The same explanation would apply to the cattle and
wild animals of many kinds which the Celts burned along with the
men. They, too, we may conjecture, were supposed to be either under
the spell of witchcraft or actually to be the witches and wizards,
who had transformed themselves into animals for the purpose of
prosecuting their infernal plots against the welfare of their
fellow-creatures. This conjecture is confirmed by the observation
that the victims most commonly burned in modern bonfires have been
cats, and that cats are precisely the animals into which, with the
possible exception of hares, witches were most usually supposed to
transform themselves. Again, we have seen that serpents and foxes
used sometimes to be burnt in the midsummer fires; and Welsh and
German witches are reported to have assumed the form both of foxes
and serpents. In short, when we remember the great variety of
animals whose forms witches can assume at pleasure, it seems easy on
this hypothesis to account for the variety of living creatures that
have been burnt at festivals both in ancient Gaul and modern Europe;
all these victims, we may surmise, were doomed to the flames, not
because they were animals, but because they were believed to be
witches who had taken the shape of animals for their nefarious
purposes.
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