Chapter XXII: The proceedings at the Sabbat (2)

The hosts are then brought to the altar. Boguet describes them as dark and round, stamped with a hideous design; Madeleine Bavent saw them as ordinary wafers only coloured red; in other cases they were black and triangular in shape. Often they blasphemed the Host, calling it “Iean le blanc,” just as Protestants called it “Jack-in-the-box.” The chalice is filled, sometimes with wine, sometimes with a bitter beverage that burned the tongue like fire. At the _Sanctus_ a horn sounded harshly thrice, and torches burning with a sulphurous blue flare “qui est fort puante” were kindled. There was an elevation, at which the whole gang, now in a state of hysterical excitement and unnatural exaltation, burst forth with the most appalling screams and maniac blasphemies, rivalling each other in filthy adjurations and crapulous obscenities. The protagonist poured out all the unbridled venom that diabolic foulness could express, a stream of scurrility and pollution; hell seemed to have vomited its reeking gorge on earth. _Domine adiuua nos, domine adiuua nos_, they cried to the Demon, and again _Domine adiuua nos semper_. Generally all present were compelled to communicate with the sacrament of the pit, to swallow morsels soiled with mud and ordures, to drink the dark brew of damnation. Gaufridi confessed that for _Ite missa est_ these infernal orgies concluded with the curse: “Allez-vous-en tous au nom du diable!” Whilst the abbé Guibourg cried: “_Gloria tibi, Lucifero!_”

The black mass of the Sabbat varied slightly in form according to circumstances, and in the modern liturgy of the Satanists it would appear that a considerable feature is made of the burning of certain heavy and noxious weeds, the Devil’s incense. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the use of incense is very rare at the Sabbat, although Silvain Nevillon stated that he had seen at the Sabbat “both holy water and incense. This latter smelled foul, not fragrant as incense burned in church.”[135]

The officiant nowadays consecrates a host and the chalice with the actual sacred words of Holy Mass, but then instead of kneeling he turns his back upon the altar,[136] and a few moments later—_sit uenia uerbis!_—he cuts and stabs the Host with a knife, throwing it to the ground, treading upon it, spurning it. A part, at least, of the contents of the chalice is also spilled in fearful profanation, and not infrequently there further has been provided a ciborium of consecrated Hosts, all stolen from churches[137] or conveyed away at Communion in their mouths by wretches unafraid to provoke the sudden judgement of an outraged God. These the black priest, for so the celebrant is called by the Devil worshippers, scatters over the pavement to be struggled and fought for by his congregation in their madness to seize and outrage the Body of Christ.

Closely connected with the black mass of the Satanists and a plain survival from the Middle Ages is that grim superstition of the Gascon peasant, the Mass of S. Sécaire.[138] Few priests know the awful ritual, and of those who are learned in such dark lore fewer yet would dare to perform the monstrous ceremonies and utter the prayer of blasphemy. No confessor, no bishop, not even the Archbishop of Auch, may shrive the celebrant; he can only be absolved at Rome by the Holy Father himself. The mass is said upon a broken and desecrated altar in some ruined or deserted church where owls hoot and mope and bats flit through the crumbling windows, where toads spit their venom upon the sacred stone. The priest must make his way thither late attended only by an acolyte of impure and evil life. At the first stroke of eleven he begins; the liturgy of hell is mumbled backward, the canon said with a mow and a sneer; he ends just as midnight tolls. The host is triangular, with three sharp points and black. No wine is consecrated but foul brackish water drawn from a well wherein has been cast the body of an unbaptized babe. The holy sign of the cross is made with the left foot upon the ground. And the man for whom that mass is said will slowly pine away, nor doctor’s skill nor physic will avail him aught, but he will suffer, and dwindle, and surely drop into the grave.[139]

Although there is, no doubt, some picturesque exaggeration here the main details are correct enough. A black, triangular wafer is not infrequently mentioned in the witch-trials as having been the sacramental bread of the Sabbat, whilst Lord Fountainhall[140] in describing the devilish communion of the Loudian witches says: “the drink was sometimes blood, sometimes black moss-water,” and many other details may be closely paralleled.

When the blasphemous liturgy of the Sabbat was done all present gave themselves up to the most promiscuous debauchery, only interrupting their lasciviousness to dance or to spur themselves on to new enormities by spiced foods and copious draughts of wine. “You may well suppose,” writes Boguet, “that every kind of obscenity is practised there, yea, even those abominations for which Heaven poured down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah are quite common in these assemblies.”[141] The erudite Dominican, Father Sebastian Michaelis, who on the 19 January, 1611, examined Madeleine de la Palud concerning her participation in Sabbats, writes[142] that she narrated the most unhallowed orgies.[143] The imagination reels before such turpitudes! But Madeleine Bavent (1643) supplied even more execrable details.[144] Gentien le Clerc at Orleans (1614-1615) acknowledged similar debauchery.[145] Bodin relates that a large number of witches whom he tried avowed their presence at the Sabbat.[146] In 1459 “large numbers of men & women were burned at Arras, many of whom had mutually accused one another, & they confessed that at night they had been conveyed to these hellish dances.”[147] In 1485 Sprenger executed a large number of sorcerers in the Constance district, and “almost all without exception confessed that the Devil had had connexion with them, after he had made them renounce God and their holy faith.”[148] Many converted witches likewise confessed these abominations “and let it be known that whilst they were witches demons had swived them lustily. Henry of Cologne in confirmation of this says that it is very common in Germany.”[149] Throughout the centuries all erudite authorities have the same monstrous tale to tell, and it would serve no purpose merely to accumulate evidence from the demonologists. To-day the meetings of Satanists invariably end in unspeakable orgies and hideous debauchery.

Occasionally animals were sacrificed at the Sabbat to the Demon. The second charge against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted in 1324 for sorcery by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory, was “that she was wont to offer sacrifices to devils of live animals, which she and her company tore limb from limb and made oblation by scattering them at the cross-ways to a certain demon who was called Robin, son of Artes (Robin Artisson), one of hell’s lesser princes.”[150]

In 1622 Margaret McWilliam “renounced her baptisme, and he baptised her and she gave him as a gift a hen or cock.”[151] In the Voodoo rites of to-day a cock is often the animal which is hacked to pieces before the fetish. Black puppies were sacrificed to Hecate; Æneas offers four jetty bullocks to the infernal powers, a coal-black lamb to Night;[152] at their Sabbat on the Esquiline Canidia and Sagana tear limb from limb a black sheep, the blood streams into a trench.[153] Collin de Plancy states that witches sacrifice black fowls and toads to the Devil.[154] The animal victim to a power worshipped as divine is a relic of remotest antiquity.

