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diff --git a/42550-0.txt b/42550-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40e19f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/42550-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2710 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42550 *** + +MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. + + + + +Reading for Travellers. + + +JUST PUBLISHED, OLD ROADS AND NEW ROADS. + +PRICE ONE SHILLING. + +NOTICES OF THE PRESS. + +_The Daily News._ + + "Knowledge and amusement are very happily blended together, and the + reader who finds his acquaintance with the history of roads increased + at the end of his journey, will also find his available fund of + anecdote augmented." + +_The Literary Gazette._ + + "The book contains little more than a hundred pages, and might be read + during the journey by the express train between London and Brighton; + but so suggestive is every page, that an intelligent and imaginative + reader will not reach the end till the book has been many an hour in + his hands." + +_The Economist._ + + "This is a pleasant book, somewhat quaint, particularly the preface, + but full of amusing and instructive reading." + +_The Atlas._ + + "If the other volumes of the series are equal to the present in + interest and value, we think we may safely predict a very extensive + popularity for the enterprise.... The author has collected from all + manner of curious and out-of-the-way sources materials for his book, + and it reads like one of old Montaigne's Essays." + +_The Leader._ + + "A charming volume of curious and learned gossip, such as would have + riveted Charles Lamb by its fine scholarly tone and its discursive + wealth. If the other volumes are up to this mark, the series will be + by far the best of the many which now make Literature the luxury of + the poor." + +_The Gardeners' Chronicle._ + + "Exactly the book for the amusement of a man of education. Lively and + learned, poetical and practical. This book is to the scholar fatigued + with trash like a bottle of rich Hungarian wine to a man who has been + condemned to the thin potations of France and the Rheingau." + +_The Gateshead Observer._ + + "_Old Roads and New Roads._--(Chapman and Hall, London.) No. I. of + 'Reading for Travellers.' A first-rate little volume, printed with + large type, and just the thing for a railway ride. The publishers have + acted wisely in calling to their aid a scholar and a writer of the + highest order." + +_The Leicestershire Mercury._ + + "Messrs. Chapman and Hall have re-entered the field of Railway + Literature, and have very fittingly commenced their series of 'Reading + for Travellers' with a graphic historical sketch of _Old Roads and New + Roads_. It is at once scholarly and popular in style and + contents----yet free from the slightest tinge of pedantry or + affectation. The narrative is by no means a mere dry record of facts + and dates. It is abundantly diversified and relieved with illustrative + anecdotes and sprightly observations--philosophy and pleasantry + combining with genuine erudition to make this one of the most useful + and entertaining of the volumes of railway reading with which we have + met." + + + + +MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. + + + + + MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. + + + "Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, + Nocturnos lemures, partentaque Thessala rides?" + _Hor. Epist. ii. 2. 208._ + + + LONDON: + CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. + + 1852. + + + + + PRINTED BY + JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, + LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +We have long wished that some English or foreign university would offer a +prize for a history of Magic and Witchcraft. The records of human opinion +would contain few chapters more instructive than one which should deal +competently with the Black Art. For gross and painful as the details of +superstition may be, yet superstition, by its very etymology, implies a +dogma or a system of practice standing upon some basis of fact or truth: +and however vain or noxious the superstructure may be, the foundation of +it is in some way connected with those deep verities upon which rest also +the roots of philosophy and religion. + +For a grand error, and such alone can at any time essentially affect the +opinions of mankind in general, is ever the imitation or caricature of +some grand truth. From one soil spring originally the tree which yields +good fruit and the plant which distils deadly poison. The very +discernment of the causes of error is a step towards the discovery of its +opposite. The bewilderments of the mind of man, when fully analysed, +afford a clue to the course of its movements from the right track, or at +least enable us to detect the point at which began the original separation +between Truth and Error. Alchemy led, by no very circuitous route, to the +science of chemistry; the adoption of false gods by the majority of the +human race rendered necessary the dispensations of the Jewish and +Christian schemes; and the corruption of true reverence for the Good, the +Beautiful, and the Holy, was the parent of those arts, which, under the +several appellations of Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, etc., drew their +professors at first and the multitude afterwards to put faith in the evil, +the deformed, and the impure. Magic and Witchcraft are little more than +the religious instincts of mankind, first inverted, then polluted, and +finally, like all corrupted matter, impregnated with the germs of a +corrupt vitality. + +So universal is the belief in spiritual influences, and more especially in +their malignant influences, that no race of men, no period of time, no +region of the globe, have been exempt from it. It meets us in the remote +antiquity of Asiatic life, in the comparatively recent barbarism of the +American aborigines, in the creeds of all the nations who branched off +thousands of years ago eastward and westward from their Caucasian cradle, +in the myths, the observances, and the dialects of nations who have no +other affinity with one another than the mere form of man. + +No nation, indeed, can reproach another nation with its addiction to magic +without in an equal degree condemning itself. All the varieties of mankind +have, in this respect, erred alike at different periods of their social +existence, and all accordingly come under the same condemnation of making +and loving a lie. The Chaldean erred when, dissatisfied with simple +observation of the heavenly bodies through the luminous atmosphere of his +plains, he perverted astronomy into astrology: the Egyptian erred when he +represented the omnipresence of the Deity by the ubiquity of animal +worship: the Hindoo erred when, having conceived the idea of an +incarnation, he clothed with flesh and fleshly attributes the members of +his monstrous pantheon: the Kelt and Teuton erred when, in their silent +and solitary forests, they stained the serenity of nature with the deified +attributes of war; and the more settled and civilized races who built and +inhabited the cities of the ancient world, erred in their conversion of +the indivisible unity of the Demiourgos or World-Creator into an +anthropomorphic system of several gods. But the very universality of the +error points to some common ground for it in the recesses of the human +heart; and since Paganism under all its forms was the corruption of +religion, and Witchcraft in its turn the corruption of Paganism, an +inquiry into the seeds of this evil fruit cannot fail to be also in some +measure an investigation of the very 'incunabula' of human error. + +We have stated, or endeavoured to state, the real scope and dimensions of +the subject of Magic and Witchcraft--not however with any purpose of +expatiating upon it in so small a volume as the present one. In the pages +which follow we offer only a few remarks upon theories or modes of belief +which in remote or in nearer ages have affected the creeds and the conduct +of mankind. The subject, _in extenso_, belongs to larger volumes, and to +maturer learning and meditation. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + The Legendary Lucifer 3 + + Sources of Superstition 9 + + Monkish Superstition 11 + + Executions for Witchcraft 17 + + Self-Delusions 19 + + Spectral Illusions 25 + + Coincidences in Evidence 29 + + Sweden. The Blocula 31 + + Delusions 33 + + Confessions 35 + + The Reformation 37 + + Persecutions in Germany 39 + + Persecutions in Hungary 41 + + Edict of Louis XIV. 43 + + Persecution in England 45 + + Scottish Superstition 49 + + Trials in Scotland 55 + + Remarkable Trials 57 + + Case of Lady Fowlis 59 + + James the First 65 + + Tortures 67 + + Convention of Witches 69 + + Dr. Fian 71 + + Euphemia Macalzean 73 + + Charles the First 75 + + The Puritans 77 + + The Restoration 79 + + Isobel Gowdie 81 + + Amusements of Witches 83 + + Anecdotes of Witches 85 + + Superstitious Enthusiasm 87 + + Pagan Witchcraft 91 + + Lucian and Apuleius 93 + + The Baker's Wife 95 + + High Treason 97 + + Later Pagan Superstitions 99 + + + + +MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. + + +An amusing work appeared at Mainz, in 1826, from the pen of "Herr +Kirchenrath" Horst, the title of which, translated _in extenso_, runs +thus:--"The Magical Library; or, of Magic, Theurgy, and Necromancy; +Magicians, Witches, and Witch Trials, Demons, Ghosts, and Spectral +Appearances. By G. C. Horst, Church-Counsellor to the Grand Duke of +Hesse." The following pages formed a review of this work, which appeared +many years ago[1]. + + * * * * * + +This book of the worthy Church-Counsellor is rather a singular one: it is +not a history of Magic, but a sort of spiritual periodical, or magazine of +infernal science, supported in a great measure by contributions from +persons of a ghostly turn of mind, who, although they affect occasionally +to write in a Sadducee vein, are many of them half-believers at heart, and +would not walk through a churchyard at night, except for a consideration +larger than we should like to pay. The field over which it travels is too +extensive, for us to attempt to follow the author throughout his elaborate +subdivisions. Dante divided hell, like Germany, into circles; and Mr. +Horst, adopting something of a similar arrangement, has parcelled out the +territory of the Prince of the Air into sundry regular divisions, by which +its whole bearings and distances are made plain enough for the use of +infant schools. It is only at one of the provinces of the Inferno, +however, that we can at present afford to glance; though for those who are +inclined to make the grand tour, the Counsellor may be taken as an +intelligent travelling companion, well acquainted with the road. In fact +his work is so methodical and distinct, and the geography of the infernal +regions so clearly laid down, according to the best authorities, from +Jamblichus and Porphyry down to Glanvil and the Abbé Fiard, that the whole +district is now about as well known as the course of the Niger; and it +must be the traveller's own fault if he does not find his exit from +Avernus as easy as its entrance has proverbially been since the days of +Virgil. + +The picture, however, drawn by these intelligent spiritual travellers is +by no means calculated to impress us with a high notion of the dominions +of the Prince of the Air, or that the _personnel_ of his majesty or his +government are prepossessing. The climate, as all of them, from Faust +downwards, agree, is oppressively hot, and the face of the country +apparently a good deal like that between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, +abounding with furnaces and coal-pits. Literature is evidently at a low +ebb, from the few specimens of composition with which we are favoured in +the Zauber-Bibliothek, and the sciences, with the exception of some +practical applications of chemistry, shamefully neglected. The government +seems despotical, but subject to occasional explosions on the part of the +more influential spirits concerned in the executive. In fact, the +departments of the administration are by no means well arranged; there is +no proper division of labour, and the consequence is, that Beelzebub, +"Mooned Ashtaroth," and others of the ministry, who, according to the +theory of the constitution[2] are entitled to precedence, are constantly +jostled and interfered with by Aziel, Mephistopheles, Marbuel, and other +forward second-rate spirits, who are continually thrusting in their claws +where they are not called for. The standing army is considerable[3], +besides the volunteers by which it is continually augmented. Nothing is +heard however of the navy, and from the ominous silence which our +geographers preserve on this point, it is easy to see that water is a rare +element in this quarter. + +The hints given as to the personal appearance and conduct of Lucifer, the +reigning monarch, are not flattering. Common readers are apt to believe +that Satan occupies that dignity[4], but this is a great error, and only +shows, as Asmodeus told Don Cleofas, when he fell into a similar mistake +about Beelzebub, "that they have no true notions of hell." The morals of +Lucifer, as might be expected, are as bad as possible, with this +exception, that we see no evidence of his being personally addicted to +drinking. His licentious habits, however, are attested by many a +scandalous chronicle in Sprenger, Delrio, and Bodinus; and for swearing, +all the world knows that Ernulphus was but a type of him. His jokes are +all practical and of a low order, and there is an utter want of dignity in +most of his proceedings. One of his most facetious amusements consists in +constantly pulling the spits, on which his witches are riding, from +beneath them, and applying them vigorously to their shoulders; and he has +more than once administered personal chastisement to his servants, when +they neglected to keep an appointment. He is a notorious cheat; many +enterprising young men, who have enlisted in his service on the promise of +high pay and promotion, having found, on putting their hands into their +pockets, that he had paid them their bounty in tin sixpences, and having +never risen even to the rank of a corporal. His talent might, from these +narratives, be considered very mediocre, and therefore we are afraid that +the ingenious selection from his papers, published by Jean Paul[5], must +be a literary forgery. At least all his printed speeches are bad,--flashy +enough, no doubt, in the commencement, but generally ending in smoke. He +has always had a fancy for appearing in masquerade, and once delivered a +course of lectures on magic at Salamanca, in the disguise of a professor. +So late as 1626, he lived _incog._, but in a very splendid style, for a +whole winter, in Milan, under the title of the Duke of Mammon[6]. It is in +vain, however, for his partial biographers to disguise the fact, that in +his nocturnal excursions, of which, like Haroun Alraschid, he was at one +time rather fond, and where, we learn from the Swedish witches, he +generally figured in a grey coat and red small-clothes, ornamented with +ribbons and blue stockings, he has more than once received a sound +drubbing from honest people, whom he has attempted to trip up by laying +his tail in their way. And, in fact, since his affair with St. Dunstan, he +has kept pretty much withindoors after nightfall. Luther, as we know, kept +no terms with him when he began to crack hazel-nuts in his bedroom at the +Wartburg, but beat him all to nothing in a fair contest of ribaldry and +abuse, besides leaving an indelible blot of ink upon his red smalls[7]. +St. Lupus shut him up for a whole night in a pitcher of cold water, into +which he had (as he thought, cunningly) conveyed himself, with the hope +that the saint would swallow him unawares[8]. This however, considering +his ordinary temperature, must have been an act of kindness, which should +have brought on St. Lupus the censure of the church. St. Anthony, in +return for a very polite offer of his services, spat in his face; which +hurt his feelings so much, that it was long before he ventured to appear +in society again[9]. And although in his many transactions with mankind he +is constantly trying to secure some unfair advantage, a person of any +talent, particularly if he has been bred a lawyer[10], is a match for him; +and there are numerous cases in the books, in which his majesty, +attempting to apprehend the person of a debtor, has been unexpectedly +defeated by an ingenious saving clause in the bond, which, like Shylock, +he had overlooked, and non-suited in the ecclesiastical courts, where he +commonly sues, with costs[11]. Finally, we infer from the Mora Trials, +that his general health must have suffered from the climate, for in 1669 +he was extremely ill in Sweden; and though he got over the attack for a +time, by bleeding and an antiphlogistic regimen, the persons who were +about him thought his constitution was breaking up, and that he was still +in a dying way. + +Such is the