shapeshifting n.

Odin’s performances in the stealing of Suttung’s mead, his connexion with ravens, his ‘shape[-]shifting,’ and his use of a bird’s skin to fly in, and all precisely paralleled by the deeds of Yehl, the Raven-god of the Thlinkeets [i.e. Tlingit], to select but one example out of many.

He escapes with her…by her magical gift of shape-shifting.

In this form the ch’ing shih is relatively harmless, but if he dies what seems to be a natural death, or if he’s killed, he comes back as a full-fledged vampire, savage as a tiger and wicked as a snake. Also, in this second state, he’s capable of shape-shifting, and can take whatever form he pleases, though generally he assumes the shape of a tiger or jackal, or sometimes just a domestic cat.

Shape-shifting will take her, if she has need, faster than my horse… But I will go if Uthecar will ride with me to point the way.

Within SF itself several writers have played the game of constructing pseudoscientific versions of well-known supernatural phenomena such as shape-shifting (e.g. ‘There Shall Be No Darkness’, 1950, by James Blish) and vampirism (e.g. I Am Legend, 1954, by Richard Matheson).

There are more marriages…and shapeshifting transformations…than in a dozen summers' worth of summer-stock Shakespeare.

Ian McDonald’s ‘Some Strange Desire’ cooks up cross-gender shape-shifting, secret immortals, and kinky sex.

Oh, I'm not ending it, Mei dear… I'm becoming light—true freedom. No more of this shape-shifting—morphs, clades, and plasmatics—it’s disgusting. The light is pure and timeless.

But shapeshifting is only part of its repertoire of tricks. The fact is no one knows the exact extent of its powers or influence.