Animal Kin

myth:animal_kin

The line dissolves: the shapeshifter who is now human, now beast — the werewolf, the fox-wife of Japan, the selkie who sheds her sealskin, the swan-maiden — and the animal-bride and animal-groom of the tale, Beauty's Beast, descended from Eros and Psyche. Human and animal not as ruler and ruled, but as kin who may wear each other's shape. — comparative myth