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This author faithfully continues his learned investigations into the particular mediæval superstitions dealt with in my book on 'The Nightmare'. Not that he appears ever to have heard of Psycho-analysis. His two books on Witchcraft and two on the Vampire are now followed by this volume on the Werewolf.
The Rev. Summers may very well be the only true survivor of the Middle Ages, for he appears to accept and believe literally all the extraordinary stories then current and which we nowadays classify as superstitious beliefs. Indeed, the passage of time and the flow of ideas signify little for him: for example, he quotes an author of 1854 as 'a recent authority' on psychiatry. He has a childlike faith also in the value of information qua information, however irrelevant:
… a young girl named Marguerite Poirier, of the outlying hamlet of St. Paul, in the parish of Espérons, swore that in the full moon she had been attacked by a savage beast, much resembling a wolf. (Espérons is now known as Eugénie-les-Bains, owing to the visits of the Empress Eugénie to the warm sulphur baths here. This small spa has about 610 inhabitants.) The girl stated that one midday whilst she was watching cattle a wild beast with rufulous fur rushed from the thicket and tore her kirtle with its sharp teeth.