ABSTRACT
The very broad category of transformation is one of the most fundamental motifs in storytelling. A person or animal or object changes its form and appears in a new guise, and we call that transformation; but if the living being dies between the two stages, we have reincarnation. In the Motif-Index Stith Thompson lists a motif for "Enchanted person", remarking, No real difference seems to exist between transformation and enchantment. In one of the most spectacular instances of transformation, a person rapidly transforms into one form after another. An example of repeated transformation is found in the British ballad "Tam Lin", in which Tam Lin, held captive by the fairies, enlists the aid of a mortal lover to disenchant him by holding him fast while he undergoes rapid repeated transformations. Metamorphoses, written by Ovid in the first century CE, is a long work whose many stories all involve some sort of transformation.
