A pagan conversion story

I trembled, my heart jumped and beat rapidly, and the wreath, which gleamed with the lovely roses woven into it, I took up with greedy mouth and, eager for the promised results, most eagerly devoured. The heavenly promise did not fail me: at once my ugly animal form slipped from me. First my coarse bristles disappeared, the my thick hide thinned, my fat belly contracted, and the soles of my feet grew out through their hoofs into toes; my hands were no longer feet, but were extended for their upright functions; my long neck shrank, my face and head rounded, and my enormous ears returned to their original smallness; my rock-like teeth went back to their minute human scale; and the thing which had tortured me most of all before, my tail, no longer existed.

The crowd was amazed, and the devout paid homage to this clear manifestation of the power of the mighty deity, to her grandeur which exactly matched my dream revelations, and to the ease of my transformation. With one clear voice, stretching their hands toward heaven, they bore witness to the marvelous beneficence of the goddess.

[Apuleius, The Metamorphosis – Loeb volume 453 – J. Arthur Hanson tr., p. 317]