The presence of toads at the Sabbat is mentioned in many witch-trials. They seem to have been associated with sorcerers owing to the repugnance they generally excite, and in some districts it is a common superstition that those whom they regard fixedly will be seized with palpitations, spasms, convulsions, and swoons: nay, a certain abbé Rousseau of the eighteenth century, who experimented with toads, avowed that when one of these animals looked upon him for some time he fell in a fainting fit whence, if help had not arrived, he would never have recovered.[155] A number of writers—Ælian, Dioscorides, Nicander, Ætius, Gesner—believe that the breath of the toad is poisonous, infecting the places it may touch. Since such idle stories were credited it is hardly to be surprised at that we find the toad a close companion of the witch. De Lancre says that demons often appeared in that shape. Jeannette d’Abadie, a witch of the Basses-Pyrénées, whom he tried and who confessed at length, declared that she saw brought to the Sabbat a number of toads dressed some in black, some in scarlet velvet, with little bells attached to their coats. In November, 1610, a man walking through the fields near Bazas, noticed that his dog had scratched a large hole in a bank and unearthed two pots, covered with cloth, and closely tied. When opened they were found to be packed with bran, and in the midst of each was a large toad wrapped in green tiffany. These doubtless had been set there by a person who had faith in sympathetic magic, and was essaying a malefic spell. No doubt toads were caught and taken to the Sabbat, nor is the reason far to seek. Owing to their legendary venom they served as a prime ingredient in poisons and potions, and were also used for telling fortunes, since witches often divined by their toad familiars. Juvenal alludes to this when he writes:

“I neither will, nor can Prognosticate
To the young gaping Heir, his Father’s Fate
Nor in the Entrails of a Toad have pry’d.”[156]

Upon which passage Thomas Farnabie, the celebrated English scholar (1575-1647) glosses thus: “He alludes to the office of the Haruspex who used to inspect entrails & intestines. Pliny says: The entrails of the toad (_Rana rubeta_), that is to say the tongue, tiny bones, gall, heart, have rare virtue for they are used in many medicines and salves. Haply he means the puddock or hop-toad, thus demonstrating that these animals are not poisonous, their entrails being completely inefficacious in confecting poisons.”[157] In 1610 Juan de Echalar, a sorcerer of Navarre, confessed at his trial before the Alcantarine inquisitor Don Alonso Becerra Holguin that he and his coven collected toads for the Sabbat, and when they presented these animals to the Devil he blessed them with his left hand, after which they were killed and cooked in a stewpot with human bones and pieces of corpses rifled from new-made graves. From this filthy hotch-potch were brewed poisons and unguents that the Devil distributed to all present with directions how to use them. By sprinkling corn with the liquid it was supposed they could blight a standing field, and also destroy flowers and fruit. A few drops let fall upon a person’s garments was believed to insure death, and a smear upon the shed or sty effectually diseased cattle. From these crude superstitions the fantastic stories of dancing toads, toads dressed _en cavalier_, and demon toads at the Sabbat were easily evolved.

There is ample and continuous evidence that children, usually tender babes who were as yet unbaptized, were sacrificed at the Sabbat. These were often the witches’ own offspring, and since a witch not unseldom was the midwife or wise-woman of a village she had exceptional opportunities of stifling a child at birth as a non-Sabbatial victim to Satan. “There are no persons who can do more cunning harm to the Catholic faith than midwives,” says the _Malleus Maleficarum_, Pars I, q. xi: “_Nemo fidei catholicæ amplius nocet quam obstetrices._” The classic examples of child-sacrifice are those of Gilles de Rais (1440) and the abbé Guibourg (1680). In the process against the former one hundred and forty children are explicitly named: some authorities accept as many as eight hundred victims. Their blood, brains, and bones were used to decoct magic philtres. In the days of Guibourg the sacrifice of a babe at the impious mass was so common that he generally paid not more than a crown-piece for his victim. “Il avait acheté un écu l’enfant qui fut sacrifié à cette messe.” (“The child sacrificed at this mass he had bought for a crown.”) These abominable ceremonies were frequently performed at the instance of Madame de Montespan in order that Louis XIV should always remain faithful to her, should reject all other mistresses, repudiate his queen, and in fine raise her to the throne.[158] The most general use was to cut the throat of the child, whose blood was drained into the chalice and allowed to fall upon the naked flesh of the inquirer, who lay stretched along the altar. La Voisin asserted that a toll of fifteen hundred infants had been thus murdered. This is not impossible, as a vast number of persons, including a crowd of ecclesiastics, were implicated. Many of the greatest names in France had assisted at these orgies of blasphemy. From first to last no less than two hundred and forty-six men and women of all ranks and grades of society were brought to trial, and whilst thirty-six of humbler station went to the scaffold, one hundred and forty-seven were imprisoned for longer or shorter terms, not a few finding it convenient to leave the country, or, at any rate, to obscure themselves in distant châteaux. But many of the leaves had been torn out of the archives, and Louis himself forbade any mention of his favourite’s name in connexion with these prosecutions. However, she was disgraced, and it is not surprising that after the death of Maria Teresa, 31 July, 1683, the king early in the following year married the pious and conventual Madame de Maintenon.

Ludovico Maria Sinistrari writes that witches “promise the Devil sacrifices and offerings at stated times: once a fortnight, or at least each month, the murder of some child, or an homicidal act of sorcery,” and again and again in the trials detailed accusation of the kidnapping and murder of children are brought against the prisoners. In the same way as the toad was used for magical drugs so was the fat of the child. The belief that corpses and parts of corpses constitute a most powerful cure and a supreme ingredient in elixirs is universal and of the highest antiquity. The quality of directly curing diseases and of protection has long been attributed to a cadaver. Tumours, eruptions, gout, are dispelled if the afflicted member be stroked with a dead hand.[159] Toothache is charmed away if the face be touched with the finger of a dead child.[160] Birthmarks vanish under the same treatment.[161] Burns, carbuncles, the herpes, and other skin complaints, fearfully prevalent in the Middle Ages, could be cured by contact with some part of a corpse. In Pomerania the “cold corpse hand” is a protection against fire,[162] and Russian peasants believe that a dead hand protects from bullet wounds and steel.[163] It was long thought by the ignorant country folk that the doctors of the hospital of Graz enjoyed the privilege of being allowed every year to exploit one human life for curative purposes. Some young man who repaired thither for toothache or any such slight ailment is seized, hung up by the feet, and tickled to death! Skilled chemists boil the body to a paste and utilize this as well as the fat and the charred bones in their drug store. The people are persuaded that about Easter a youth annually disappears in the hospital for these purposes.[164] This tradition is, perhaps, not unconnected with the Jewish ritual sacrifices of S. William of Norwich (1144); Harold of Gloucester (1168); William of Paris (1177); Robert of Bury S. Edmunds (1181); S. Werner of Oberwesel (1286); S. Rudolph of Berne (1294); S. Andreas of Rinn (1462); S. Simon of Trent, a babe of two and a half years old (1473); Simon Abeles, whose body lies in the Teyn Kirche at Prague, murdered for Christ’s sake on 21 February, 1694, by Lazarus and Levi Kurtzhandel; El santo Niño de la Guardia, near Toledo (1490), and many more.[165]