grotesque aspect of the legendary Lucifer and his court, which +a course of dæmonology presents to us! But though we have thus spoken with +levity of these gross and palpable conceptions of the evil principle, and +though undoubtedly the first impression produced by such a farrago must be +a ludicrous one, the subject, we fear, has also its serious side. An +Indian deity, with its wild distorted shape and grotesque attitude, +appears merely ridiculous when separated from its accessories and viewed +by daylight in a museum. But restore it to the darkness of its own hideous +temple, bring back to our recollection the victims that have bled upon its +altar, or been crushed beneath its car, and our sense of the ridiculous +subsides into aversion and horror. So, while the superstitious dreams of +former times are regarded as mere speculative insanities, we may for a +moment be amused with the wild incoherencies of the patients; but when we +reflect that out of these hideous misconceptions of the principle of evil +arose the belief in witchcraft; that this was no dead faith, but one +operating on the whole being of society, urging on the mildest and the +wisest to deeds of murder, or cruelties scarcely less than murder; that +the learned and the beautiful, young and old, male and female, were +devoted by its influence to the stake and the scaffold,--every feeling +disappears except that of astonishment that such things could be, and +humiliation at the thought that the delusion was as lasting as it was +universal. + +It is true that the current of human opinion seems now to set in a +different direction, and that if the evil spirit of persecution is again +to re-appear on earth, his _avatar_ must in all probability be made in a +different form. Our brains are no longer, as Dr. Francis Hutchinson says +of Bodinus, "mere storehouses for devils to dance in;" and if the +influence of the great enemy is still as active as before on earth, in the +shape of evil passions, he at least keeps personally in the background, +and has changed his tactics entirely since the days of the 'Malleus +Maleficarum.' + + "For Satan now is wiser than before, + And tempts by making _rich_--not making _poor_." + +Still however it is always a useful check to the pride of the human mind, +to look to those delusions which have darkened it, more especially to +such as have originated in feelings in themselves exalted and laudable. +Such is unquestionably the case in regard to one of the gloomiest chapters +in the history of human error, the belief in witchcraft and its +consequences. The wish to raise ourselves above the visible world, and to +connect ourselves with beings supposed to occupy a higher rank in +creation, seemed at first calculated to exercise only a beneficent +influence on the mind. Men looked upon it as a sort of Jacob's ladder, by +which they were to establish a communication between earth and heaven, and +by means of which angelic influences might be always ascending and +descending upon the heart of man. But, unfortunately, the supposition of +this actual and bodily intercourse with spirits of the better order, +involved also a similar belief as to the possibility of establishing a +free trade with the subterranean powers, + + "Who lurk in ambush, in their earthy cover, + And, swift to hear our spells, come swarming up;" + +and from these theoretical opinions, once established and acted upon, all +the horrors of those tempestuous times flowed as a natural consequence. +For thus the kingdoms of light and darkness were brought into open +contest: if Satan was ready at every one's call, to send out his spirits +like Swiss mercenaries, it became equally necessary for the true believer +to rise in arms against him with fire and sword; any wavering on his part +was construed into apostasy, and he who did not choose to be persecuted +himself was driven in self-defence to become a persecutor. + +The grand postulate of direct diabolical agency being once assumed and +quietly conceded on all hands, any absurdity whatever was easily engrafted +on it. Satan being thus brought home, as it were, to men's business and +bosoms, every one speculated on his habits and demeanour according to his +own light; and soon the insane fancies of minds crazed by nature, disease, +or misfortunes, echoed and repeated from all sides, gathered themselves +into a code or system of faith, which, being instilled into the mind with +the earliest rudiments of instruction, fettered even the strongest +intellects with its baleful influence. The mighty minds of Luther, of +Calvin, and of Knox, so quick in detecting error, so undaunted and +merciless in exposing it, yielded tamely to its thrall; the upright and +able Sir Matthew Hale passed sentence of death, in 1664, on two poor women +accused of witchcraft, and Sir Thomas Browne, the historian of "Vulgar +Errors," who was examined as a witness on the trial, gave it as his +opinion that the fits under which the patients had laboured, though +natural in themselves, were "heightened by the Devil co-operating with the +malice of the witches, at whose instance he did the villanies!" and +apparently on this evidence chiefly did the conviction proceed. + +Neither, in fact, were the incongruities and inconsistencies of the +witch-creed of the time so calculated, as they might at first sight +appear, to awaken men's minds to the radical insanity of the belief. The +dash of the ludicrous, which mingles itself with almost all the exploits +of Satan and his satellites, grew, naturally enough, out of the monkish +conception of Satan, and might be supposed not inconsistent with the +character of a set of beings whose proceedings of course could not be +expected to resemble those either of men or angels. The monkish Satan has +no dignity about him: in soul and body he is low and deformed. + + "Gli occhi ha vermigli, e la barba unta ed atra, + E 'l ventre largo, ed unghiate le mani, + Graffia gli spirti, gli scuoja, ed isquatra[12]." + +His apish tricks and satyr-like gambols were sufficiently in unison with +the idea of a spirit with boundless malice but limited powers, grinning in +despite where he could not injure, and ridiculing those sacred rites the +power of which he was compelled to acknowledge and obey. Hence he preaches +to his infernal flock, and mocks the institution of the sacrament; wreaks +his native malice even on his own adherents; plunges his deluded victims +into misery, or deserts them in their distress, deprives them of the +rewards he has promised to them; plagues and torments the good, but cowers +whenever he is boldly resisted, and is at once discomfited by any one who +wields by commission the thunders of heaven. Writers of fiction in general +have seldom seized these features of his character; indeed hardly any one +has done so, except Hoffman, who, in most of his supernatural pictures, +has painted him not with the grandeur and sullen gloom of the fallen +archangel, but with the coarse and comic malice of the spirit of the +middle ages, and has thus, on the whole, deepened the real horror of his +goblin scenes by the infusion of these outbreakings of mirth, just as the +frightful effect of an execution would be increased, if the criminal, +instead of joining in the devotions, were suddenly to strike up a lively +air from the top of the ladder. + +But whether the delusion of witchcraft was thus a natural sequence of the +monkish notions of an evil principle, and of the almost universal +persuasion that intercourse with a higher order of beings was possible for +man, no one can cast a glance over its history without being satisfied +that the comprehensive nature of its influence, and its long duration, +were owing to penal laws and prosecutions. It adds one more to the long +list of instances which prove that there is no opinion, however absurd and +revolting, which will not find believers and martyrs, if it is once made +the subject of persecution. From the earliest ages of Christianity it is +certain the belief existed, and must occasionally have been employed by +strong minds as an instrument of terror to the weak; but still the frame +of society itself was not shaken, nor, with one exception[13], does the +crime begin to make any figure in history till the Bull of Innocent VIII. +in 1484 stirred up the slumbering embers into a flame. + +Of the extent of the horrors which for two centuries and a half followed, +our readers we suspect have but a very imperfect conception; we remember +as in a dream that on this accusation persons were occasionally burnt, and +one or two remarkable relations from our own annals or those of the +Continent may occur to our recollection. But of the extent of these +judicial murders, no one who has not dabbled a little in the history of +demonology has any idea. No sooner has Innocent placed his commission of +fire and sword in the hands of Sprenger and his brethren, and a regular +form of process for the trial of this offence been laid down in that +unparalleled performance, the 'Malleus Maleficarum,' which was intended as +a theological and juridical commentary on the Bull, than the race of +witches seems at once to increase and multiply, till it replenishes the +earth. The original edict of persecution was enforced by the successive +bulls of the infamous Alexander VI. in 1494 (to whom Satan might indeed +have addressed the remonstrance "et tu Brute!"), of Leo X. in 1521, and +of Adrian VI. in 1522. Still the only effect of these commissions was to +render the evil daily more formidable, till at last, if we are to believe +the testimonies of contemporary historians, Europe was little better than +a large suburb or outwork of Pandemonium. One-half of the population was +either bewitching or bewitched. Delrio tells us in his preface that 500 +witches were executed in Geneva in three months, about the year 1515. A +thousand, says Bartholomæus de Spina, were executed in one year in the +diocese of Como, and they went on burning at the rate of a hundred per +annum for some time after. In Lorraine, from 1580 to 1595, Remigius boasts +of having burned 900. In France the multitude of executions about 1520 is +incredible; Danæus, in the first part of his dialogue concerning witches, +calls it "infinitum pene veneficorum numerum." The well-known sorcerer, +_Trois Echelles_, told Charles IX., while he was at Poitou, the names of +1200 of his associates. This calculation is according to Mezeray's more +reasonable version of the story, for the author of the 'Journal du Règne +de Henri III.' makes the number 3000, and Bodinus, not satisfied even with +this allowance, adds a cypher, and makes the total return of witches +denounced by Trois Echelles 30,000, though he does at the same time +express some doubt as to the correctness of this account. + +In Germany, to which indeed the bull of Innocent bore particular +reference, this plague raged to a degree almost inconceivable. Bamberg, +Paderborn, Wurtzburg, and Treves were its chief seats, though for a +century and a half after the introduction of the trials under the +commission no quarter of that great empire was free from its baneful +influence. It would be wearisome and revolting to go through the details +of these atrocities; but "ab uno disce omnes." A catalogue of the +executions at Wurtzburg for the period from 1627 to February 1629, about +two years and two months, is printed by Hauber in the conclusion of his +third volume of the 'Acta et Scripta Magica.' It is regularly divided into +twenty-nine burnings, and contains the names of 157 persons, Hauber +stating at the same time that the catalogue is not complete. It is +impossible to peruse this catalogue without horror. The greater part of it +consists of old women or foreign travellers, seized, it would appear, as +foreigners were at Paris during the days of Marat and Robespierre: it +contains children of twelve, eleven, ten, and nine years of age, fourteen +vicars of the cathedral, two boys of noble families, the two little sons +(_söhnlein_) of the senator Stolzenburg; a stranger boy; a blind girl; +Gobel Babelin, the handsomest girl in Wurtzburg, etc. + + "Sanguine placârunt Divos _et virgine cæsá_!" + +And yet, frightful as this list of 157 persons executed in two years +appears, the number is not (taking the population of Wurtzburg into +account) so great as in the Lindheim process from 1660 to 1664. For in +that small district, consisting at the very utmost of six hundred +inhabitants, thirty persons were condemned and put to death, making a +twentieth part of the whole population consumed in four years. + +How dreadful are the results to which these data lead! If we take 157 as a +fair average of the executions at Wurtzburg (and the catalogue itself +states that the list was by no means complete), the amount of executions +there in the course of the century preceding 1628 would be 15,700. We know +that from 1610 to 1660 was the great epoch of the witch trials, and that +so late as 1749 Maria Renata was executed at Wurtzburg for witchcraft; and +though in the interval between 1660 and that date it is to be hoped that +the number of these horrors had diminished, there can be little doubt that +several thousands must be added to the amount already stated. If Bamberg, +Paderborn, Treves, and the other Catholic bishoprics, whose zeal was not +less ardent, furnished an equal contingent, and if the Protestants, as we +know[14], actually vied with them in the extent to which these cruelties +were carried, the number of victims from the date of Innocent's bull to +the final extinction of these persecutions must considerably exceed +100,000 in Germany. + +Even the feeling of horror excited by the perusal of the Wurtzburg murders +is perhaps exceeded by that to which another document relative to the +state of matters in 1629 must give rise: namely a ballad on the subject of +these executions, detailing in doggrel verses the sufferings of the +unfortunate victims, "to be sung to the tune of Dorothea"--a common +street-song of the day. It is entitled the 'Druten Zeitung,' or Witches' +Chronicle, "being an account of the remarkable events which took place in +Franconia, Bamberg, and Wurtzburg, with those wretches who from avarice or +ambition have sold themselves to the devil, and how they had their reward +at last; set to music, and to be sung to the air of Dorothea." It is +graced also with some hideous devices in wood, representing three devils +seizing on divers persons by the hair of their heads, legs, etc., and +dragging them away. It commences and concludes with some pious reflections +on the guilt of the witches and wizards, whose fate it commemorates with +the greatest glee and satisfaction. One device in particular, by which a +witch who had obstinately resisted the torture is betrayed into +confession--namely, by sending into her prison the hangman disguised as +her familiar (Buhl Teufel)--seems to meet with the particular approbation +of the author, who calls it an excellent joke; and no doubt the point of +it in his eyes was very much increased by the consideration that upon the +confession, as it was called, so obtained, the unhappy wretch was +immediately committed to the flames[15]. What are we to think of the state +of feeling in the country where these horrors were thus made the subject +of periodical ballads, and set to music for the amusement of the +populace[16]? + +It was one fatal effect of the perseverance with which Satan and his +dealings were thus brought before the view of every one, that thousands of +weak and depraved minds were actually led into the belief that they had +formed a connection with the evil being, and that the visions which had so +long haunted the brain of Sprenger and his associates had been realized in +their own case. In this way alone can we in some measure account for the +strange confessions which form the great peculiarity in the witch trials, +where unhappy creatures, with the full knowledge of their fate, admit +their intercourse with Satan, their midnight meetings, incantations, their +dealings with spirits, "white, black, and grey, with all their trumpery," +the grotesque horrors of the sabbath,--in short, every wild and impossible +phantasm which had received colour and a body in the 'Malleus,'--and +seemed to be perfectly satisfied that they had fully merited the fiery +trial to which their confession immediately subjected them. When we read +these trials, we think of the effect of the Jew's fiddle in Grimm's fairy +tale; we see the delusion spreading like an epidemic from one to another, +till first the witnesses, then the judges, and lastly the poor criminals +themselves, all yield to the giddy whirl, and go off like dancing Dervises +under its influence. + +True it is that, in many of the cases, and particularly those which occur +in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, when the diabolical +doctrines of Sprenger and Delrio were in their full vigour, the +confessions on which these convictions proceeded were elicited by torture, +moral and physical, and frequently retracted, till a fresh application of +the rack produced a fresh admission. One instance from Delrio may stand in +place of a thousand. He mentions that an unfortunate gentleman in +Westphalia had been twenty times put to the rack, "vicies sævæ quæstioni +subditum," in order to compel him to confess that he was a were-wolf! All +these tortures he resisted, till the hangman gave him an intoxicating +draught, and under its influence he confessed that he _was_ a were-wolf +after all. "En judicum _clemens_ arbitrium," says Delrio, "quo se porrigat +in illis partibus aquilonaribus."