M. Henri Gelin tells a good story of a witch who transformed herself into a dog.[68]
- Date of account
- Published 1915
- Source
- Human Animals
- Reference
- Human Animals · selected passage 222
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
One of the first members of the family to see the apparition was the famous John Oxenham, a young man of twenty-two, who was taken ill in the vigour of his youth, a great strapping fellow six foot and a half in height, well built, of comely countenance and of great intellectual gifts
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyOne of the first members of the family to see the apparition was the famous John Oxenham, a young man of twenty-two, who was taken ill in the vigour of his youth, a great strapping fellow six foot and a half in height, well built, of comely countenance and of great intellectual gifts. He died on the fifth day of September, 1635, and two days before his death the bird with the white breast hovered over his bed. Charles Kingsley made use of this incident in "Westward Ho!" John Oxenham, in the midst of drinking a toast, suddenly drops his glass on the table and staring in terror at some object which he seems to see fluttering round the room, he cries out "There! Do you see it? The bird!
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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