The riots which have so continually during three centuries broken out in China against Europeans, and particularly against Catholic asylums for the sick, foundling hospitals, schools, are almost always fomented by an intellectual party who begin by issuing fiery appeals to the populace: “Down with the missionaries! Kill the foreigners! They steal or buy our children and slaughter them, in order to prepare magic remedies and medicines out of their eyes, hearts, and from other portions of their dead bodies.” Baron Hübner in his _Promenade autour du monde_, II (Paris, 1873) tells the story of the massacre at Tientsin, 21 June, 1870, and relates that it was engineered on these very lines. In 1891 similar risings against Europeans resident in China were found to be due to the same cause. Towards the end of 1891 a charge was brought in Madagascar against the French that they devoured human hearts and for this purpose kidnapped and killed native children. Stern legislation was actually found necessary to check the spread of these accusations.[166]

In the Navarrese witch-trials of 1610 Juan de Echelar confessed that a candle had been used made from the arm of an infant strangled before baptism. The ends of the fingers had been lit, and burned with a clear flame, a “Hand of Glory” in fact. At Forfar, in 1661, Helen Guthrie and four other witches exhumed the body of an unbaptized babe and made portions into a pie which they ate. They imagined that by this means no threat nor torture could bring them to confession of their sorceries. This, of course, is clearly sympathetic magic. The tongue of the infant had never spoken articulate words, and so the tongues of the witches would be unable to articulate.

It is a fact seldom realized, but none the less of the deepest significance, that almost every detail of the old witch-trials can be exactly paralleled in Africa to-day. Thus there exists in Bantu a society called the “Witchcraft Company,” whose members hold secret meetings at midnight in the depths of the forest to plot sickness and death against their enemies by means of incantations and spells. The owl is their sacred bird, and their signal call an imitation of its hoot. They profess to leave their corporeal bodies asleep in their huts, and it is only their spirit-bodies that attend the magic rendezvous, passing through walls and over the tree-tops with instant rapidity. At the meeting they have visible, audible, and tangible communication with spirits. They hold feasts, at which is eaten the “heart-life” of some human being, who through this loss of his heart falls sick and, unless “the heart” be later restored, eventually dies. Earliest cock-crow is the warning for them to disperse, since they fear the advent of the morning-star, as, should the sun rise upon them before they reach their corporeal bodies, all their plans would not merely fail, but recoil upon themselves, and they would pine and languish miserably. This hideous Society was introduced by black slaves to the West Indies, to Jamaica and Hayti, and also to the Southern States of America as Voodoo worship. Authentic records are easily procurable which witness that midnight meetings were held in Hayti as late as 1888, when human beings, especially kidnapped children, were killed and eaten at the mysterious and evil banquets. European government in Africa has largely suppressed the practice of the black art, but this foul belief still secretly prevails, and Dr. Norris[167] is of opinion that were white influence withdrawn it would soon hold sway as potently as of old.

A candid consideration will show that for every detail of the Sabbat, however fantastically presented and exaggerated in the witch-trials of so many centuries, there is ample warrant and unimpeachable evidence. There is some hallucination no doubt; there is lurid imagination, and vanity which paints the colours thick; but there is a solid stratum of fact, and very terrible fact throughout.

And as the dawn broke the unhallowed crew separated in haste, and hurried each one on his way homewards, pale, weary, and haggard after the night of taut hysteria, frenzied evil, and vilest excess.

“Le coq s’oyt par fois és sabbats sonna̅t le retraicte aux Sorciers.”[168] (The cock crows; the Sabbat ends; the Sorcerers scatter and flee away.)

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

[1] Omnia autem honeste et secundum ordinem fiant. I Cor. xiv. 40.

[2] Miss Murray, misled no doubt by the multiplicity of material, postulates two separate and distinct kinds of assemblies: The Sabbat, the General Meeting of all members of the religion; the Esbat “only for the special and limited number who carried out the rites and practices of the cult, and [which] was not for the general public.” _The Witch-Cult in Western Europe_, p. 97. Görres had already pointed out that the smaller meetings were often known as _Esbats_. The idea of a “general public” at a witches’ meeting is singular.

[3] On a voulu trouver l’etymologie du sabbat, réunion des sorciers, dans les _sabazies_; mais la forme ne le permet pas; d’ailleurs comment, au moyen âge aurait on connu les sabazies? Saint-Croix, _Recherches sur les mystères du paganisme_; Maury, _Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique_.

[4] _Metamorphoseon_, VIII. 25.

[5] Miss Murray thinks that Sabbat “is possibly a derivative of _s’esbattre_, ‘to frolic,’” and adds “a very suitable description of the joyous gaiety of the meetings”!!

[6] Miss Murray mistakenly says (p. 109) that May Eve (30 April) is called Roodmas or Rood Day. Roodmas or Rood Day is 3 May, the Feast of the Invention of Holy Cross. An early English calendar (702-706) even gives 7 May as Roodmas. The Invention of Holy Cross is found in the Lectionary of Silos and the Bobbio Missal. The date was not slightly altered. The Invention of Holy Cross is among the very early festivals.

[7] Especially in the North and North-East. Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, knew little of this particular date.

[8] In the _Rituale_ we have “Benedictio Rogi, quæ fit a Clero extra Ecclesiam in Uigilia Natiuitatis S. Joannis Baptistæ.” (Blessing of a pyre, which the Clergy may give on the Vigil of the Nativity of S. John Baptist, but outside the Church.) This form is especially approved for the Diocese of Tarbes.

[9] _Relacion de las personas que salieron al auto de la fé que los inquisidores apostólicos del reino de Navarra y su distrito, celebraron en la ciudad De Logroño, en 7 y 8 del mes de noviembre de 1610 años_, 1611.

[10] _Discours des Sorciers_, XXII. 12. Tertullian’s _Diabolus simia Dei_.

