Sorry to bump the topic but it was linked in this weeks what if and something that everyone seems to be side stepping or not seeing at all is the inherent nature of how evil this act truly is. I think this would have been a HUGE thing back then, you are ripping a soul from its natural birth and FORCING it into a man made construct, that can live MANY ages so you are not only ruining the thread of that souls part of the pattern this age but possibly many (not that they could ever know how long the life span would be). This seems very odd for a common practice and even if it was a gift it would have caused (I would have hoped) many debates and the evil of the act should have outweighed the good. Unless the soul could have been taken from a different plain of  souls (not sure if this is like the reincarnation of the buddhist) maybe a great wolf's soul to live on or other animal, which still a mundane soul is a soul that should have a choice to be ripped or not which was not given, and this could not be see as anything else other then an evil act.