Editing Shapeshifting (section)

====Celtic mythology====
[[Pwyll]] was transformed by [[Arawn]] into Arawn's shape, and Arawn transformed himself into Pwyll's so that they could trade places for a year and a day.

[[Llwyd ap Cil Coed]] transformed his wife and attendants into mice to attack a crop in revenge; when his wife is captured, he turns himself into three clergymen in succession to try to pay a ransom.

[[Math fab Mathonwy]] and [[Gwydion]] transform flowers into a woman named [[Blodeuwedd]], and when she betrays her husband [[Lleu Llaw Gyffes]], who is transformed into an eagle, they transform her again, into an owl.

[[Gilfaethwy]] raped [[Goewin]], [[Math fab Mathonwy]]'s virgin footholder, with help from his brother [[Gwydion]]. As punishment, Math turned them into different types of animals for one year each. Gwydion was transformed into a stag, sow, and wolf, and Gilfaethwy into a hind, boar, and she-wolf. Each year, they had a child. Math turned the three young animals into boys.

[[Taliesin|Gwion]], having accidentally taken [[Awen|the wisdom]] from a potion that [[Ceridwen]] was brewing for [[Morfran|her son]], fled from her through a succession of changes, which she answered with changes of her own. This ended when he turned into a grain of corn and she turned into a hen and ate him. She became pregnant, and he was reborn as a baby. He grew up to be the bard Taliesin. In the [[Book of Taliesin]], he mentions many forms which he is able to take, including that of lantern-light.

[[File:Thekelpie large.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.8|''[[Kelpie]]'' by [[Herbert James Draper]]: transformed into a human]]

Tales abound about the [[selkie]], a seal that can remove its skin to make contact in [[human guise]] with people for only a short amount of time before it must return to the sea. Clan MacColdrum of [[Uist]]'s foundation myths include a union between the founder of the clan and a shape-shifting selkie.<ref>Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans: indigenous education in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world Margaret Szasz 2007 University of Oklahoma Press</ref> Another such creature is the Scottish selkie, which needs its sealskin to regain its form. In ''[[The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry]]'' the (male) selkie seduces a human woman. Such stories surrounding these creatures are usually romantic tragedies.

[[Scottish mythology]] features shapeshifters, which allows the various creatures to trick, deceive, hunt, and kill humans. Water spirits such as the [[each-uisge]], which inhabit lochs and waterways in Scotland, were said to appear as a horse or a young man.<ref name="Fairies, Hobgoblins p360">{{cite encyclopedia |author-link=Katharine Mary Briggs |author=Katharine Briggs |encyclopedia=An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures |title=Shape-shifting |year=1976 |page=360 |isbn=0-394-73467-X}}</ref> Other tales include [[kelpie]]s who emerge from lochs and rivers in the disguise of a horse or woman to ensnare and kill weary travelers. [[Tam Lin]], a man captured by the Queen of the Fairies is changed into all manner of beasts before being rescued. He finally turned into a burning coal and was thrown into a well, whereupon he reappeared in his human form. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is a common thread in [[folklore|folktale]]s.<ref name="Francis James Child pp. 336"/>

[[File:Ler swans Millar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The [[Children of Lir]], transformed into swans in Irish tales]]
Perhaps the best-known [[Irish mythology|Irish myth]] is that of [[Aoife]] who turned her stepchildren, the [[Children of Lir]], into swans to be rid of them. Likewise, in the ''[[Tochmarc Étaíne]]'', [[Fuamnach]] jealously turns [[Étaín]] into a butterfly. The most dramatic example of shapeshifting in Irish myth is that of [[Tuan mac Cairill]], the only survivor of [[Partholón]]'s settlement of Ireland. In his centuries-long life, he became successively a stag, a wild boar, a hawk, and finally a salmon before being eaten and (as in the Wooing of Étaín) reborn as a human.

The [[Púca]] is a Celtic faery, and also a deft shapeshifter. He can transform into many different, terrifying forms.

[[Sadhbh]], the wife of the famous hero [[Fionn mac Cumhaill]], was changed into a deer by the druid [[Fear Doirche|Fer Doirich]] when she spurned his amorous interests.