[11] _Idem_, XX. 2.

[12] _Tableau_, p. 65.

[13] Les lieux des assemblées des Sorciers sont notables et signalez de quelques arbres, ou croix. _Fleau_, p. 181.

[14] Anthony Horneck; Appendix to Glanvill’s _Sadducismus Triumphatus_. London, 1681.

[15] Locus in diuersis regionibus est diuersus; plerumque autem comitia in syluestribus, montanis, uel subterraneis atque ab hominum conuersatione dissitis locis habentur. _Mela._ _Lib._ 3. _cap._ 44. montem Atlantem nominat; _de Vaulx_ Magus Stabuleti decollatus, fatebatur 1603, in Hollandia congregationem frequentissimam fuisse in Ultraiectinæ ditionis aliquo loco. Nobis ab hoc conuentu notus atq; notatus mons Bructerorum, Melibœus alias dictus in ducatu Brunsuicensi, uulgo _der Blocksberg oder Heweberg_, Peucero, _der Brockersberg_, & Tilemanno Stellæ, _der Vogelsberg_, perhibonte _Ortelio in Thesauro Geographico_. For the Bructeri see Tacitus, _Germania_, 33: Velleius Paterculus, II, 105, i. _Bructera natio_, Tacitus, _Historiæ_, IV, 61.

[16] ... le lieu où on le trouue ordinairement s’appelle Lanne de bouc, & en Basque _Aquelarre de verros, prado del Cabrón_, & là des Sorciers le vont adorer trois nuicts durant, celle du Lundy, du Mercredy, & du Vendredy. De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 62.

[17] Boguet, _Discours des Sorciers_, p. 124.

[18] _A Pleasant Treatise of Witches_, London, 1673.

[19] Psalm xc.

[20] Conuentus, ut plurimum ineuntur uel noctis mediæ silentio, quando uiget potestas tenebrarum; uel interdiu meridie, quo sunt qui referant illud Psalmistæ notum de dæmonio meridiano. Noctes frequentiores, quæ feriam tertiam et sextam præcedunt. Delrio, _Disquisitiones Magicæ_, Lib. II. xvi.

[21] _Discours_, XIX. 1. “The Sorcerers assemble at the Sabbat about midnight.”

[22] Her indictment consists of fifty-three points.

[23] Spottiswoode’s _Practicks_.

[24] Spalding Club, _Miscellany_, I.

[25] MS. formerly in the possession of Michael Stewart Nicolson, Esq.

[26] ... je me trouvais transporté au lieu où le Sabatt se tenait, y demeurant quelquefois une, deux, trois, quatre heures pour le plus souvent suivant les affections.

[27]

Ferunt uagantes Dæmonas
Lætas tenebras noctium
Gallo canente exterritos
Sparsim timere et credere.

[28]

Nocturna lux uiantibus
A nocte noctem segregans,
Præco diei iam sonat,
Iubarque solis euocat.
Hoc nauta uires colligit,
Pontique mitescunt freta:
Hoc, ipsa petra Ecclesiæ,
Canente, culpam diluit.
Surgamus ergo strenue:
Gallus iacentes excitat,
Et somnolentes increpat,
Gallus negantes arguit.
Gallo canente, spes redit,
Ægris salus refunditur,
Mucro latronis conditur,
Lapsis fides reuertitur.

The translation in text is by Caswall, 1848.

[29] _Tableau_, p. 154.

[30] For London, see Dr. Johnson’s _London_ (1738):

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.

In 1500 Paolo Capello, the Venetian Ambassador, wrote: “Every night they find in Rome four or five murdered men, Prelates and so forth.” During the reign of Philip IV (1621-1665) the streets of Madrid, noisome, unpaved, were only lit on the occasion of festal illuminations.

[31] 1475-1546.

[32] Quando uadunt ad loca propinqua uadunt pedestres mutuo se inuicem inuitantes. _De Strigibus_, II.

[33] Les Sorciers neâtmoins vont quelquefois de pied au Sabbat, ce qui leur aduient principalement, lors que le lieu où ils font leur assemblée, n’est pas guieres eslongé de leur habitation. _Discours_, c. xvii.

[34]

Enquis en quel lieu se tint le Sabbat le dernier fois qu’il y
fut.

Respond que ce fut vers Billeron à un Carroy qui est sur le
chemin tendant aux Aix, Parroisse de Saincte Soulange, Iustice
de ceans.

Enquis de quelle façon il y va.

Respond qu’il y va de son pied.

De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 803-805.

[35] Aussi vilain & abominable est au Sorcier d’y aller de son pied que d’y estre transporté de son consentement par le Diable. _Tableau_, p. 632.

[36] Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_ (Reprint 1875), VII.

[37] _Idem_, p. 25.

[38] _Idem_, pp. 175, 178.

[39] Illud etiam non omittendum quod quædam sceleratæ mulieres retro post Satanam conuersæ, dæmonum illusoribus et phantasmatibus seductæ credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Diana paganorum dea et innumera multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias et multa terrarum spatia intempestæ noctis silentio pertransire eiusque iussionibus uelut dominæ obedire, et certis noctibus ad eius seruitium euocari. Minge, _Patres Latini_, CXXXII. 352.

[40] See Professor A. J. Clark’s note upon “Flying Ointments.” _Witch-Cult in Western Europe_, pp. 279-280.

[41] Posset dæmon eas transferre sine unguento, et facit aliquando; sed unguento mauult uti uariis de causis. Aliquando quia timidiores sunt sagæ, ut audeant; uel quia teneriores sunt ad horribilem illum Satanæ contactum in corpore assumpto ferendum; horum enim unctione sensum obstupefacit et miseris persuadet uim unguento inesse maximam. Alias autem id facit ut sacrosancta a Deo instituta sacramenta inimice adumbret, et per has quasi cerimonias suis orgiis reuerentiæ et uenerationis aliquid conciliat. Delrio, _Disquitiones magicæ_, Liber II, qᵗᵒ xvi.

[42] In antiquity we have the case of Simon Magus, who was levitated in the presence of Nero and his court.

[43] Henri Boguet, the High Justice of the district of Saint-Claude, died in 1616. The first edition (of the last rarity) of his _Discours des Sorciers_ is Lyons, 1602; second edition, Lyons 1608; but there is also a Paris issue, 1603. Pp. 64 and 104.

[44] Scot, _Discoverie of Witchcraft_ (1584). Book III. p. 42.

[45] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 211.

[46] Thomas Wright, _Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler_, Camden Society. 1843.