--See how long-suffering we judges are in +the north! we never put our criminals to death till we have tried them +with twenty preliminary courses of torture! This is perfectly in the +spirit of another worthy in Germany, who had been annoyed with the +pertinacity of a witch, who, like the poor lycanthrope, persisted in +maintaining her innocence. "Da liess ich sie tüchtig foltern," says the +inquisitor--"und sie gestand;"--I tortured her _tightly_ (the torture +lasted four hours), and she confessed! Who indeed under such a system +would not have confessed? Death was unavoidable either way, and the great +object was to attain that consummation with the least preparatory pain. "I +went," says Sir George Mackenzie, "when I was a Justice Depute, to +examine some women who had confessed judicially. One of them, who was a +silly creature, told me that she had not confessed because she was guilty, +but, being a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for +a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person hereafter would give her +meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her, +and that therefore she desired to be out of the world. Whereupon she wept +most bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness to what she +said[17]." In other cases, the torture was applied not only to the +individual accused, but to his relations or friends, to secure confession. +In Alison Pearson's case[18], it appears that her daughter, a girl of nine +years of age, had been placed in the _pilliewinks_, and her son subjected +to about fifty strokes in the _boots_. Where the torture was not +corporeally applied, terror, confusion, and the influence of others +frequently produced the same effect on the weak minds of the accused. In +the case of the New England witches in 1696, six of the poor women who +were liberated in the general gaol-delivery which took place after this +reign of terror began to decline, (and who had all confessed previously +that they had been guilty of the witchcrafts imputed to them,) retracted +their confessions in writing, attributing them to the consternation +produced by their sudden seizure and imprisonment. "And indeed," said +they, "that confession which it is said we made was no other than what was +suggested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us we were witches, and +they knew it, and we knew it, and they knew that we knew it, which made us +think that it was so, and our understanding, our reason, and our faculties +almost gone, we were not capable of judging our condition. And most of +what we said was but a consenting to what they said[19]." + +But though unquestionably great part of these confessions, which at first +tended so much to prolong this delusion, were obtained by torture, or +contrary to the real conviction and belief of the accused, it is +impossible to deny that in many cases the confessions were voluntary, and +proceeded from actual belief. Nor was it to be wondered at that persons of +a weak and melancholy temperament should, more particularly at a time when +the phenomena of nature and of the human body were so little understood, +be disposed to set down every occurrence which they could not explain, and +every wild phantasm which crossed their minds, to the direct and immediate +agency of an evil power. At that period even the most natural events were +ascribed to witchcraft. If a child, after being touched by a suspected +individual, died or became ill, the convulsions were ascribed to +diabolical interference, as in Wenham's case, so late as 1712[20]. If, on +the contrary, she cured instead of killing, the conclusion was the same, +although the only charm employed might be a prayer to the Almighty[21]. If +an old woman's cat, coming to the door at night, took part in a concert +with other cats, this was nothing but a witch herself in disguise[22]. In +the case of Robert Erskine of Dun[23], tried for the murder of his +nephews, he is indicted for making away with them by _poisoning_ and +_witchcraft_, as if the poisoning was not of itself amply sufficient to +account for their death. + +It was still less wonderful that those mysterious phenomena which +sometimes occur in the human frame, such as spontaneous combustion, +delusions arising from the state of the brain and nerves, and optical +deceptions, should appear to the sufferer to be the work of the devil, +whose good offices they might very probably have invoked under some fit of +despondency or misanthropy, little expecting, like the poor man in the +fable who called on Death, to be taken at their word. What a "Thesaurus of +Horror" would the spectres of Nicolai have afforded in the sixteenth +century or the commencement of the seventeenth, if embodied in the pages +of the 'Malleus' or the 'Flagellum Dæmonum,' instead of being quietly +published by the patients as optical and medical phenomena in the +'Berlinische Monatschrift' for 1799, and the 15th volume of the +'Philosophical Journal!' What a fearful glimpse into the infernal world +would have been afforded by the still more frightful illusions which +haunted poor Backzko of Königsberg[24] during his political labours in +1806; the grinning negro who seated himself opposite to him, the +owl-headed tormentor that used to stare at him every night through his +curtains, the snakes twisting and turning about his knees as he turned his +periods! If we go back to 1651, we find our English Jacob Böhme, +Pordage[25], giving an account of visions which must have been exactly of +the same kind, arising from an excited state of the brain, with the most +thorough conviction of their reality. His Philadelphian disciples, Jane +Leade, Thomas Bromley, Hooker, Sapperton, and others, were indulged, on +the first meeting of their society, with a vision of unparalleled +splendour. The princes and powers of the infernal world passed in review +before them, sitting in coaches, surrounded with dark clouds and drawn by +a _cortége_ of lions, dragons, tigers, and bears; then followed the lower +spirits arranged in squadrons with cats' ears, claws, twisted limbs, etc.; +whether they shut their eyes or kept them open, the appearances were +equally distinct; "for we saw," says the master-spirit Pordage, "with the +eyes of the mind, not with those of the body." + + "And shapes that come not at a mortal call + Will not depart when mortal voices bid. + Lords of the visionary eye, whose lid + Once raised remains aghast, and will not fall[26]." + +Thus, while phenomena which experience has since shown to be perfectly +natural were universally attributed to supernatural causes, men had come +to be on the most familiar footing with spiritual beings of all kinds. In +the close of the sixteenth century, Dr. Dee was, according to his own +account, and we verily believe his own conviction, on terms of intimacy +with most of the angels. His brother physician, Dr. Richard Napier, a +relation of the inventor of the logarithms, got almost all his medical +prescriptions from the angel Raphael. Elias Ashmole had a MS. volume of +these receipts, filling about a quire and a half of paper[27]. In fact, +one would almost suppose that few persons at that time condescended to +perform a cure by natural means. Witness the sympathetic nostrums of +Valentine Greatrakes and Sir Kenelm Digby; or the case of Arise Evans, +reported by Aubrey, who "had a fungous nose, and to whom it was _revealed_ +that the king's hand would cure him; and at the first coming of King +Charles II. into St. James's Park he kissed the king's hand and _rubbed +his nose with it, which troubled the king, but cured him_." In Aubrey's +time, too, the visits of ghosts had become so frequent, that they had +their exits and their entrances without exciting the least sensation. +Aubrey makes an entry in his journal of the appearance of a ghost as +coolly as a merchant now-a-days makes an entry in his ledger. "Anno 1670. +Not far from Cirencester was an apparition. Being demanded whether good +spirit or bad, returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume +and a melodious twang." + +Is it to be wondered at then, that, surrounded on all hands with such +superstitious fancies, the weak and depraved were early brought to believe +that all the wild chimeras of the demonologists were true, and that they +had really concluded that covenant with Satan, the possibility of which +was universally inculcated as an article of faith, and the idea of which +was constantly present to their minds? or that, under the influence of +this frightful delusion, they should voluntarily come forward to confess +their imaginary crime, as in the Amsterdam case of the poor girl who +accused herself of bewitching cattle by the words Shurius, Turius, +Tirius[28], or in another still more remarkable case in 1687, mentioned in +Reichard's 'Beyträge,' where a young woman accused herself, her friend, +and the mother of her friend, of a long course of witchcraft, with all the +usual traditional and impossible horrors of Sprenger and his brethren? + +Neither, we are afraid, is there much reason to doubt that some of the +most horrible of their conceptions were founded on facts which were but +too real; that the cunning and the depraved contrived to turn the +ecstasies and the fears of these poor wretches to their own purposes; in +short, that frauds similar to those which Boccaccio has painted in his +novel of the angel Gabriel, were occasionally played off upon the deluded +victims. Without entering further on a topic which is rather of a delicate +kind, the reader will have an idea of our meaning who recollects the +disclosures that took place in the noted French case of Father Girard and +La Cadière. + +Much has been said as to the wonderful coincidences to be found in the +evidence of the accused when examined separately, the minuteness of their +details, and the general harmony of the infernal narratives, as collected +from the witch trials of different countries. But the truth is that this +assertion must in the first place be received with great limitations; for +in many cases, where, accepting the assertions of Sprenger and the rest as +true, we should suppose the coincidence to be complete, the original +confessions which still exist prove that the resemblance was merely +general, and that there were radical and irreconcileable differences in +the details of the evidence. Inasfar as the assertion is really true, one +simple explanation goes far to account for the phenomenon;--"Insanire +parent _certâ ratione_ modoque." The general notions of the devil and his +demeanour, the rites of the infernal sabbath, etc. being once fixed, the +visions which crossed the minds of the unfortunate wretches accused soon +assumed a pretty determinate and invariable form; so that, even if left to +tell their own story, there would have been the closest resemblance +between the narratives of different persons. But this was not all. In +almost every case the confessions were merely the echo of questions put by +the inquisitors, all of which again were founded on the demonological +creed of the 'Malleus.' One set of questions is put to all the witches, +and the answers, being almost always simple affirmatives, necessarily +correspond. Hence it is amusing enough to observe how different were the +results, when the process of investigation fell into the hands of persons +to whom Sprenger's manual was unknown. In the Lindheim trials in 1633, to +which we have already alluded, the inquisitor happened to be an old +soldier, who had witnessed several campaigns in the Thirty Years War, and +who, instead of troubling his head about Incubi, Succubi, and the other +favourite subjects of inquiry with the disciples of the Hammer, was only +anxious to ascertain who was the queen of the infernal spirits, the +general, officers, _corporals_, etc., to all of which he received answers +as distinct and satisfactory as any that are recorded for our instruction +in the chronicles of Bodinus or Delrio. + +In the seventeenth century, the manner in which the delusion was +communicated seems exactly to resemble those remarkable instances of +sympathy which occur in the cases of the Scottish Cambuslang Conversions +and the American Forest Preachings. No sooner has one hypochondriac +published his symptoms, than fifty others feel themselves at once affected +with the same disorder. In the celebrated Mora case in 1669, with which of +course all the readers of Glanvil (and who has not occasionally peeped +into his horrors?) are familiar, the disease spreads first through the +children, who believed themselves the victims of diabolical agency, and +who ascribed the convulsions, faintings, etc., with which they were +attacked, to that cause; and next through the unfortunate witches +themselves, for as soon as one or two of them, bursting into tears, +confessed that the accusation of the children was true, all the rest +joined in the confession. And what is the nature of their confession? Of +all impossible absurdities that ever entered the brain of man, this trial +is the epitome. They meet the devil nightly on the Blocula, which is the +devil's ball-room in Sweden, as the Brocken is in Germany; they ride +thither on sticks, goats, men's backs, and spits; they are baptized by a +priest provided by the devil; they sup with him, very frugally it would +appear, for the banquet commonly consists of broth made with colewort and +bacon, oatmeal, bread and butter, milk and cheese; and the devil allows no +wine. After supper they dance, and when the devil wishes to be +particularly jolly he pulls the spits from under them, and beats them +black and blue, after which he sits down and laughs outrageously. +Sometimes he treats them to a musical exhibition on the harp, for he has a +great turn for music, as his famous sonata to Tartini proves. All of them +confess intercourse with him[29], and most of them had sons and daughters +by him. Occasionally he fell sick, and required to be bled and blistered; +and once he seemed to be dead, on which occasion there was a general +mourning for him on the Blocula, as the Syrian damsels used to bewail the +annual wound of their idol Thammuz on Lebanon. Is it not frightful to +think that in a trial held before a tribunal consisting of the _élite_ of +the province of Dalecarlia, assisted by the commissioners from the +capital,--in a country where, until this time, the witch mania, already +beginning to abate in Germany, had scarcely been heard of, and where it +ceased earlier perhaps than in most other countries in +Europe,--seventy-two women and fifteen children should have been condemned +and executed at one time upon such confessions? Is it possible after this +to read without shuddering the cool newspaper-like conclusion of Dr. +Horneck--"On the 25th of August execution was done upon the notoriously +guilty, _the day being bright and glorious, and the sun shining_, and some +thousands of people being present at the spectacle!" + +Thirty years before, a similar instance of the progress of the epidemic +had taken place at Lille, in the hospital founded by the pious enthusiast +Antoinette Bourignon. On entering the schoolroom one day, she imagined +that she saw a number of little black children, with wings, flying about +the heads of the girls; and not liking the colour or appearance of these +visitors, she warned her pupils to be on their guard. Shortly before this, +a girl who had run away from the institution in consequence of being +confined for some misdemeanour of which she had been guilty, being +interrogated how she had contrived to escape, and not liking probably to +disclose the truth, had maintained that she had been liberated by the +devil, to whose service she had devoted herself from a child. Nothing more +was wanting in that age of _diablerie_ to turn the heads of the poor +children; in the course of six months almost all the girls in the +hospital, amounting to more than fifty, had confessed themselves confirmed +witches, and admitted the usual intercourse with the devil, the midnight +meetings, dances, banquets, etc., which form the staple of the narrative +of the time. Their ideal banquets seem to have been on a more liberal +scale however than those of the poor Mora witches; probably because many +of the pupils had been accustomed to better fare in a populous and wealthy +town in Flanders, than the others in a poor village in Sweden. Exorcisms +and prayers of all kinds followed this astounding disclosure. The +Capuchins and Jesuits quarrelled, the Capuchins implicitly believing the +reality of the possession, the Jesuits doubting it. The parents of the +culprit now turned the tables upon poor Bourignon, by accusing her of +having bewitched them; and at last the pious theosophist, after