The world is a fascinating place.

Argentine Folklore:

Last week, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner "adopted" a boy as her godson to prevent him from turning into a werewolf, according to multiple news reports. She tweeted images of a small ceremony conducted with the family of Yair Tawil, the seventh child of an Argentine Jewish family, during which the Tawils met with the president and lit candles on a menorah.

A tradition holds that the seventh son of a family is doomed to turn into a werewolf — known as "el lobison" in Argentina — after his 13th birthday and will stalk the night in its beastly form, according to the Independent. The legend stems from indigenous folklore and melded with superstitions of European settlers in the 19th century. The fear of this werewolf-child was so pronounced that many seventh sons were killed after they were born, which started the practice in 1907 of Argentine leaders taking these children symbolically under their wing.

In the past half-century, the ceremonies have been opened up to girls and now, for the first time, Jews. The Tawil family appealed to the Argentine government as early as the 1990s to have the practice extended to non-Catholic families. The boy's new status as the president's godson wins him a gold medal as well as a full educational scholarship, according to the Independent.

Tales of shape-shifting demons and feral monsters slaughtering livestock can be found in many parts of Latin America. This Argentine iteration can be traced to a local Guarani story of the seven cursed spawn of Tau, an evil mythological spirit, and Kerana, a beautiful woman he seduced and kidnapped. The seventh son was "Luison," who appears sometimes in the shape of a small dog and feeds on corpses.

Some historians dispute the connection between beliefs about this folk horror and the presidential act of adopting a seventh son as a godson, and say the latter is a distinct custom brought over by Eastern European migrants.

Americans should not be so quick to scoff at the tradition and its embrace by Argentina's head of state. After all, the U.S. president participates in the ritual pardoning of a fluffy and presumably bewildered animal every year.

A good reason to burn witches.

'Cannibal cult members' arrested for murder, eating raw brains and making penis soup

Authorities in Papua New Guinea have arrested 29 members of a suspected cannibal cult accused of killing seven people before eating their brains and making soup from their penises.

The accused are alleged to have been part of a 1000-strong group which was formed to take on suspected witch doctors.

They believed their victims had all been involved in 'sanguma', or sorcery, and that they had been demanding sex and money from villagers in return for exercising their spiritual powers.

It seems that we are seeing more of these stories about the persistence of withcraft in the Third World.

How ironic if it turns out that the 1970s actually did represent the pinnacle of human rationality.

"Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery.'"