[47] Cotton Mather, _Wonders of the Invisible World_, 1693. (Reprint, 1862. P. 158.)

[48] _Quarterly Journal of Science_, January, 1874.

[49] J. Godfrey Raupert, _Modern Spiritism_. 1904. Pp. 34, 35. See also Sir W. Barrett, _On the Threshold of the Unseen_, p. 70.

[50] Arthur Lillie, _Modern Mystics and Modern Magic_, 1894, pp. 74, 75.

[51] David Lewis, _Life of S. John of the Cross_ (1897), pp. 73-4.

[52] See the Saint’s own letter (written in 1777) to the Bishop of Foggia. _Lettere di S. Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori_ (Roma, 1887), II. 456 f.

[53] Philip Coghlan, C.P. _Gemma Galgani_ (1923), p. 62. For fuller details see the larger biography by Padre Germano.

[54] _Vie du B. Paul de la Croix._ (French translation.) I. Book ii. c. 3.

[55] _La Mystique Divine._ Traduit par Sainte-Foi. V. viii. 17. p. 193.

[56] Giovanni Francesco Ponzinibio was a lawyer whose _De Lamiis_ was published at Venice, 1523-4. It called forth a reply, _Apologiæ tres aduersum Joannem Franciscum Ponzinibium Iurisperitum_, Venice, 1525. The edition of _De Lamiis_ I have used is Venice, 1584, in the _Thesaurus Magnorum iuris consultorum_. This reprint was met by Peña’s answer and two treatises by Bartolomeo Spina, O.P.

[57] Rome, 1584.

[58] De modo quo localiter transferentur [sagæ] de loco ad locum.... Probatur quod possint malefici corporaliter transferri.

[59] An isti Sortilegi & Strigimagæ siue Lamiæ uere & corporaliter deferantur a dæmone uel solum in spiritu? _De Sortilegiis_, VII.

[60] Sum modo istius secundæ opinionis quod deferantur in corpore.

[61] Doctrina multi eorum qui sequuti sunt Lutherum, & Melanctonem, tenuerent Sagas ad conuentus accedere animi duntaxat cogitatione, & diabolica illusione interesse, allegantes quod eorum corpora inuenta sunt sæpe numero eodem loco iacentia, nec inde mora fuisse, ad hoc illud pertinens quod est in uita D. Germani, de mulierculis conuiuantibus, vt uidebantur, & tame̅ dormierant dormientes. Huiusmodi mulierculas sæpe numero decipi certum est, sed semper ita fieri non probatur.... Altera, quam uerissimam esse duco, est, nonnunquam uere Sagas transferri a Dæmone de loco ad locum, hirco, uel alteri animali fantastico vt plurimum eas simul asportanti corporaliter, & conuentu nefario interesse, & hæc sententia est multo communior Theologorum, imò & Iurisconsultorum Italiæ, Hispaniæ, & Germaniæ inter Catholicos; hoc idem tenent alii quam plurimi. Turrecremata super Grillandum,[A] Remigius,[B] Petrus Damianus,[C] Siluester Abulensis,[D] Caietanus[E] Alphonsus a Castro[F] Sixtus Senensis[G] Crespetus[H] Spineus[I] contra Ponzinibium, Ananias,[J] & alii quam plurimi, quos breuitatis gratia omitto. _Per Fratrem Franciscum Mariam Guaccium Ord. S. Ambrosii ad Nemus Mediolani compilatum._ Mediolani. Ex Collegii Ambrosiani Typographia. 1626.

[A] _De hæreticis et sortilegiis._ Lugduni. 1536.

[B] Nicolas Remy, _De la démonolâtrie_.

[C] Epistolarum, IV. 17.

[D] Silvester of Avila.

[E] Tommaso de Vio Gaetani, O.P. 1469-1534.

[F] Alfonso de Castro, Friar Minor. (1495-1558). Confessor to Charles V and Philip II of Spain.

[G] Sisto da Siéna, O.P. Bibliotheca Sancta ... (Liber V). Secunda editio. Francofurti. 1575. folio.

[H] Père Crespet, Celestine monk. _Deux livres de la haine de Satan et des malins esprits contre l’homme._ Paris. 1590.

[I] Bartholomeo Spina, O.P. _De lamiis._ _De strigibus._ Both folio. Venice, 1584. _Apologiæ tres aduersus Joannem Franciscum Ponzinibium Jurisperitum._ Venice. 1525. Giovanni Francesco Ponzinibio wrote a _Dedamiis_ of which I have used a late edition. Venice. 1584.

[J] Giovanni Lorenzo Anania, _De natura dæmonum_: libri iiii. Venetiis. 1581. 8vo.

[62] _De Strigibus_, II. I have used the reprint, 1669, which is given in the valuable collection appended to the _Malleus Maleficarum_ of that date, 4 vols. 4to.

[63] Ad quam congregationem seu ludum præfatæ pestiferæ personæ uadunt corporaliter & uigilantes ac in propriis earū sensibus & quando uadunt ad loca propinqua uadunt pedestres mutuo se inuicem inuitantes. Si aute̅ habent congregari in aliquo loco distanti tunc deferuntur a diabolo, & quomodocunque uadant ad dictum locum siue pedibus suis siue adferantur a diabolo uerū est quod realiter et ueraciter & no̅ pha̅tastice, neque illusorii abnegant fide̅ catholicam, adorant diabolum, conculcant crucem, & plura nefandissima opprobria committunt contra sacratissimum Corpus Christi, ac alia plura spurcissima perpetrant cum ipso diabolo eis in specie humana apparenti, & se uiris succubum, mulieribus autem incubum exhibenti.

[64] George Gandillon, la nuict d’vn Ieudy Sainct, demeura dans son lict, comme mort, pour l’espace de trois heures, & puis reuint à soy en sursaut. Il a depuis esté bruslé en ce lieu auec son père & vne sienne sœur.

[65] Chapitre xvi. Comme, & en quelle façon les Sorciers sont portez au Sabbat.

1. _Ils y sont portez tantost sur un baston, ou ballet, tantost
sur un mouton ou bouc, & tantost par un homme noir._

2. _Quelquefois ils se frotte̅t de graisse, & à d’autres non._

3. _Il y en a, lesquels n’estans pas Sorciers, & s’estans
frottez, ne delaissent pas d’estre transportez au Sabbat, & la
raison._

4. _L’onguent, & la graisse ne seruent de rien aux Sorciers,
pour leur transport au Sabbat._

5. _Les Sorciers sont quelquefois portez au Sabbat par un vent
& tourbillon._

Chapitre xvii. Les Sorciers vont quelques fois de pied au Sabbat.