an +examination before the Council, was glad to seek safety in flight; having +thus obtained a clearer notion than she formerly possessed of the kingdom +of Satan, with regard to which she had entertained and published as many +strange fancies as the Bishop of Benevento; and having been taught by her +own experience the danger of tampering with youthful minds, in which the +train of superstition had been so long laid, that it only required a spark +from her overheated brain to kindle it into a flame. + +It would appear too that physical causes, and in particular nervous +affections of a singular kind, had about this time mingled with and +increased the delusion which had taken its rise in these superstitious +conceptions of the devil and his influence. During the very year (1669) in +which the children at Mora were suffering under convulsions and fainting +fits, those in the Orphan Hospital at Hoorn, in Holland, were labouring +under a malady exactly similar; but though the phenomena were attributed +to diabolical agency, the suspicions of the public fortunately were not +directed to any individual in particular. Another instance of the same +kind had taken place about a century before in the Orphan Hospital at +Amsterdam, of which a particular account is given in Dapper's history of +that city, where the number of children supposed to be bewitched amounted +to about seventy, and where the evil was attributed to some unhappy old +women, before whose houses the affected urchins, when led out into the +streets, had been more than usually clamorous. Such also appears to have +been the primary cause of the tragedies in New England in 1699; of the +demoniac exhibitions at Loudon, which were made a pretext for the murder +of the obnoxious Grandier; of the strange incidents which occurred so late +as 1749 in the convent of Unterzell at Wurtzburg; and of most of the other +more remarkable cases of supposed possession. The mysterious principle of +sympathy, operating in weak minds, will in fact be found to be at the root +of most of the singular phenomena in the history of witchcraft. No wonder +then that after the experience of a century, the judges, and even the +ignorant public themselves, came at last to suspect that, however the +principle might apply to other crimes, the confession of the criminal was +not, in cases of witchcraft, the _best_ evidence of the fact. In the New +England cases, says Mr. Calef (April 25, 1693), "one was tried that +confessed; but they were now so well taught what weight to lay upon +confessions, that the jury brought her in not guilty, although she +confessed she was." + +But what a deluge of blood had been shed before even this principle came +to be recognized, and still more before the judicial belief in the +existence of the crime was fully eradicated! What a spectacle does Europe +present from the date of Innocent's Bull down to the commencement of the +eighteenth century! Sprenger, Henry Institor, Geiss von Lindheim, and +others in Germany; Cumanus in Italy; the Inquisition in Spain; Remigius, +Bodinus, and De l'Ancre in France and Lorraine, flooring witches on all +sides with the 'Malleus Maleficarum,' or flogging them to death with the +'Flagellum' and 'Fustis Dæmonum;' Holland, Geneva, Sweden, Denmark, +England, and Scotland vying with each other in the number of trials and +the depth of their infatuation and bigotry! + +The Reformation, which uprooted other errors, only strengthened and +fostered this. Every town and village on the continent was filled with +spies, accusers, and wretches who made their living by pretending to +detect the secret marks which indicated a compact with the +devil[30],--inquisitors, judges, advocates, executioners, every one +connected with these frightful tribunals, on the watch for anything which +might afford the semblance of suspicion. To ensure the death or ruin of an +enemy, nothing more was necessary in most cases than to throw into this +lion's mouth an accusation of magic against him. "Vix aliquis eorum," says +Linden, the determined foe of these proceedings, "qui accusati sunt, +supplicium evasit." The fate of Edelin, of Urban Grandier, and of the +Maréchale d'Ancre in France, of Doctor Flaet and Sidonia von Vork in +Germany, and of Peter of Abano in Italy[31], prove how often the +accusation of sorcery was not even believed by the accusers themselves, +but was resorted to merely as a certain means to get rid of an obnoxious +enemy. Meanwhile the notaries' clerks and officials, labouring in their +vocation, grew rich from the enormous fees attendant on these trials; the +executioner became a personage of first-rate consequence: "generoso equo +instar aulici nobilis ferebatur, auro argentoque vestitus: uxor ejus +vestium luxu certabat cum nobilioribus[32]." Some partial diminution of +this persecuting zeal took place in consequence of a Rescript of John VII. +(18th December, 1591), addressed to the commission, by which the fees of +court were restricted within more moderate bounds; but still the profits +arising from this trade in human victims were sufficient to induce the +members and dependants of court, like the Brahmins in India, to support +with all their might this system of purification by fire. + +At last however the horrors of Wurtzburg and Treves began to open the eyes +even of the dullest to the progress of the danger, which, commencing like +Elijah's cloud, had gradually overshadowed the land. While the executions +were confined to the lower classes, to crazed old women or unhappy +foreigners, even those whose more vigorous intellect enabled them to +resist the popular contagion chose rather to sit by spectators of these +horrors, than to expose themselves to the fate of Edelin or Flaet, by +attacking the madness in which they originated. But now, when the +pestilence, spreading on and on, threatened the lives of more exalted +victims,--when noblemen and abbots, presidents of courts and professors, +began to swell the catalogue, and when no man felt secure that he might +not suddenly be compelled by torture to bear witness against his own +innocent wife or children,--selfishness began to co-operate with truth +and reason. So, in the same way, in the case of the New England +witchcrafts, the first effectual check which they received was from the +accusation of Mrs. Hale, the clergyman's wife: her husband, who till then +had been most active in the persecution, immediately received a new light +with regard to the transaction, and exerted his whole influence for the +suppression of the trials. + +The first decisive blow which the doctrines of the inquisitors received in +Germany was from the publication of the 'Cautio Criminalis,' in 1631. In +the sixteenth century, it is true that Ponzonibius, Wierus, Pietro +d'Apone, and Reginald Scott had published works which went to impugn their +whole proceedings; but the works of the foreigners were almost unknown in +Germany, and that of Wierus was nearly as absurd and superstitious as the +doctrines he combated. It is little to the credit of the Reformers that +the first work in which the matter was treated in a philosophical, humane, +and common-sense view should have been the production of a Catholic +Jesuit, Frederick Spee, the descendant of a noble family in Westphalia. So +strongly did this exposure of the horrors of the witch trials operate on +the mind of John Philip Schonbrunn, Bishop of Wurtzburg, and finally +Archbishop and Elector of Mentz, that his first care on assuming the +Electoral dignity was to abolish the process entirely within his +dominions--an example which was soon after followed by the Duke of +Brunswick and others of the German princes. Shortly after this the +darkness begins to break up, and the dawning of better views to appear, +though still liable to partial and temporary obscurations,--the evil +apparently shifting further north, and re-appearing in Sweden and Denmark +in the shape of the trials at Mora and Fioge. Reichard[33] has published a +rescript of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, bearing date the +4th of November, 1654, addressed to the judges in reference to the case of +Ann of Ellerbroke, enjoining that the prisoner should be allowed to be +heard in defence, before any torture was resorted to (a principle directly +the reverse of those maintained by the inquisitorial courts), and +expressly reprobating the proof by water as an unjust and deceitful test, +to which no credit was to be given. Even where a conviction takes place, +as in the Neuendorf trial of Catherine Sempels, we find the sentence of +death first passed upon her by the provincial judges, commuted into +imprisonment for life by the Electoral Chamber in 1671,--a degree of +lenity which never could have taken place during the height of the mania. + +In 1701 the celebrated inaugural Thesis of Thomasius, 'De Crimine Magiæ,' +was publicly delivered, with the highest applause, in the University of +Halle, a work which some fifty years before would assuredly have procured +the author no other crown but that of martyrdom, but which was now +received with general approbation, as embodying the views which the honest +and intelligent had long entertained. Thomasius's great storehouse of +information and argument was the work of Bekker, who again had modelled +his on the Treatise of Van Dale on Oracles; and Thomasius, while he +adopted his facts and arguments, steered clear of those Cartesian +doctrines which had been the chief cause why the work of Bekker had +produced so little practical effect. Still, notwithstanding the good thus +produced, the fire of persecution seems to have been smothered only, not +extinguished. In 1728 it flamed up again at Szegedin in Hungary, where +thirteen persons were burnt alive on three scaffolds, for witchcraft, +under circumstances of horror worthy of the wildest periods of this +madness. And so late as 1749 comes the frightful story of Maria Renata, of +Wurtzburg, the whole official details of which are published by Horst, and +which in its atrocity was worthy to conclude the long series of murders +which had polluted the annals of Bamberg. This trial is remarkable from +the feeling of disgust it seems to have excited in Germany, Italy, and +France; and the more so because, whatever may be thought of the reality of +her pretensions, there seems to be no doubt from the evidence that Maria +was by no means immaculate, but _was_ a dabbler in spells and potions, a +_venefica_ in the sense of the Theodosian code. But there is a time, as +Solomon says, for everything under the sun; and the glories of the +'Malleus Maleficarum' were departed. The consequence was, that taking this +trial as their text-book, various foreigners, particularly Maffei, +Tartarotti, and Dell' Ossa, attacked the system so vigorously, that since +that time the adherents of the old superstition seem to have abandoned the +field in Germany. + +Matters had come to a close much sooner in Switzerland and France. In the +Catholic canton of Glarus, it is said, a witch was burnt even so late as +1786; but in the Protestant cantons no trials seem to have taken place for +two centuries past. The last execution in Geneva was that of Michel +Chauderon, in 1652. Sebastian Michaelis indeed would have us to believe, +that at one time the tribunal at Geneva put no criminals accused of +witchcraft to death, unless on proof of their having done actual injury to +men or animals, and that the other phenomena of confessions, etc., were +regarded as mere mental delusions. If such however was originally the +case, this humane rule was unfortunately soon abandoned; for nowhere did +the mania of persecution at one time rage more than in Geneva, as is +evident from Delrio's preface. It seems fairly entitled however to the +credit of having been the first state in Europe which emancipated itself +from the influence of this bloody superstition. + +In France, the edict of Louis XIV., in 1682, directed only against +_pretended_ witches and prophets, proves distinctly that the belief in the +reality of witchcraft had ceased, and that it was merely the pretended +exercise of such powers which it was thought necessary to suppress. It is +highly to the credit of Louis and his ministry, that this step was taken +by him in opposition to a formal _requête_ by the Parliament of Normandy, +presented in the year 1670, on the occasion of his Majesty having commuted +the punishment of death into banishment for life, in the case of a set of +criminals whom the Parliament had condemned _more majorum_ for +witchcraft[34]. In this apology for their belief, they reminded Louis of +the inveterate practice of the kingdom; of the numerous arrêts of the +Parliament of Paris, from the trials in Artois in 1459, reported by +Monstrelet, down to that of Leger in May 1616; of the judgments pronounced +under the commission addressed by Henry the Great to the Sieur de l'Ancre, +in 1609; of those pronounced by the Parliament of Toulouse, in 1577; of +the celebrated case of Gaufridy, in 1611; of the _arrêts_ of the +Parliaments of Dijon and Rennes, following on the remarkable trial of the +Maréchal de Retz, in 1441, who was burnt for magic and sorcery in the +presence of the Duke of Bretagne: and after combating the authority of a +canon of the Council of Aucyra, and of a passage in St. Augustine, which +had been quoted against them by their opponents, they sum up their +pleading with the following placid and charitable supplication to his +Majesty--"Qu'elle voudra bien souffrir l'exécution des arrêts qu'ils ont +rendus, et leur permettre de continuer l'instruction et jugement des +procès des personnes accusés de sortilège, et que la piété de Votre +Majesté ne souffrira pas que l'on introduise durant son règne une nouvelle +opinion contraire aux principes de la religion, pour laquelle Votre +Majesté a toujours si glorieusement employé ses soins et ses armes." +Notwithstanding this concluding compliment to his Majesty's zeal and +piety, it is doubtful whether the Parliament of Normandy, in their anxiety +for the support of their constitutional privileges, could have taken a +more effectual plan to ruin their own case, than by thus presenting Louis +with a sort of anthology or elegant extracts from the atrocities of the +witch trials; and in all probability the appearance of the edict of 1680 +was accelerated by the very remonstrance by which the Norman sages had +hoped to strangle it. + +In turning from the Continent to the state of matters in England and +Scotland, the prospect is anything but a comfortable one; and certainly +nothing can be more deceitful than the unction which Dr. Francis +Hutchinson lays to his soul, when he ventures to assert that England was +one of those countries where its horrors were least felt and earliest +suppressed. Witness the trials and convictions which, even before the +enactment of any penal statute, took place for this imaginary offence, as +in the case of Bolingbroke and Margery Jourdain, whose incantations the +genius of Shakespear has rendered familiar to us in the Second Part of +King Henry VI. Witness the successive statutes of Henry VIII., of +Elizabeth, and of James I., the last of which was repealed only in 1736, +and passed while Coke was Attorney-General, and Bacon a member of the +Commons! Witness the exploits of Hopkins, the witch-finder-general, +against the wretched creatures in Lincolnshire, of whom-- + + "Some only for not being drown'd, + And some for sitting above ground + Whole nights and days upon their breeches, + And feeling pain, were hanged for witches." + _Hudibras_, part ii. canto iii. + +What would the Doctor have said to the list of THREE THOUSAND victims +executed during the dynasty of the Long Parliament alone, which Zachary +Grey, the editor of Hudibras, says he himself perused? What absurdities +can exceed those sworn to in the trials of the witches of Warboys, whose +fate was, in Dr. Hutchinson's days, and perhaps is still, annually +"improved" in a commemoration sermon at Cambridge? or in the case of the +luckless Lancashire witches, sacrificed, as afterwards appeared, to the +villany of the impostor Robinson, whose story furnished materials to the +dramatic muse of Heywood and Shadwell? How melancholy is the spectacle of +a man like Hale, condemning Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, in 1664, on +evidence which, though corroborated by the opinion of Sir Thomas Browne, a +child would now be disposed to laugh at? A better order of things, it is +true, commences with the Chief-justiceship of Holt. The evidence against +Mother Munnings, in 1694, would, with a man of weaker intellect, have +sealed the fate of the unfortunate old woman; but Holt charged the jury +with such firmness and good sense, that a verdict of Not Guilty, almost +the first then on record in a trial for witchcraft, was found. In about +ten other trials before Holt, from 1694 to 1701, the result was the same. +Wenham's case, which followed in 1711, sufficiently evinced the change +which had taken place in the feelings of judges. Throughout the whole +trial, Chief Justice Powell seems to have sneered openly at the +absurdities which the witnesses, and in particular the