Anomalies conjonctives : une réflexion sur les loups garous

Abstract

In a trial which took place in Livonia (today Latvia) at the end of XVIIth century, a man known as “old Thiess” confessed to be a werewolf. His anomalous confessions have been interpreted in different ways, raising the problem of the ambitions, and limits, of comparison. The paper explores, focusing on the case of “old Thiess”, the possibility of using a) the notion of “conjunctive anomalies”, inspired by textual philology, b) the notion of “family resemblances”, proposed by Francis Galton, as instruments of comparison in the domain of history of religions.

Keywords

• werewolves
• benandanti
• witches
• comparison
• conjunctive mistakes
• conjunctive anomalies