Chapitre xviii. Si les Sorciers vont en ame seulement au Sabbat.

1 & 3. _L’affirmatiue, & exemples._

2. _Indices, par lesquels on peut coniecturer, qu’vne certaine
femme estoit au Sabbat en ame seulement._

4. _La negatiue._

5. _Comme s’entend ce que l’on dit d’Erichtho, & d’Apollonius
lesquels resusciterent l’un un soldat, & l’autre une ieune
fille._

6. _Les Sorciers ne peuuent resusciter un mort, & exemples._

7. _Non plus que les heretiques & exemples._

8. _Opinion de l’Autheur sur le suiect de ce chapitre._

9. _Satan endort le plus souuent les personnes, & exemples._

Chapitre xix.

1. _Les Sorciers vont enuiron la minuict au Sabbat._

2. _La raison pourquoy le Sabbat si tient ordinairement de
nuict._

3. _Satan se plait aux tenebres, & à la couleur noire, estant
au contraire la blancheur agreable à Dieu._

4. _Les Sorciers dansent doz contre doz au Sabbat, & se
masquent pour la plus part._

5, 8. _Le coq venant à chanter, le Sabbat disparoit aussi tost,
& la raison._

6. _La voix du coq funeste à Satan tout ainsi qu’au lyon, & au
serpent._

7. _Le Demon, selon quelques uns a crainte d’vne espée nue._

Chapitre xx. Du iour du Sabbat.

1. _Le Sabbat se tient à un chacun iour de la semaine, mais
principalement le Ieudy._

2. _Il se tient encor aux festes les plus solemnelles de
l’année._

Chapitre xxi. Du lieu du Sabbat.

1. _Le lieu du Sabbat est signalé, selon aucuns, de quelques
arbres ou bien de quelques croix, & l’opinion de l’autheur sur
ce suiect._

2. _Chose remarquable d’vn lieu pretendu pour le Sabbat._

3. _Il faut de l’eau au lieu, où se tient le Sabbat, &
pourquoy._

4. _Les Sorciers, à faute d’eau, urinent dans un trou, qu’ils
font en terre._

Chapitre xxii. De ce qui se fait au Sabbat.

1. _Les Sorciers y adorent Satan, estăt en forme d’homme noir,
ou de bouc, & luy offrent des chandelles, & le baisent aux
parties honteuses de derriere._

2. _Ils y dansent, & de leurs danses._

3. _Ils se desbordent en toutes sortes de lubricitez, & comme
Satan se fait Incube & Succube._

4. _Incestes, & paillardises execrebles des Euchites &
Gnostiques._

5. _Les Sorciers banquettent au Sabbat, de leurs viandes, &
breuuages, & de la façon qu’ils tiennent à benir la table, & à
rendre graces._

6. _Ils ne prennent cependant point de gout aux Viandes, &
sortent ordinairement auec faim du repas._

7. _Le repas paracheué, ils rendent conte de leurs actions à
Satan._

8. _Ils renoncent de nouueau à Dieu, au Chresme, &c. Et comme
Satan les sollicite à mal faire._

9. _Ils y font la gresle._

10. _Ils y celebrent messe, & de leurs chappes, & eau benite._

11. _Satan se consume finalement en feu, & se reduit en cendre,
de laquelle les Sorciers prennent tous, & a quel effet._

12. _Satan Singe de Dieu en tout._

[66] Vouloir donner une description du Sabbat, c’est vouloir decrire ce qui n’existe point, & n’a jamais subsisté que dans l’imagination creuse & séduite des Sorciers & Sorcieres: les peintures qu’on nous en fait, sont d’après les rêveries de ceux & de celles qui s’imaginent d’être transportés à travers les airs au Sabbat en corps & en ame. _Traité sur les Apparitions des Esprits_, par le R. P. Dom Augustin Calmet, Abbé de Sénones. Paris, 1751, I. p. 138.

[67] See the woodcut upon the title-page of Middleton & Rowley’s _The World tost at Tennis_, 4to, 1620.

[68] De Lancre, _L’Incrédulité_, p. 769.

[69] Boguet, _Discours des Sorciers_.

[70] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 217.

[71] De Lancre, _L’Incrédulité_, p. 800.

[72] Görres, _La Mystique Divine_, traduit par Charles Sainte-Foi. V. viii. 19. p. 208.

[73] George Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, Relation XVII.

[74] _La Mystique Divine_, 1902 (Nouvelle édition). III. p. 381.

[75] _Tractatus_, xxi. c. 11. P. xi. n. 179.

[76] _Disquisitiones Magicæ_, Lib. II. qᵗᵒ x.

[77] _Compendium Maleficarum_, p. 78.

[78] “Solent ad conuentum delatæ dæmonem conuentus præsidem in solio considentem forma terrifica, ut plurimum hirci uel canis, obuerso ad illum tergo accedentes, adorare ... et deindo, homagii quod est indicium, osculari eum in podice.”[K] Guazzo notes: “Ad signum homagii dæmonem podice osculantur.”[L] And Ludwig Elich says: “Deinde quod homagii est indicium (honor sit auribus) ab iis ingerenda sunt oscula Dæmonis podici.”[M]

[K] _Disquisitiones Magicæ_, Lib. II. qto xvi.

[L] _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. 13.

[M] _Dæmonomagia_, Quæstis x.

[79] _Mystery of Witchcraft._

[80] It may be remembered that, as related elsewhere, there is strong reason to suppose Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, grandson of James V, was “the Devil” on this occasion, as he was certainly the Grand Master of the witches and the convener of the Sabbat.

[81] _Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian._ London. W. Wright. [1592].

[82] Dudum ad audientiam nostram peruenit, quod uenerabilis frater noster G. Conuentrensis et Lichefeldensis episcopus erat in regno Angliæ et alibi publice defamatur quod diabolo homagium fecerat et eum fuerat osculatus in tergo eique locutus multotius.

[83] Confessa ledit sire Guillaume ... avoir fait hommage audit ennemy en l’espèce et semblance d’ung mouton en le baisant par le fondement en signe de révérence et d’hommage. Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII_ (ed. Vallet de Viriville). Paris, 1858. III. p. 45. Shadwell, who has introduced this ceremony into _The Lancashire Witches_, II, (The Scene Sir _Edward’s_ Cellar), in his notes refers to “Doctor _Edlin_ ... who was burn’d for a Witch.”

[84] _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol. I. p. 247.

[85] Il a veu [le diable] quelque fois en forme d’homme, tenant son cheval par le frein, & qu’ils le vont adorer tenans vue chandelle de poix noir en leurs mains, le baisent quelque fois au nombril, quelque fois au cul. De Lancre, _L’Incredulité_, p. 25.