clergymen who were +examined, were endeavouring to press upon the jury; but, with all his +exertions, a verdict of guilty was found against the prisoner. With the +view however of securing her pardon, by showing how far the prejudices of +the jury had gone, he asked, when the verdict was given in, "whether they +found her guilty upon the indictment for conversing with the devil in the +shape of a cat?" The foreman answered, "We find her guilty of that!" It is +almost needless to add that a pardon was procured for her. And yet after +all this, in 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, aged _nine_, were hanged +at Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm, +by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap! + +With this crowning atrocity, the catalogue of murders in England closes; +the penal statutes against witchcraft being repealed in 1736, and the +pretended exercise of such arts being punished in future by imprisonment +and pillory. Even yet however the case of Rex _v._ Weldon, in 1809, and +the still later case of Barker _v._ Ray, in Chancery (August 2, 1827), +proves that the popular belief in such practices has by no means ceased; +and it is not very long ago that a poor woman narrowly escaped with her +life from a revival of Hopkins's trial by water[35]. Barrington, in his +observations on the statute 20 Henry VI., does not hesitate to estimate +the numbers of those put to death in England on this charge at 30,000! + +We now turn to Scotland. Much light has been thrown on the rise and +progress, decline and fall, of the delusion in that country by the +valuable work of Mr. Pitcairn[36], which contains abstracts of every trial +in the supreme Criminal Court of Scotland: the author has given a faithful +and minute view of the procedure in each case, accompanied with full +extracts from the original documents, where they contained anything of +interest. + +In no country perhaps did this gloomy superstition assume a darker or +bloodier character than in Scotland. Wild, mountainous, and pastoral +countries, partly from the striking, varied, and sometimes terrible +phenomena which they present,--partly from the habits and manner of life, +the tendency to thought and meditation which they create and foster,--have +always been the great haunts in which superstition finds its cradle and +home. The temper of the Scots, combining reflection with enthusiasm--their +mode of life in earlier days, which amidst the occasional bustle of wild +and agitating exertion, left many intervals of mental vacuity in +solitude--their night watches by the cave on the hill-side--their +uncertain climate, of sunshine and vapour and storm--all contributed to +exalt and keep alive that superstitions fear with which ignorance looks on +every extraordinary movement of nature. From the earliest period of the +Scottish annals, "All was bot gaistis, and eldrich phantasie;" the meteors +and auroræ boreales which prevailed in this mountainous region were +tortured into apparitions of horsemen combating in the air, or +corpse-candles burning on the hill-tops[37]. Skeletons danced as familiar +guests at the nuptials of our kings[38]: spectres warned them back from +the battle-field of Flodden, and visionary heralds proclaimed from the +market-cross the long catalogue of the slain. + + "Figures that seemed to rise and die, + Gibber and sign, advance and fly, + While nought confirmed, could ear or eye + Discern of sound or mien; + Yet darkly did it seem as there + Heralds and pursuivants appear, + With trumpet sound and blazon fair, + A summons to proclaim." + _Marmion_, canto v. + +Incubi and succubi wandered about in all directions, with a degree of +assurance and plausibility which would have deceived the very elect[39]; +and wicked churchmen were cited by audible voices and an accompaniment of +thunder before the tribunal of Heaven[40]. The annals of the thirteenth +century are dignified with the exploits of three wizards, before whom +Nostradamus and Merlin must stoop their crests, Thomas of Ercildoune, Sir +Michael Scott, and Lord Soulis. The Tramontane fame of the second had even +crossed the Alps, for Dante[41] accommodates him with a place in Hell, +between Bonatto, the astrologer of Guido di Monte Feltro, and Asdente of +Parma. + +But previous to the Reformation, these superstitious notions, though +generally prevalent, had hardly assumed a form much calculated to disturb +the peace of society. Though in some cases, where these powers had been +supposed to have been exercised for treasonable purposes, the punishment +of death had been inflicted on the witches[42], men did not as yet think +it necessary, merely for the supposed possession of such powers, or their +benevolent exercise, to apply the purifying power of fire to eradicate the +disorder. Sir Michael and the Rhymer lived and died peaceably; and the +tragical fate of the tyrant Soulis on the Nine Stane Rigg was owing, not +to the supposed sorceries which had polluted his Castle of Hermitage, but +to those more palpable atrocities which had been dictated by the demon of +his own evil conscience, and executed by those iron-handed and +iron-hearted agents, who were so readily evoked by the simpler spell of +feudal despotism. + +From the commencement of the Records of the Scottish Justiciary Court, +down to the reign of Mary, no trial properly for witchcraft appears on the +record. For though in the case of the unfortunate Countess of Glammis, +executed in 1536, during the reign of James V., on an accusation of +treasonably conspiring the king's death by poison, some hints of sorcery +are thrown into the dittay, probably with the view of exciting a popular +prejudice against one whose personal beauty and high spirit rendered her a +favourite with the people, it is obvious that nothing was really rested on +this charge. + +But with the introduction of the Reformation "novus rerum nascitur ordo." +Far from divesting themselves of the dark and bloody superstitions which +Innocent's bull had systematized and propagated, the German reformers had +preserved this, while they demolished every other idol, and moving + + "In dismal dance around the furnace blue," + +had made even children pass through the fire to Moloch. Their Scottish +brethren, adopting implicitly the creed of their continental prototypes, +transplanted to our own country, a soil unfortunately but too well +prepared for such a seed, the whole doctrine of Satan's visible agency on +earth, with all the grotesque horrors of his commerce with mankind. The +aid of the sword of justice was immediately found to be indispensable to +the weapons of the spirit; and the verse of Moses which declares that a +witch shall not be suffered to live, was forthwith made the groundwork of +the Act 73 of the ninth parliament of Queen Mary, which enacted the +punishment of death against witches or consulters with witches. + +The consequences of this authoritative recognition of the creed of +witchcraft became immediately obvious with the reign of James which +followed. Witchcraft became the all-engrossing topic of the day, and the +ordinary accusation resorted to whenever it was the object of one +individual to ruin another, just as certain other offences were during the +reign of Justinian, and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in +Italy. In Scotland the evil was not less busy in high places, than among +the humbler beings, who had generally been professors of the art magic. A +sort of relation of clientage seems to have been established between the +operative performers, and those noble patrons (chiefly, we regret to say, +of the fair sex) by whom their services were put in requisition. The Lady +Buccleugh, of Branxholm Hall, whose spells have furnished our own +Northern Wizard with some of his most striking pictures,--the Countess of +Athol, the Countess of Huntly, the wife of the Chancellor Arran, the Lady +Ker, wife of James, Master of Requests, the Countess of Lothian, the +Countess of Angus, (more fortunate in her generation than her grandmother +Lady Glammis), were all, if we are to believe the scandal of Scotstarvet, +either protectors of witches or themselves dabblers in the art[43]. Even +Knox himself did not escape the accusation of witchcraft; the power and +energy of mind with which Providence had gifted him, the enemies of the +Reformation attributed to a darker source. He was accused of having +attempted to raise "some sanctes" in the churchyard of St. Andrew's; but +in the course of this resuscitation upstarted the devil himself, having a +huge pair of horns on his head, at which terrible sight Knox's secretary +became mad with fear, and shortly after died. Nay, to such a height had +the mania gone, that Scot of Scotstarvet mentions that Sir Lewis +Ballantyne, Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, "by curiosity dealt with a +warlock called Richard Grahame," (the same person who figures in the trial +of Alison Balfour, as a confederate of Bothwell), "to raise the devil, who +having raised him in his own yard in the Canongate, he was thereby so +terrified that he took sickness and thereof died." This was a "staggering +state of Scots statesmen" indeed, when even the supreme criminal judge of +Scotland was thus at the head of the delinquents. Well might any +unfortunate criminal have said with Angelo-- + + "Thieves for their robbery have authority, + When judges steal themselves." + _Measure f. Measure_, ii. 2. + +Nor, in fact, was the Church less deeply implicated than the court and the +hall of justice; for in the case of Alison Pearson (1588) we find the +celebrated Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, laying aside the +fear of the Act of Parliament, and condescending to apply to this poor +wretch for a potion to cure him of his sickness! + +A faith so strong and so general could not be long in manifesting itself +in works. In 1572 occurs the first entry in the Justiciary Record, the +trial of Janet Bowman, of which no particulars are given, except the +emphatic sentence "Convict: and Brynt." No fewer than thirty-five trials +appear to have taken place before the Court of Justiciary during the +remainder of James's reign, (to 1625), in almost all of which the result +is the same as in the case of Bowman. + +Two or three of these are peculiarly interesting; one, from the difference +between its details and those which form the usual materials of the witch +trials; the others, from the high rank of some of those involved in them, +and the strange and almost inexplicable extent of the delusion. The first +to which we allude is that of Bessie Dunlop[44], convicted on her own +confession; the peculiarity in this case is that, instead of the devil +himself _in propriâ personâ_, the spiritual beings to whom we are +introduced are our old friends the fairies, the same sweet elves whom +Paracelsus defends, and old Aubrey delighted to honour. Bessie's familiar +was a being whom she calls Thom Reed, and whom she describes in her +judicial declaration[45] as "an honest weel elderlie man, gray bairdit, +and had ane gray coitt with Lumbard sleeves of the auld fassoun, ane pair +of gray brekis, and quhyte schankis gartarrit abone the kne." Their first +meeting took place as she was going to the pasture, "gretand (weeping) +verrie fast for her kow that was dead, and her husband and child that were +lyand sick in the land-ill (some epidemic of the time), and she new risen +out of gissane (childbed)." Thom, who took care that his character should +open upon her in a favourable light, chid her for her distrust in +Providence, and told her that her sheep and her child would both die, but +that her husband should recover, which comforted her a little. His true +character, however, appeared at a second "forgathering," when he +unblushingly urged her "to denye her christendom and renounce her baptism, +and the faith she took at the fount stane." The poor witch answered, that +"though she should be riven at horse-tails she would never do that," but +promised him obedience in all things else,--a qualified concession with +which he rather grumblingly departed. His third appearance took place in +her own house, in presence of her husband and _three_ tailors (three!). To +the infinite consternation of this trio and of the gudeman, he took her by +the apron and led her out of the house to the kiln-end, where she saw +eight women and four men sitting; the men in gentlemen's clothing, and the +women with plaids round about them, and "very seemly to see." They said to +her, "Welcome Bessie, wilt thou go with us?" but as she made no answer to +this invitation, they, after some conversation among themselves which she +could not understand, disappeared of a sudden, and "a hideous ugly sough +of wind followed them." She was told by Thom, after their departure, that +these "were the gude wights that wonned in the Court of Elfane," and that +she ought to have accepted their invitation. She afterwards received a +visit from the Queen of Elfane in person, who condescendingly asked a +drink of her, and prophesied the death of her child and the recovery of +her husband. The use which poor Bessie made of her privileges was of the +most harmless kind, for her spells seem to have been all exerted to cure, +and not to kill. Most of the articles of her indictment are for cures +performed, nor is there any charge against her of exerting her powers for +a malicious purpose. As usual however she was convicted and burnt. + +This was evidently a pure case of mental delusion, but it was soon +followed by one of a darker and more complex character, in which, as far +as the principal actor was concerned, it seems doubtful whether the +mummery of witchcraft formed anything more than a mere pageant in the dark +drama of human passions and crimes. We allude to the trials of Lady Fowlis +and of Hector Munro of Fowlis, for witchcraft and poisoning, in 1590. This +is one of those cases which might plausibly be quoted in support of the +ground on which the witch trials have been defended by Selden, Bayle, and +the writers of the Encyclopédie,--namely, the necessity of punishing the +pretensions to such powers, or the belief in their existence, with as +great rigour as if their exercise had been real. "The law against +witches," says Selden, "does not prove there be any, but it punishes the +malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives. If +one should profess that, by turning his hat and crying buz, he could take +away a man's life, though in truth he could do no such thing, yet this +were a just law made by the state, that whoever should turn his hat thrice +and cry buz, with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to +death." We shall hardly stop to expose the absurdity of this doctrine of +Selden in the abstract, which thus makes the will universally equal to +the deed; but when we read such cases as that of Lady Fowlis, it cannot at +the same time be denied, that the power which the pretended professor of +such arts thus obtained over the popular mind, and the relaxation of moral +principle with which it was naturally accompanied in the individual +himself, rendered him a most dangerous member of society. In general, the +profession of sorcery was associated with other crimes, and was frequently +employed as a mere cover by which these might with the more security and +effect be perpetrated. The philters and love-potions of La Voisin and +Forman, the private court calendar of the latter, containing "what ladies +loved what lords best," (which the Chief Justice prudently would not allow +to be read in court), are sufficiently well known. Charms of a more +disgusting nature appear to have been supplied by our own witches, as in +the case of Roy, tried before the sheriff of Perth, in 1601[46], and in +that of Colquhoun, of Luss, tried for sorcery and incest, 1633, where the +instrument of seduction was a jewel obtained from a necromancer. In short, +wherever any flagitious purpose was to be effected, nothing more was +necessary than to have recourse to some notorious witch. In poisoning, in +particular, they were accomplished adepts, as was naturally to be expected +from the power which it gave them of realizing their own prophecies. +Poisoners and witches are classed together in the conclusion of Louis +XIV.'s edict; and the trials before the Chambre Ardente prove that the two +trades were generally found in harmonious juxtaposition. Our own Mrs. +Turner, in England, affords us no bad specimen of this union of the +poisoner with the procuress and the witch; while the prevalence of the +same connection in Scotland appears from the details of the case of Robert +Erskine, of Dun, from that of the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, Euphemia +Macalzean, and still more from the singular case of Lady Fowlis. + +The object of the conspirators in this last case was the destruction of +the young lady of Balnagown, which would have enabled George Ross, of +Balnagown, to marry the young Lady Fowlis. But in order to entitle them to +the succession of Fowlis, supposing the alliance to be effected, a more +extensive slaughter was required. Lady Fowlis's stepsons, Robert and +Hector, with their families, stood in the way, and these were next to be +removed. Nay, the indictment goes the length of charging her with +projecting the murder of more than thirty individuals, including an +accomplice of her own, Katharine Ross, the daughter of Sir David Ross, +whom she had seduced into her schemes, a woman apparently of the most +resolute temper, and obviously of an acute and penetrating intellect; +there seems reason to doubt whether she had any faith in the power of the +charms and sorceries to which she resorted, but she probably thought that, +in availing herself of the services of those hags whom she employed, the +more prudent course would be to allow them to play off their mummeries in +their own way, while she combined them with more effective human means. +Accordingly the work of destruction commenced with the common spell of +making two pictures of clay, representing the intended victims; but +instead of exposing them to the fire, or burying them with their heads +downward, the pictures were in this case hung up on the north side of the +room, and the lady, with her familiars, shot several arrows, shod with +elf-arrow heads, at them, but without effect. Though the Lady Fowlis gave +orders that other two pictures should be prepared, in order to renew the +attempt, she seems forthwith to have resorted to more vigorous measures, +and to have associated Katharine Ross and her brother George in her plans. +The first composition prepared for her victims was a stoupful of poisoned +ale, but this ran out in making. She then gave orders to prepare "a pig of +ranker poison, that would kill shortly," and this she dispatched by her +nurse to the young Laird of Fowlis. Providence however again protected +him: the "pig" fell and was broken by the way, and the nurse, who could +not resist the temptation of tasting the contents, paid the penalty of her +curiosity with her life. So corrosive was the nature of the potion, that +the very grass on which it fell was destroyed. Nothing however could move +Lady Fowlis from her purpose. Like Mrs. Turner, who treated Overbury with +spiders, cantharides, and arsenic, alternately, that she might be able to +"hit his complexion," she now proceeded to try the effect of "ratton +poyson," (ratsbane,) of which she seems to have administered several doses +to the young laird, "in eggs, browis, or kale," but still without effect, +his constitution apparently proving too strong for them. She had more +nearly succeeded, however, with her sister-in-law, her female victim. The +"ratton poyson" which she had prepared for Lady Balnagown, she contrived, +by means of one of her subsidiary hags, to mix in a dish of kidneys, on +which Lady Balnagown and her company supped; and its effects were so +violent, that even the wretch by whom it was administered revolted at the +sight. At the date of the trial, however, it would seem the unfortunate +lady was still alive. Lady Fowlis was at last apprehended, on the +confession of several of the witches she had employed, and more than one +of whom had been executed before her own trial took place. The proceedings +after all terminated in an acquittal, a result which is only explicable by +observing that the jury was evidently a packed one, and consisted +principally of the dependants of the houses of Munro and Fowlis. + +This scene of _diablerie_ and poisoning, however, did not terminate here. +It now appeared that Mr. Hector, one of his stepmother's intended victims, +had himself been the principal performer in a witch underplot directed +against the life of his brother George. Unlike his more energetic +stepmother, credulous to the last degree, he seems to have been entirely +under the control of the hags by whom he was surrounded, and who harassed +and terrified him with fearful predictions and ghastly exhibitions of all +kinds. He does not appear to have been naturally a wicked man, for the +very same witches who were afterwards leagued with him against the life of +George, he had consulted with a view of curing his elder brother Robert, +by whose death he would have succeeded to the estates. But being seized +with a lingering illness, and told by his familiars that the only chance +he had of recovering his health was that his brother should die for him, +he seems quietly to have devoted him to death, under the strong instinct +of self-preservation. In order to prevent suspicion, it was agreed that +his death should be lingering and gradual, and the officiating witch, who +seemed to have the same confidence in her own nicety of calculation as the +celebrated inventress of the _poudre de successions_, warranted the victim +until the 17th of April following. It must be admitted that the +incantations which followed were well calculated to produce a strong +effect, both moral and physical, on the weak and credulous being on whom +they were played off. Shortly after midnight, in the month of January, +the witches left the house in which Mr. Hector was lying sick at the time, +and passed to a piece of ground lying betwixt the lands of two feudal +superiors, where they dug a large grave. Hector Munro, wrapped in +blankets, was then carried forth, the bearers all the time remaining dumb, +and silently deposited in the grave, the turf being laid over him and +pressed down with staves. His foster-mother, Christian Neill, was then +ordered to run the breadth of nine riggs, and returning to the grave, to +ask the chief witch "which was her choice." She answered that Mr. Hector +was her choice to live, and his brother George to die for him. This +cooling ceremony being three times repeated, the patient, frozen with cold +and terror, was carried back to bed. Mr. Hector's witches were more +successful than the hags employed by his stepmother. George died in the +month of April, as had been predicted, doubtless by other spells than the +force of sympathy, and Hector appears to have recovered. He had the +advantage, however, of a selected jury on his trial, as well as Lady +Fowlis, and had the good fortune to be acquitted. + +Scarcely had the agitation produced by these trials subsided, when the +public mind was again confounded by a new, a more extensive, and almost +inexplicable scene of enchantment, directed against the life of James and +his Queen, in 1591. + +The first hint of those strange proceedings which were afterwards +disclosed, was derived from the confessions of a girl named Gellie, or +Gellis Duncan, servant to the Deputy Bailiff of Tranent. Some sudden cures +performed by this girl, and other suspicious points in her conduct, having +attracted the observation of her master, he, with a laudable anxiety for +the discovery of the truth, "did, with the help of others, torment her +with the torture of the pilliewinkis [a species of thumbscrew] upon her +fingers, which is a grievous paine, and binding or wrenching her head with +a cord or rope, which is a most cruel torment also[47]." But, +notwithstanding these persuasive applications, no confession could be +extorted. At last it was suggested by some of the operators, that her +silence was owing to her having been marked by the devil, and on a +diligent examination the mark was found on the fore part of the throat. No +sooner was it detected than the charm was burst: she confessed that all +her cures were performed by the assistance of the devil, and proceeded to +make disclosures relative to the extent of her guilt, and the number of +associates, which utterly eclipse all the preceding "discoveries of +witchcraft," with which the criminal records furnish us down to this time. +Thirty or forty different individuals, some of whom, as the pamphlet +observes, were "as civill honest women as anie that dwelled within the +city of Edinburgh," were denounced by her, and forthwith apprehended upon +her confession. Nor was this list confined to the lower classes, from whom +the victims offered to this superstition had generally been selected; for +among those apprehended on Duncan's information was Euphemia Macalzean, +the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, one of the senators of the College of +Justice. + +To trace out the wide field of witchcraft which was opened to him by the +confessions of the accused, as they were successively examined, was an +employment highly congenial to the credulous mind of James, prone to every +superstition, and versed in all the traditionary lore of Sprenger and +Bodinus. Day after day he attended the examinations in person, was put +into a "wonderful admiration" by every new trait of grotesque horror which +their confessions disclosed, and even carried his curiosity so far as to +send for Gellie Duncan herself, who had, according to the confession of +another witch, Agnes Sampson (the wise wife of Keith), played a reel or +dance before the witches, as they moved in procession to meet the devil in +the kirk of North Berwick, in order that he might himself listen to this +infernal air--"who upon the like trumpe did play the said dance before the +King's majestie, who, in respect of the strangeness of these matters, took +great delight to be present at these examinations." + +All these disclosures, however, it may be anticipated, were not without a +liberal application of the usual compulsitor in such cases--the torture. +The chief sufferer was a person named Cuningham, who figures in the trials +under the name of Dr. Fian, a schoolmaster near Tranent, and apparently a +person of dissolute character, although, as appeared from his conduct on +this inquisition, also of singular strength of mind and firmness of nerve. +He was put to the question, "_first_, by thrawing of his head with a rope, +whereat he would confess nothing; _secondly_, he was persuaded by _fair +means_ to confess his folly," (would it not have been as natural to have +tried the fair means first?) "but that would prevail as little; lastly, he +was put to the most cruel and severe pain in the world, called the +Boots[48], who, after he had received three strokes, being inquired if he +would confess his damnable acts and wicked life, his tongue would not +serve him to speak." Being released from this instrument of torture, he +appears, under the influence of the agony produced by it, to have +subscribed a confession, embracing not only the alleged charges of +conspiracy against the King by means of witchcraft, but a variety of +particulars relative to his own life and conversation, by no means of an +edifying character. + +But the weight to be attached to this confession was soon made apparent by +what followed; for Fian, who had been recommitted to prison, and who had +appeared for a day or two to be "very solitarye" and penitent, contrived +in the course of the next night to make his escape, and on his +re-apprehension and second examination thought fit, to the great +discomposure of James, to deny the whole of the charges which he had +previously admitted. "Whereupon the King's majestie, perceiving his +stubborn wilfulnesse," prescribed the following remedy for his relapse. +"His nayles upon his fingers were riven and pulled with an instrument +called in Scottish a Turkas[49]. And under every naile there was thrust in +two needles over even up to the heads. At all which torments, +notwithstanding, the doctor never shrunke anie whitt, neither would he +then confess it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him. Then +was he _with all convenient speed_ by commandment conveyed again to the +torment of the boots, where he continued a long time, and abode so many +blows in them that his legs were crushed and beaten together _as small as +might be_, and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood and marrow +spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for +ever." + +The doctor, it will be seen, did not long require their services; but +whether his confession was obtained by fair means or foul, it certainly +bears so startling a resemblance to that of the leading witch, Agnes +Sampson, a woman whom Spottiswood describes as "matron-like, grave and +settled in her answers," that it is hardly to be wondered at that the +superstitious mind of James should have been confounded by the +coincidence. Nothing, in fact, can exceed the general harmony of the +accounts given by the different witches of their proceedings, except the +ludicrous and yet horrible character of the incidents which they record, +and which might well extort, even from James himself, the observation he +appears to have made in the commencement of the proceedings, that they +were all "extreme lyars." + +James, it appears, from his singular piety, and the active part which, +long before the composition of his 'Dæmonologie,' he had taken against +Satan and his invisible world, had been, from the first, most obnoxious to +his servants upon earth. On one occasion, when an unsuccessful attempt had +been made against his life, the fiend pleaded (though we do not see why a +Scotch devil should speak French) that he had no power over him, adding, +"Il est homme de Dieu[50]." The visit which, in a sudden fit of romantic +gallantry, he paid to Norway, to bring over his queen, was too favourable +an opportunity for the instruments of Satan to be neglected; and +accordingly it was resolved by the conclave that every exertion should be +made to raise such a tempest as should infallibly put an end to the +greatest enemy (as Satan himself confidentially admitted to one of the +witches) whom the devil ever had in the world. The preparations were +therefore commenced with all due solemnity. Satan undertook, in the first +instance, to raise a mist so as to strand the King on the English coast, +but, more active measures being thought necessary, Dr. Fian, as the +devil's secretary, or register, as he is called throughout these trials, +addressed a letter to a distinguished witch, Marion Linkup, and others of +the sisterhood, directing them to meet their master on the sea within five +days, for the purpose of destroying the King[51]. On All-hallowmas Eve the +infernal party, to the number of about two hundred, embarked, "each in a +riddle or sieve, and went into the same very substantially." In what +latitude they met with Satan is not stated, but after some cruizing about +he made his appearance, and delivered to Robert Grierson a cat, which it +appears had previously been drawn nine times through the cruik[52], giving +the word to "cast the same into the sea! Hola!" And this notable charm was +not without its effect, for James, whose fleet was at that time clearing +the Danish coast, afterwards declared that his ship alone had the wind +contrary, while all the other vessels had a fair one. + +The charm upon the water being finished, the witches landed, and after +enjoying themselves with wine, which they drank out of the same sieves in +which they had previously sailed so "substantially," they moved on in +procession towards the kirk of North Berwick, which had been fixed on as +their place of rendezvous with their master. The company exceeded one +hundred, of whom thirty-two are enumerated in Agnes Sampson's confession. +And they were preceded by Gellie Duncan, playing upon the Jew's-harp the +following ditty: + + "Cummer, goe ye before, Cummer, goe ye, + Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me!" + +Here their master was to appear in a character less common in Scotland +than on the Continent, that of a preacher. Doctor Fian, who, as the +devil's register, took the lead in the ceremonies at the kirk, _blew_ up +the doors, and blew in the lichts, which resembled black candles sticking +round about the pulpit, while another of the party, Grey Meill, acted as +door-keeper. Suddenly the devil himself started up in the pulpit, attired +in a gown and hat, both black. The sketch of his appearance given in Sir +James Melville's Memoirs has something of the power and picturesqueness of +Dante. "His body was hard lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him; his +faice was terrible, his nose lyk the bek of an egle, gret bournyng eyn" +(occhi di bragia); "his handis and leggis were herry, with clawis upon his +handis, and feit lyk the Griffin, and spak with a how voice." He first +called the roll of the congregation, to which each answered by name; he +then demanded of them whether they had been good servants, what they had +done since the last time they had convened, and what had been the success +of their conjurations against the King. Gray Meill, the doorkeeper, who +was rash enough to remark, that "naething ailet the King yet, God be +thankit," was rewarded for this _mal-apropos_ observation by a great blow. +The devil then proceeded to admonish them to keep his commandments, which +were simply to do all the evil they could; on his leaving the pulpit, the +whole congregation, male and female, did homage to him, by saluting him in +a way and manner which we must leave those who are curious in such +ceremonies to ascertain from the original indictments. + +Such is the strange story in which all the criminals examined before James +and the Council substantially agree; and unquestionably the singular +coincidence of their narratives remains at this day one of the most +difficult