SOURCE: "Woman Into Fox" (1922) by David Garnett

DESCRIPTION: "But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs. Tebrick was a full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so short a space of time. The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of hair all over the body, the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth, though it would have been monstrous, would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions, particularly had it happened in a young child."

PLOT: Mrs. Tebrick is suddenly and mysteriously changed into a fox. Her husband lets all the servants go, shoots their two dogs and takes up residence alone with her. Though fox-shaped she has the reason of a human. Slowly this fades as she becomes more and more fascinated by birds. To escape this decline, Mr. Tebrick takes her to a cottage in the country where she declines further. She tries many times to escape. Finally, in a fit of despair, he lets her go. Almost immediately he regrets this. Mr. Tebrick becomes something of a madman, hunting everywhere for his lost Silvia, even attacking fox hunters. Eventually he snaps out of his madness and begins to rebuild his life alone, becoming quite religious. One days she returns, leading him to a den and her five cubs.

WEREWOLF FACTS: Garnett gives almost no information on how Mrs. Tebrick becomes a fox. He does know quite a bit about natural foxes.

INTERESTING FACTS: Garnett's style is flawless and brilliantly played. He does take one old-fashioned digression on the matter of Catholics playing cards on Sunday. This is one of the few marks of the age of this story, which feels at times as if it might have been from this month's issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction.