According to a Danish popular song, a hero transformed by his step-mother into a bear, fights with a knight:--
For 'tis she who hath bewitched me, A woman false and fell, Bound an iron girdle round me, If thou can'st not break this belt, Knight, I'll thee destroy! * * * * The noble made the Christian sign, The girdle snapped, the bear was changed, And see! he was a lusty knight, His father's realm regained. —Kjæmpeviser, p. 147.
When an old bear in Ofodens Priestegjeld was killed, after it had caused the death of six men and sixty horses, it was found to be girded with a similar girdle.
From Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves (1865):
ReplyDeleteAccording to a Danish popular song, a hero transformed by his step-mother into a bear, fights with a knight:--
For 'tis she who hath bewitched me,
A woman false and fell,
Bound an iron girdle round me,
If thou can'st not break this belt,
Knight, I'll thee destroy!
* * * *
The noble made the Christian sign,
The girdle snapped, the bear was changed,
And see! he was a lusty knight,
His father's realm regained.
—Kjæmpeviser, p. 147.
When an old bear in Ofodens Priestegjeld was killed, after it had caused the death of six men and sixty horses, it was found to be girded with a similar girdle.