[86] Tum candelis piceis oblatis, vel vmbilico infantili, ad signum homagii eum in podico osculantur, Liber I. xiii.

[87] _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, Relation III.

[88] ... qui apparait là, tantost en forme d’vn grand homme noir, tantost en forme de bouc, & pour plus grand hommage, ils luy offrent des chandelles, qui rendent vne flamme de couleur bleüe. _Discours des Sorciers_, p. 131.

[89]

εἴθε λύρα καλὴ γενοίμην ἐλεφαντίνη,
καί με καλοὶ παίδες φέροειν Διονύσιον ες χορόν.

(Fain would I be a fair lyre of ivory, and fair boys carrying me to Dionysus’ choir.)

[90] Sequuntur his choree quas in girum agitant semper tamen ad læuam progrediendo. _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.

[91] Les Sorciers, dansent & font leurs danses en rond doz contre doz.

[92] Quelquefois, mais rarement, ils dansent deux à deux, & par fois l’vn çà & l’autre là, & tousiours en confusion.

[93] On n’y dançoit que trois sortes de bransles.... La premiere c’est à la Bohemienne.... La seconde c’est à sauts: ces deux sont en rond. Sir John Davies in his _Orchestra or A Poeme on Dauncing_, London, 18mo, 1596, describes the seven movements of the Cransles (Crawls) as:

_Upward_ and _downeward_, _forth_ and _back againe_,
_To this side_ and _to that_, and _turning round_.

[94] II. 1.

[95] Sinclar, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_, III.

[96] _Newes from Scotland_,(1592).

[97] Tota turba colluuiesque pessima fescenninos in honorem dæmonum cantat obscenissimos. Hæc cantat _Harr, harr_; illa Diabolo, Diabolo, salta huc, salta illuc; altera lude hic, lude illic; alia Sabaoth, Sabaoth, &c.; immo clamoribus, sibilis, ululatibus, propicinis furit ac debacchatur. _Dæmonomagia_, Quæstio x.

[98] Hi habent mensas appositas & instructas accumbunt & incipiunt conuiuari de cibis quos Dæmon suppeditat uel iis quos singuli attulere, _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.

[99] Les liures disent que les sorciers mangent au Sabbat de ce que le Diable leur a appresté: mais bien souue̅t il ne s’y trouue que des viandes qu’ils ont porté eux mesmes. Parfois il y a plusieurs tables seruies de bons viures & d’autres fois de tres meschans. “Les Sorciers ... banquettent & se festoient,” remarks Boguet, “leur banquets estans composez de plusieurs sortes de viandes, selon les lieux & qualitez des personnes.” _Tableau_, p. 197. _Discours des Sorciers_, p. 135.

[100] Sinclar, _Invisible World Discovered_, Relation XXIX.

[101] Ils banquêtent, dressant trois tables selon les trois diversités des gens susnommés. Ceux qui ont la charge du pain, ils portent le pain qu’ils font de blé dérobé aux aires invisiblement en divers lieux. Ils boivent de la malvoisie, pour eschauffer la chair à la luxure, que les députés portent, la dérobant des caves où elle se trouve. Ils y mangent ordinairement de la chair des petits enfants que les députés cuisent à la Synagogue et parfois les y portent tout vifs, les dérobant à leurs maisons quand ils trouvent la commodité. Père Sébastien Michaëlis, O.P. _Histoire admirable de la possession_, 1613.

[102] On y boit aussi du vin, et le plus souvent de l’eau.

[103] Conuiuant de cibis a se uel a dæmone allatis, interdum delicatissimis, et interdum insipidis ex infantibus occisis aut cadaueribus exhumatis, præcedente tamen benedictione mensæ tali coetu digna. _Salamanticenses_, Tr. xxi. c. 11. P. 11. n. 179.

[104] Uinum eorum præterea instar atri atque insinceri sanguinis in sordido aliquo scipho epulonibus solitum propinari. Nullam fere copiam rerum illic deesse afferunt præterqua̅ panis et salis. Addit Dominica Isabella apponi etiam humanas carnes. _Compendium Maleficarum_, I. xiii.

[105] _De la Démonomanie_, III. 5.

[106] _Dæmonomagio_, Quæstio vii.

[107] Il n’y a jamais sel en ces repas. _Discours des Sorciers_.

[108] On se met à table, où il n’a iamais veu de sel.

Shadwell draws attention to this detail: _The Lancashire Witches_, II, the Sabbat scene; where Mother Demdike says:

See our Provisions ready here,
To which no Salt must e’er come near!

[109] Père Sébastien Michaëlis, O.P. _Histoire admirable_, 1613.

[110] Isti uero qui expressam professionem fecerunt, reddunt etiam expressum cultum adorationis dæmoni per solemnia sacrificia, quæ ipsi faciunt diabolo, imitantes in omnibus diuinum cultum, cum paramentis, luminaribus, et aliis huiusmodi, ac precibus quibusdam et orationibus quibus instructi sunt, adeo ipsum adorant et collaudant continue, sicut nos uerum Creatorem adoramus. _De Sortilegiis_, Liber II. c. iii. n. 6.

[111] _The Wonders of the Invisible World_. A Hortatory Address, p. 81.

[112] J. Hutchinson, _History of Massachusett’s Bay_, II. p. 55. (1828.)

[113] _Euchologion_ of the Orthodox Church, ed. Venice, 1898, p. 63.

[114] Baissac, _Les grands jours de la Sorcellerie_ (1890), p. 391.

[115] Calmeil, _De la folie_, I. p. 344.

[116] Sébastien Michaëlis, _Histoire admirable_. 1613. Translated as _Admirable Historie_. London, 1613.

[117] Desmarest, _Histoire de Magdelaine Bavent_. Paris. 4to. 1652.

[118] For full details see François Ravaisson, _Archives de la Bastille_, Paris, 1873, where the original depositions are given.

[119] _Là-Bas_ appeared in the _Echo de Paris_, 1890-1.

[120] _Tableau_, p. 401. For the full account of these ceremonies I have chiefly relied upon Guazzo; Boguet, _Discours_, XXII, 10; De Lancre, pp. 86, 122, 126, 129; and Görres, _Mystique_, V. pp. 224-227. It hardly seems necessary to give particular citations here for each circumstance.

[121] De Lancre, _Tableau_, IV. 4.

[122] _Corriere Nazionale di Torino_, Maggio. 1895.

[123] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 401.

[124] Görres, _Mystique_, V. p. 230.

