Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Fantasy. Book 6: Mythical Beasties

Wendigo

There are many legends of human beings who. for one reason or another, become animallike in appearance and nature. This may have arisen perhaps because the quiet, settled farmers of agricultural areas may have been horrified (and justly so) at the wild barbarian nomads who occasionally struck at them from the surrounding wilderness. (Even today we hear expressions such as "They're animals" when people describe the criminal denizens of our urban environment.) ft may also be that in the primeval forests, especially at night, human beings, armed with only primitive weapons, ran peculiar dangers, so that exaggerated tales of fearsome and intelligent predators would naturally arise.

Of course, transformations of human beings into animals might be the result of charms or spells. The case of the handsome prince turned into a frog until he is kissed by a princess, or into a fearsome Beast until Beauty falls in love with him. are well known.

Much more frightening are transformations that take place spontaneously and even involuntarily. The best-known case in our own culture is that of the werewolf (actually ' 'man-way,'' since ' 'were'' is an Old English term for "man"). The werewolf is only one variety of this sort of thing, and weretigers etc. are also spoken of. However, thanks to Hollywood, the werewolf ranks above them all.

Among the northeastern Indian tribes, it was thought that any hunter lost in the forest would gradually be forced by hunger to waylay some unwary human being and eat him. The hunter would then develop animal form and become an inveterate man-eater. He was then known as a wendigo, or, more correctly, windigo. It is a pity the, following story was not named "Mood Windigo." for that would have been even better wordplay.