It is very natural that in a country which really produces isolated instances of such horrors [cannibalism], and with a nation so devoted to fancies and dreams, superstition should be mixed up in the matter, and that at last, through this superstition, wonderful stories of windigos should be produced, as among us, in the middle ages, the belief in witches produces witches. … in the same way fear has caused some gloomy-minded people to be regarded as windigos; and, worst of all, this fear and the general opinion have so worked upon some minds, that they believe themselves to be really windigos, and must act in that way. … It is just like the “Sorrows of Werther.” First, there is a Werther in real life, whom the poets render celebrated, and at last the nation is innoculated with Werthers.