[125] Roland Brévannes, _L’Orgie Satanique_, IV. Le Sabbat, p. 122.

[126] _Discours_, p. 141.

[127] S. Caleb, _Messes Noires_, p. 153.

[128] _Confession faicte par Messire Loys Gaufridi_, A Aix. MVCXI.

[129] A vne Chasuble qui a vne croix; mais qu’elle n’a que trois barres.

[130] Le Diable en mesme temps pisse dans vn trou à terre, & fait de l’eau beniste de son vrine, de laquelle celuy, qui dit la messe, arrouse tous les assistants auec vn asperges noir. Boguet, _Discours_, p. 141.

[131] ... lors que Tramesabot disoit la Messe, & qu’auant la commencer li iettoit de l’eau beniste qui estoit faicte de pissat, & faisoit la reverence de l’espaule, & disoit _Asperges Diaboli_. De Lancre, _L’Incredulité_.

[132] L’eau beniste est iaune comme du pissat d’asne, & qu’apres qu’on la iettée on dit la Messe.

[133] Michaëlis _Histoire admirable_, 1613. Miss Murray, _The Witch-Cult_, p. 149, suggests that this sprinkling was “a fertility rite”! An astounding theory. This blasphemy, of course, alludes to the curse of the Jews, S. Matthew xxvii. 25.

[134] Que le Diable dit le Sermo au Sabbat, mais qu’on n’entend ce qu’il dit, parce qu’il parle com̅e en gro̅dant. Which suggests the wearing of a mask, or, at least, a voice purposely disguised.

[135] Dit qu’il a veu bailler au Sabbat du pain benist & de l’encens, mais il ne sentoit bon comme celuy de l’Eglise.

[136] So in the Orleans trial Gentil le Clerc confessed that the Devil “tourne le dos à l’Autel quand il veut leuer l’Hostie & le Calice, qui sont noirs.”

[137] Silvain Nevillon, (1614-1615). Dit aussi auoir veu des Sorciers & Sorcieres qui apportoient des Hosties au Sabbat, lesquelles elles auoient gardé lors qu’on leur auoit baillé à communier à l’Eglise.

[138] Presumably S. Cæsarius of Arles, 470-543, who incidentally was famous for eradicating the last traces of Pagan superstitions and practices. He imposed the penalty of excommunication upon all those who consulted augurs and wore heathen amulets. The Gnostics were especially notorious for their employment of such periapts, talismans, and charms.

[139] J. F. Bladé, _Quatorze superstitions populaires de la Gascogne_, pp. 16 _sqq._ Agen. 1883.

[140] _Decisions._ Edinburgh, 1759.

[141] Ie laisse à penser si l’on n’exerce pas là toutes les especes de lubricités veu encor que les abominations, qui firent foudre & abismer Sodome & Gomorrhe, y font fort communes. Boguet, _Discours_, c. xxii. p. 137.

[142] _Histoire admirable_, 1613.

[143] Finalement, ils paillardent ensemble: le dimanche avec les diables succubes ou incubes; le jeudi, commettent la sodomie; le samedi la bestialité; les autres jours à la voie naturelle.

[144] The Louviers process lasted four years, 1643-7.

[145] Après la Messe on dance, puis on couche ensemble, hommes auec hommes, & auec des femmes. Puis on se met à table.... Dit qu’il a cognu des hommes & s’est accouplé auec eux; qu’il auoit vne couppe on gondolle par le moyen de laquelle toutes les femmes le suiuoient pour y boire.

[146] Apres la danse finie les diables se couchere̅t auecques elles, & eure̅t leur co̅pagnie.

[147] ... grand nombre d’hommes & femmes furent bruslees en la ville d’Arras, accusees les vns par les autres, & co̅fesserent qu’elles estoient la nuict transportees aux danses, & puis qu’ils se couploient auecques les diables, qu’ils adoroient en figure humaine.

[148] ... toutes generalement sans exception, confessoient que le diable auoit copulation charnelle auec elles, apres leur auoir fait renoncer Dieu & leur religion.

[149] ... c’est à sçauoir que les diables, ta̅t qu’elles auoient esté Sorcieres, auoie̅t eu copulation auec elles. Henry de Cologne confirmant ceste opinion dit, qu’il y a rien plus vulgaire en Alemaigne.

[150] ... quod sacrificia dabant dæmonibus in animalibus uiuis, quæ diuidebant membratim et offerebant distribuendo in inferne quadruuiis cuidam dæmoni qui se facit appellari Artis Filium ex pauperioribus inferni. _Dame Alice Kyteler_, ed. T. Wright. Camden Society. 1843. pp. 1-2.

[151] _Highland Papers_, III. p. 18.

[152] _Æneid_, VI. 243-251.

[153] Horace, _Sermonum_, I. viii.

[154] _Dictionnaire Infernal_, ed. 1863, p. 590.

[155] Salgues, _Des erreurs et des prejugés_, I. p. 423.

[156] III. 44-45.

[157] Alludit ad Haruspicis officium, qui exta & viscera inspiciebat. Plinius inquit: _Ex ranæ rubetæ uisceribus; id est, lingua, ossiculo, licne, corde, mira fieri posse constat, sunt enin plurimis medicaminibus referta_. Forte intelligit rubetam uel bufonem, indicans se non esse ueneficum, nec rubetarum extis uti ad uenefica. Cf. also Pliny, _Historia Naturalis_, XXXII. 5.

[158] Ravaisson, _Archives de la Bastille_, VI. p. 295 _et alibi_. The interrogatories of these scandals may be found in volumes IV and V of this work.

[159] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (1867), I. 70.

[160] _Königsberger Hartung’sche Zeitung_, 1866. No. 9.

[161] V. Fossel. _Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark_, Graz, 1886.

[162] U. Jahn, _Zauber mit Menschenblut und anderen Teilen des menschlichen Körpers_, 1888.

[163] A. Löwenstimm, _Aberglaube und Strafecht_, (_Die Volksmedizin_), 1897.

[164] V. Fossel, _Volksmedicin_, _ut supra_.

[165] Adrian Kembter, C.R.P., writing in 1745 enumerates 52 instances, and his last is dated 1650. This number might be doubled, and extends until the present century. H. C. Lee, in an article, _El santo nino de la Guardia_, has signally failed to disprove the account. See the series of forty-four articles in the _Osservatore Cattolico_ March and April, 1892, Nos. 8438-8473.

[166] _Le Temps_, Paris, 1 Feb. and 23 March, 1892.

[167] _Fetichism in West Africa_, New York, 1904.

[168] De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 154.