was widely used in Estonia ecen it was under the Swedish
jurisdiction, where torture was forbidden.
16th The devil in a shape of a dog. All over the Scandinavia we had trials where the accused said, that the
devil they've met had a shape of a dog. Why the dog? Danish witchhistorian Jens Christian V. Johanssen
writes (in book mentioned above), that the popular culture(peoples believes) borrowed ideas for
wall-paintings in the church.
"In Ejsing church, Christ is tempted in the desert by the devil â•„ in the shape of a ferocious-looking dog!
Popular imagination was so vivid that on given occasions the devil came to take his form".(Johansen:
Denmark: The Sociology of Accusations in Early Modern European Witchcraft.. page 363-364).
Well, so and so. But surely the popular culture appointed ideas from elite's culture.
17th The shamanism. I have not specialised about shamanism, so I'll now follow the ideas that finnish
shamanism expert Anna-Leena Siikala writes in her book "Suomalainen samanismi" (Finnis
Shamanism), Hameenlinna 1992.
Siikala writes about moving the demon from someone to another. In finnish folklore it is usuall to
remove a disease from patient to an animal or some idol, like wooden puppet. This is common between
Middle- and East-Siperia shaman too. She remind, that even Jesus removed demon from a man to some
pigs. (page 187)
There is information about this kind of "removing" in German and Estonia too. In Finland this was
usually done by soothsaying, but this was not common in Middle-Europe or Scandinavia.
Siikala guesses, that this habit has very old shamanistic roots and that the churhes middle-age tradition
has forced this old religion.(pages 188-189)
In these cases animals are shamans helpers and they carry the evil demon away. Shamans (spiritual)
animal helpers are also spyes, Shaman can send them far away to collect information what is happening.
Helpres also carry the information from here to the "heaven". "Because shamans helper animal do not
only to take the disease to themselves, but carry it to "heaven" (or "to the other side" as shamans say),
they are not usually (real) animals"(page 191).
Siikkala says, that middle age church adopted these old ideas and they used the idea to their rituals (to
carry out demons).
Shamans used to call their helpers for instance by singing (and using the drum). In my opinion it is surely
understandable that shaman was all the time demonstrating to the audience, that he has very important
helpers.
The shaman uses his helpers to fight agains other shamans helpers, too. So when shaman is healing a
patent, he first find's out where the disease has become, and then force it to go back. If the disease is
caused by demon, you have to fight against demon. If it is caused by other shaman with his helpers, so
the helpers must fight together.(as Carlo Ginzburg's "benandati" did).
The idea about shamans fighting together is old and it is common in Northern-Asia, too. In Siperia
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