Human Animals

Hubert, otherwise the attempt to break the enchantment may fail. The penalty for being a wer-animal is death, but sentence is not passed until after some ordeal has been gone through, such as dipping the finger into boiling resin, innocence being established if the finger be drawn out unhurt. Any wound inflicted on the transformed animal is simultaneously inflicted on the human body, and in many other characteristics the nature of the wer-animal is similar to that of the witch or wizard.
In "Balder the Beautiful" Dr. J. G. Frazer, after telling many typical stories, endeavours to establish a parallelism between witches and wer-animals, the analogy appearing to confirm the view that the reason for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the human being is in the animal, and that by burning you compel him to assume another shape. Since the sum of energy in the universe is held to be constant