problems in the philosophy of Scottish history. The fate of the +unfortunate beings who confessed these enormities could not, in that age +of credulity, be for a moment doubtful. Fian, to whom, after the inhuman +tortures to which he had been subjected, life could not be of much value, +was condemned, strangled, and burnt. Agnes Sampson underwent a similar +fate. Barbara Napier, another person said to have been present at the +convention, though acquitted of this charge, was condemned on certain +other charges of sorcery in the indictment; but so strongly was the mind +of James excited, that, though he had secured a conviction against her, he +actually brought the assize to trial for wilful error in acquitting her on +this point of dittay. + +But the most distinguished victim connected with this scene of witchcraft +was Euphemia Macalzean, the daughter of an eminent judge, Lord +Cliftonhall, a woman of strong mind and licentious passions, a devoted +adherent to the Roman Catholic faith, a partisan of Bothwell (who was +accused by several of the witches as implicated in these practices against +the King's life), and a determined enemy to James and to the Reformed +religion. Whatever may have been the precise extent of this lady's +acquirements in sorcery, there can be no doubt that she had been on terms +of the most familiar intercourse with abandoned wretches of both sexes, +pretenders to witchcraft, and that she had repeatedly employed their aid +in attempting to remove out of the way persons who were obnoxious to her, +or who stood in the way of the indulgence of her passions. The number of +sorceries, poisonings, and attempts at poisoning, charged against her in +the indictment, almost rivals the accusations against Brinvilliers; and, +though the jury acquitted her of several of these, they convicted her of +participation in the murder of her own godfather, of her husband's nephew, +and of Douglas of Pennfrastone; besides being present at the convention of +North Berwick, and various other meetings of witches, at which the King's +death had been contrived. Her punishment was the severest which the court +could pronounce: instead of the ordinary sentence, directing her to be +first strangled at a stake and then burned, the unhappy woman was doomed +to be "bund to ane staik and burnt in assis, _quick_, to the death," a +fate which she endured with the greatest firmness, on the 25th of June, +1591. So deep and permanent was the impression made by these scenes upon +the King's mind, that we owe to them the preparation of an Act of +Parliament anent the form of process against witches, mentioned among the +unprinted acts for 1597, and more immediately the composition of that +notable work of the Scottish Solomon, the 'Dæmonologie.' + +In the trials of Bessie Roy, of James Reid, of Patrick Currie, of Isobel +Grierson, and of Grizel Gardiner[53], the charges are principally of +taking off and laying on diseases either on men or cattle; meetings with +the devil in various shapes and places; raising and dismembering dead +bodies for the purpose of enchantments; destroying crops; scaring honest +persons in the shape of cats; taking away women's milk; committing +housebreaking and theft by means of enchantments, and so on. South-running +water, salt, rowan-tree, enchanted flints (probably elf-arrow heads), and +doggrel verses (generally a translation of the Creed or Lord's Prayer) +were the means employed for effecting a cure. Diseases again were laid on +by forming pictures of clay or wax, which were placed before the fire or +buried with the heads downward; by placing a dead hand, or some mutilated +member, in the house of the intended victim; or, as in the case of +Grierson, by the simpler process of throwing an enchanted tailzie (slice) +of beef against his door. It was immaterial whether the supposed powers of +the witch were exerted for good or evil. In the case of Grieve, no +malefice (to use the technical term) was charged against him, but simply +that he had cured diseases by means of charms; and the same in the case of +Alison Pearson; but both were executed. Bartie Paterson seems to have been +the most pious of warlocks, for his patients were uniformly directed, in +addition to his prescriptions, to "ask their health at all livand wichtis +abone or under the earth, in the name of Jesus." The trial of Robert +Erskine of Dun, though given as one for witchcraft, seems to have been a +simple case of poisoning, he having merely resorted to a notorious witch, +named Margaret Irvine, for the herbs by which he despatched his nephews. +The case of Margaret Wallace, towards the close of James's reign, deserves +notice as being the first where something like a stand was made against +some of the fundamental positions of the demonologists; the counsel for +the prisoner contending strongly against the doctrine that, in the case of +a person accused of witchcraft, every cure performed by her was to be set +down to the agency of the devil. The defence however, though it seems to +have been ably conducted, was unsuccessful. + +Matters continued much in the same state during the reign of Charles I. +From 1625 to 1640 there are eight entries of trials for witchcraft on the +Record, one of which, that of Elizabeth Bathgate, is remarkable, as being +followed by an acquittal. In that of Katharine Oswald[54], the prisoner's +counsel had the boldness to argue, that no credit was to be given to the +confessions of the other witches, who had sworn to the presence of the +prisoner at some of their orgies; "for all lawyers agree," argued he, +"that they are not really transported, but only in their fancies, while +asleep, in which they sometimes dream they see others there." This +reasoning however appears to have made no impression on the jury, any more +than the argument in Young's case[55], that the stoppage of the mill, +which she was accused of having effected _twenty-nine years before_, by +sorcery, might have been the effect of natural causes. About one-half of +the convictions during this period proceed on judicial confessions; +whether voluntary or extorted does not appear. They are not in general +interesting, though some of the details in the trial of Hamilton[56] +differ a little from the ordinary routine of the witch trials of the time. +Having met the devil on Kingston Hills, in East Lothian, he was persuaded +by the tempter to renounce his baptism--a piece of apostasy for which he +received only four shillings. The devil further directed him to employ the +following polite adjuration when he wished to raise him, namely, to beat +the ground three times with his stick, and say, "Rise up, foul thief!" On +the other hand, the devil's behaviour towards him was equally +unceremonious; for on one occasion, when Hamilton had neglected to keep +his appointment, he gave him a severe drubbing with a baton. + +The scene darkens however, towards the close of this reign, with the +increasing dominion of the Puritans. In 1640 the General Assembly passed +an act, that all ministers should take particular note of witches and +charmers, and that the commissioners should recommend to the supreme +judicature the unsparing application of the laws against them. In 1643 +(August 19), after setting forth the increase of the crime, they recommend +the granting a standing commission from the Privy Council or Justiciary +to any "understanding gentlemen or magistrates," to apprehend, try, and +execute justice against the delinquents. The subject appears to have been +resumed in 1644, 1645, and 1649; and their remonstrances, it would seem, +had not been without effect, for in 1649, the year after the execution of +Charles, an Act of Parliament was passed confirming and extending the +provisions of Queen Mary's, so as more effectually to reach consulters +with witches, in regard to whom it was thought (though we do not see why) +that the terms of the former act were a little equivocal. From this time, +not only does the number of convictions, which since the death of James +had been on the decline, increase, but the features of the cases assume a +deeper tinge of horror. The old, impossible, and abominable fancies of the +'Malleus' were revived in the trials of Janet Barker and Margaret +Lauder[57], which correspond in a remarkable manner with some of the +evidence in the Mora trials. About thirty trials appear on the record +between this last date and the Restoration, only one of which appears to +have terminated in an acquittal; while at a single circuit-court, held at +Glasgow, Stirling, and Ayr, in 1659, seventeen persons were convicted and +burnt for this crime. + +Numerous however as are the cases in the Records of Justiciary, it must be +kept in view that these afford an extremely inadequate idea of the extent +to which this pest prevailed over the country. For though Sir George +Mackenzie doubts whether, in virtue merely of the general powers given by +the act, 1563, inferior judges did at any time, of their own authority, +try and condemn criminals accused of witchcraft, the same end was managed +in a different way. The Court of Justiciary was anxious to get rid of a +jurisdiction which would alone have afforded them sufficient employment; +and the Privy Council were in use to grant commissions to resident +gentlemen and ministers, to examine, and afterwards to try and execute, +witches all over Scotland; and so numerous were these commissions, that +Wodrow expresses his astonishment at the number found in the Registers. +Under these commissions multitudes were burnt in every part of the +kingdom. In Mercer's Manuscript Diary, Lamont's Diary, and Whitelock's +Memorials, occasional notices of the numbers burnt are perpetually +occurring. + +In every case of the kind it would appear that the clergy displayed the +most intemperate zeal. It was before them that the poor wretches "delated" +of witchcraft were first brought for examination,--in most cases after a +preparatory course of solitary confinement, cold, famine, want of sleep, +or actual torture. On some occasions the clergy themselves actually +performed the part of the prickers, and inserted long pins into the flesh +of the witches in order to try their sensibility; and in all they +laboured, by the most persevering investigations, to obtain from the +accused a confession, which might afterwards be used against them on their +trial, and which in more than one instance, even though retracted, formed +the sole evidence on which the convictions proceeded. In some cases, where +the charge against the criminal was that she was "habit and repute a +witch," the notoriety of her character was proved before the Justiciary +Court by the oath of a minister, just as habit and repute is now proved in +cases of theft by that of a police officer. + +Though the tide of popular delusion in regard to this crime may be said to +have turned during the reign of Charles II., its opening was perhaps more +bloody than that of any of its predecessors. In the first year after the +Restoration (1661), about twenty persons appear to have been condemned by +the Justiciary Court, two of whom, though acquitted on their first trial, +were condemned on the second on new charges. The numbers executed +throughout the country are noticed by Lamont. Fourteen commissions for +trials in the provinces appear to have been issued by the Privy Council in +one day (November 7, 1661). Of the numbers of nameless wretches who died +and made no sign, under the hands of those "understanding gentlemen" (as +the General Assembly's overture styles them) to whom the commissions were +granted, it is now almost impossible to form a conjecture. In reference +however to the course of procedure in such cases, we may refer to some +singular manuscripts relative to the examination of two confessing witches +in Morayshire in 1662, in the possession of the family of Rose, of +Kilravock; more particularly as the details they contain are, both from +their minuteness and the unparalleled singularity of their contents, far +more striking than anything to be found on the Records of Justiciary about +this time. + +The names of these crazed beldames were Isobel Gowdie and Janet Braidhead. +Two of the latter's examinations are preserved; the former appears to have +been four times examined at different dates between the 13th April and +27th May, 1662, before the sheriff and several gentlemen and ministers of +the neighbourhood; and on one of these is a marking by the Justice Depute +Colville, as follows:--"Having read and considered the confession of +Isobel Gowdie, within contained, as paction with Sathan, renunciation of +baptism, with divers malefices, I find that a commission may be very +justly given for her last trial.--_A. Colville_[58]." The confessions are +written under the hand of a notary public, and subscribed by all the +clergymen, gentlemen, and other witnesses present; as would appear to +have been the practice where the precognitions were to be transmitted to +the Justiciary, with the view of obtaining a commission to try and punish +the crime. What the result of Isobel Gowdie's "last trial" was, it is +easy, from the nature of her confessions, to conjecture. + + "Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa." + +Though examined on four different occasions, at considerable intervals of +time, and undoubtedly undergoing solitary confinement in the interim, so +minute and invariable are the accounts given by Gowdie in particular, of +the whole life and conversation of the witches to whom she belonged, that +a pretty complete institute of infernal science might be compiled from her +confession. The distinctness with which the visions seem to have haunted +her, the consistency they had assumed in her own mind, and yet the +inconceivable absurdity and monstrosity of these conceptions, to many of +which we cannot even allude, furnish some most important contributions to +the history of hypochondriac insanity. + +Her devotion to the service of the devil took place in the kirk of +Auldearn, where she was baptized by him with the name of Janet, being held +up by a companion, and the devil sucking the blood from her shoulder[59]. +The band or coven to which they belonged consisted of thirteen (whose +names she enumerates, and some of whom appear to have been apprehended +upon her delation), that being the usual number of the covens. Each is +provided with an officer, whose duty it is to repeat the names of the +party after Satan; and a maiden, who seems to hold sway over the women, +and who is the particular favourite of the devil, is placed at his right +hand at feasts. A grand meeting of the covens takes place quarterly, when +a ball is given. Each witch has a "sprite" to wait upon her, some +appearing "in sad dun, some in grass green, some in sea green, some in +yellow." Those of Gowdie's coven were, "Robert the Jakes, Sanders the +Reed-Reever, Thomas the Fairy, Swein the Roaring Lion, Thief of Hell +wait-upon-herself, MacHector," and so on. Some of these spirits, it would +appear, did not stand high in Isobel's opinion; for Robert the Jakes, she +says, was aged, and seemed to be "a gowkit glaikit spirit." Each of the +witches too received a sobriquet, by which they were generally known[60]. +Satan himself had several spirits to wait upon him; "sometimes he had +boots and sometimes shoes upon his feet, but still his feet are forked and +cloven." The witches, it appears, occasionally took considerable liberties +with his character, on which occasions Satan, on detecting the calumny, +used to beat the delinquents "up and down like naked gaists" with a stick, +as Charon does the naked spirits in the 'Inferno,' with his oar. (Cant, +iii.) He found it much more easy however to deal with the warlocks than +with the fair sex. "Alexander Elder," says the confessing witch, "was +soft, and could not defend himself, and did naething but greit and crye +while he will be scourging him; but Margaret Wilson in Auldearn would +defend herself finely, and cast up her hands to cape the blows, and Bessie +Wilson would speak crustily with her tongue, and would be bellin again to +him stoutly." + +The amusements and occupations of the witches are described with the same +firmness and minuteness of drawing. When the devil has appointed an +infernal diet, the witches leave behind them, in bed, a besom or +three-legged stool, which assumes their shape till their return, a feature +exactly corresponding with the Mora trials. When proceeding to the spot +where their work is to be performed, they either adopt the shape of cats, +hares, etc., or else, mounting upon corn or bean straws, and pronouncing +the following charm,-- + + "Horse and hattock, horse and go, + Horse and pellats, ho! ho!" + +they are borne through the air to the place of their destination. If any +see these straws in motion, and "do not sanctify themselves," the witches +may shoot them dead. This feat they perform with elf-arrow heads, which +are manufactured by Satan himself; and his assistants the elf boys, who +are described, like the Scandinavian trolls, as little humpbacked +creatures who speak "goustie like" (gruffly); each witch receiving from +Satan a certain number of these "Freischütze." A list of forty or fifty +persons is given by the witch, who had been destroyed by herself and her +companions, by these means; while she also mentions that she had made an +unsuccessful attempt against the life of Mr. Harry Forbes, minister of +Auldcarn, one of the witnesses actually present and subscribing her +confession. + +Another attempt against the life of this minister is described very +graphically. The instrument employed was "a bag made of the flesh and guts +and galls of toads, the liver of a hare, pickles of corn, parings of +nails, of feet, and toes," which olio being steeped all night, and mixed +_secundum artem_ by Satan himself, was consecrated by a charm dictated by +Satan, and repeated by the witches, "all on their knees, and their hair +about their shoulders and eyes, holding up their hands, and looking +stedfastly on the devil, that he might destroy the said Mr. Harry." This +composition one of the witches, who made her way into the minister's +chamber, attempted to throw upon him, but was prevented by the presence of +some other holy men in the room. Another composition of the same kind, +intended for the destruction of the lairds of Park and Lochloy, was more +successful, as appears from the deposition of the other witch, Janet +Braidhead. Having prepared the venom, "they came to Inshock in the night +time, and scattered it up and down, above and about the gate, and other +places, where the lairds and their sons would most haunt. And then we, in +the likeness of crows and rooks[61], stood above the gate, and in the +trees opposite the gate. It was appointed so that, if any of them should +touch or tramp upon any of it, as well as that it or any of it fall on +them, it should strike them with boils and kill them, _which it did, and +they shortly died_. We did it to make this house heirless." + +It is needless to pursue further these strange details, which however form +a valuable appendix to the records at that time. + +It would seem as if the violence of this popular delirium began after +1662 to relax. An interval of six years now occurs without a trial for +this crime, while the record bears that James Welsh[62] was ordered to be +publicly whipped for accusing several individuals of it,--a fate which he +was hardly likely to have encountered some years before. Fountainhall, in +noticing the case of the ten poor women convicted on their own confession +in 1678[63], obviously speaks of the whole affair with great doubt and +hesitation. And Sir George Mackenzie, in his 'Criminal Law,' the first +edition of which appeared in the same year, though he does not yet venture +to deny the existence of the crime or the expediency of its punishment, +lays down many principles very inconsistent with the practice of the +preceding century. "From the horridness of the crime," says he, "I do +conclude that of all crimes it requires the clearest relevancy and most +convincing probature; and I condemn, next to the wretches themselves, +those cruel and too forward judges who burn persons by thousands as guilty +of this crime." And accordingly, acting on these humane and cautious +principles, Sir George, in his Report to the Judges in 1680, relative to a +number of persons then in prison for this crime, stated that their +confessions had been procured by torture, and that there seemed to be no +other proof against them, on which they were set at liberty. "Since which +time," adds Lord Royston, "there has been no trial for this crime before +that court, nor before any other court, that I know of, except one at +Paisley by commission from the Privy Council in anno 1697." This +observation of Lord Royston is not altogether correct. The trial at +Paisley to which he alludes is evidently the noted case of the +Renfrewshire witches, tried on a charge of sorcery against a girl named +Christian Shaw, the daughter of Shaw of Bargarran. The conviction of the +accused appears to have taken place principally on the evidence of the +girl herself, who in the presence of the commissioners played off a series +of ecstasies and convulsion fits, similar to those by which the nuns of +Loudon had sealed the fate of Grandier the century before. In this +atrocious case, the Commissioners (in the Report presented by them to the +Privy Council, 9th March, 1697), reported that there were twenty-four +persons, male and female, suspected of being concerned in the sorceries; +and among them, it is to be observed, is a girl of fourteen, and a boy not +twelve years of age. After this, we almost feel surprised that out of +about twenty who were condemned, only five appear to have been executed. +They were burnt on the green at Paisley. The last trial before the Court +of Justiciary was that of Elspet Rule, tried before Lord Anstruther, on +the Dumfries circuit, 3rd of May, 1708, where the prisoner, though +convicted by a plurality of voices, was merely sentenced to be burned on +the cheek and banished Scotland for life. The last execution which took +place was that of an old woman in the parish of Loth, executed at Dornoch +in 1722, by sentence of the Sheriff depute of Caithness, Captain David +Ross, of Little Dean. "It is said, that being brought out for execution, +the weather proving very severe, she sat composedly warming herself by the +fire, while the other instruments of death were made ready!" + +So ends in Scotland the tragical part of the history of witchcraft. In +1735, as already mentioned, the penal statutes were repealed; much to the +annoyance however of the Seceders, who, in their annual confession of +national sins, printed in an act of their Associate Presbytery at +Edinburgh, in 1743, enumerated, as a grievous transgression, the repeal of +the penal statutes "contrary to the express laws of God!" And though in +remote districts the belief may yet linger in the minds of the ignorant, +it has now, like the belief in ghosts, alchemy, or second sight, only that +sort of vague hold on the fancy which enables the poet and romance writer +to adapt it to the purposes of fiction, and therewith to point a moral or +adorn a tale. And, of a truth, no unimportant moral is to be gathered from +the consideration of the history of this delusion; namely, the danger of +encouraging those enthusiastic conceits of the possibility of direct +spiritual influence, which, in one shape or other, and even in our own +days, are found to haunt the brain of the weak and presumptuous. For it is +but the same principle which lies at the bottom of the persecutions of the +witches, and which shows itself in the quietism of Bourignon, the reveries +of Madame Guyon, the raptures of Sister Nativity, the prophecies of +Naylor, the dreams of Dr. Dee, or Swedenborg's prospect of the New +Jerusalem; still but an emanation of that spirit of pride, which, refusing +to be "but a little lower than the angels," asserts an immediate communion +and equality with them, and which, according to the temper of the patient, +feeds him with the gorgeous visions of quietism, or impels him, like a +furious Malay, along the path of persecution. Some persons assert that, in +this nineteenth century of ours, we have no enthusiasm. On the contrary, +we have a great deal too much: at no period has enthusiasm of the worst +kind been more rife; witness the impostures of Southcott and Hohenlohe, +and the thousand phantasies which are daily running their brief course of +popularity. At no time has that calenture of the brain been more widely +diffused, which, as it formerly converted every natural occurrence into +the actual agency of the devil, now transforms every leader of a petty +circle into a saint, and invests him with the garb and dignity of an +apostle. Daily, are the practical and active duties of life more neglected +under the influence of this principle; the charity which thinketh no evil +of others daily becomes more rare; the stream of benevolence which of old +stole deep and silently through the haunts of poverty and sickness at +home, is now but poorly compensated by being occasionally thrown up in a +few pompous and useless jets, at public subscriptions for distant objects; +while even in those whose minds are untinctured by the grosser evils to +which enthusiasm gives rise, life passes away in vain and illusive dreams +of self-complacent superiority, which, as they are based only in pride and +constitutional susceptibility, rarely endure when age and infirmity have +shaken or removed the materials out of which they were reared. Thus, the +enthusiast who, like Mirza, has been contemplating through the long day +the Elysian islands that lie beyond the gulf, and already walking in a +fancied communion with their myrtle-crowned inhabitants, feels, in spite +of all his efforts, that, as evening creeps upon the landscape, the +phantasmagoria becomes dimmer and more dim; the bridge, the islands, the +genius who stood beside them disappear; till at last nothing remains for +him but his own long hollow valley of Bagdad, with its oxen, sheep, and +camels grazing on its sides;--this sober, weary, working world, in short, +with all its cares and duties, through which, if he had been wisely +fulfilling the end for which he was sent into it, he should have been +labouring onward with a beneficent activity, not idly dreaming by the +wayside of the Eden for which he is bound; and so he awakes to a +consciousness of his true vocation in life when he is on the point of +leaving it, and perceives the value and the paramount necessity of +exertion, only when youth, with its opportunities, and its energies, lies +behind him for ever, like the shadows of a dream. + + * * * * * + +The work of Church-Councillor Horst, and the review of its principal +contents, leave however one hemisphere at least of the subject of Magic, +Theurgy, and Necromancy unnoticed. These arts, or at least the popular +belief in them, are much more ancient than any of the forms of +Christianity, and were, in fact, a most unlucky legacy bequeathed by +Paganism to the creeds which supplanted it. It needs no ghost to tell the +reader how firmly the ancients believed in all supernatural influences: +how populous, in their conceptions, were the elements with omens, +portents, and prodigies; how abject and unreasoning was their credulity; +and how dependent both their public and their domestic life upon the +exorcisms of the priest and the science of the augur. The Canidias and +Ericthos of antiquity were not mere creations of the poets; the most sober +and sceptical of historians does not disdain to relate that, in the house +of the dying Germanicus, were found burnt bones and dissevered limbs of +dead bodies; and the most philosophical of the Roman poets recounts with +complacent gravity the charms by which the dead might be evoked, or the +faithless lover recalled by his forsaken mistress. Nor did the belief in +witches and supernatural agencies decay or decline with the disbelief in +the state-religion which marked the latter ages of the Roman Empire. On +the contrary, as scepticism increased in one direction, credulity and +abject superstition grew and prevailed in another. Neither were these +infirmities of the mind by any means confined to the vulgar or the +profane. The later Platonists were deeply infected with the malady of +superstition, and there are few more curious chapters in the history of +human inconsistency, than the lives of many of the philosophers, who +argued against the being of a God, and who trembled if a hare crossed +their path, at a sinister flight of crows, or at a sudden encounter with a +beldame or a blackamoor in the grey of the morning. + +The magical art of the ancients, more especially towards the decline of +Pagandom, was indeed of an extremely dark and atrocious complexion. +Unmindful of the wise and reverent forbearance of the poet of the Æneid-- + + "Sin has ne possim naturæ accedere partes + Frigidus obstiterit circum præcordia sanguis,"-- + +the ancient wizards pried, or affected to pry, into the very "incunabula +vitæ." Could we recover a few of those books which the sorcerers at +Corinth burned and brought the price of them to St. Paul, we should +probably find in their pages, among some curious physical or medical +secrets, nearly all the elements of a cruel and obscene superstition. + +Rome, we know, was both early and deeply infected with the orgiastic +worship of the East, and especially with the impure ceremonies of the +priests of Isis. It was of no avail to level to the ground the Isiac +chapels, and to banish their ministers. In an age of unbelief there was a +passion for the mysteries of darkness; and although Christianity gradually +superseded Paganism in form, the spirit of the latter long survived in the +multitude, and especially among the ignorant rural population. James +Grimm, in his erudite work upon the 'Antiquities of the German Race,' +traces with great acuteness the connection between the superstitions of +the Dark Ages and the magical formularies of Heathenism. The spells of +witches, the abracadabra of quacks, and the loathsome furniture of +Sidrophel's laboratory are genuine descendants of the impostures and +abominations which were practised for ages both in the Roman and Parthian +empires. + +In Lucian and Apuleius indeed we are presented with a singular and +terrible aspect of social existence. The most ordinary acts and functions +of life were believed to be affected by the invisible powers, and those +powers were supposed to be willing to do service to all who were malignant +enough to seek their aid, and fearless enough to serve the apprenticeship +which was demanded of them. It is easy to decry the weakness and detect +the absurdity of such a creed. Yet it _was_ believed: it excited terror: +it nurtured revenge: it wrought withering and wasting effects upon the +feeble and the credulous: it cast a dark shade over life: it was potent +over the sinews of the strong and over the bloom of the beautiful: it +exercised "upon the inmost mind" all "its fierce accidents," and preyed +upon the purest spirits, + + "As on entrails, joints and limbs, + With answerable pains, but more intense." + +It is idle to regard such a belief as a mere superficial or individual +superstition. It pervaded all ranks of society, from the philosopher who +disputed about a first cause, and the magistrate who viewed religion in +the light of a useful system of police, to the shepherd who watched Orion +and the Pleiades, and the miner who rarely beheld either sun or star. It +was an erroneous, but it was an earnest, belief which drove men to consult +with diviners, and to question the elements for signs and wonders. + +Availing ourselves of Sir George Head's excellent translation, we extract +from the 'Golden Ass' of Apuleius a story which, to our conceptions, is +unsurpassed for its horror by any of the dreariest legends of Pagan or +Medieval sorcery. + +"My master, the baker, was a well-behaved, tolerably good man, but his +wife, of all the women in the world, was the most wicked creature in +existence, and continually rendered his home such a painful scene of +tribulation to him, that, by Hercules, many is the time and oft that I +have silently deplored his fate. The heart of that most detestable woman +was like a common cess-pool, where all the evil dispositions of our nature +were collected together. She was cruel, treacherous, malevolent, +obstinate, penurious, yet profuse in expenses of dissipation, faithless to +her husband, a cheat and a drunkard. One day I heard it said that the +baker had procured a bill of divorce against his execrable helpmate, and +this intelligence turned out in due time to be true. She, exasperated by +the proceedings instituted against her, communicated with a certain woman +who had the reputation of being a witch, and whose spells and incantations +were of power unlimited. Having conciliated this woman by gifts and urgent +supplications, she besought of her one of two things--either to soften the +heart of her husband, so that he might be reconciled to her; or if unable +to do that, to send a ghost or some evil spirit to put him to a violent +death. In the first endeavour the sorceress totally failed, whereupon she +set about contriving the death of my unfortunate master. To effect her +purpose, she raised from the grave the shade of a woman who had been +murdered. So one day, about noon, there entered the bakehouse a +bare-footed woman half-clad, wearing a mourning mantle thrown across her +shoulders, her pale sallow features marked by a lowering expression of +guilt, her grisly dishevelled hair sprinkled with ashes, and her front +locks streaming over her face. Unexpectedly approaching the baker, and +taking him gently by the hand, she drew him aside, and led him into an +adjoining chamber, as if she had private intelligence to communicate. +After the baker had departed, and a considerable period had elapsed +without his returning, the servants went to his chamber-door and knocked +very loudly, and, after continued silence, called several times, and +thumped still harder than before. They then perceived that the door was +carefully locked and bolted; upon which, at once concluding that some +serious catastrophe had happened, they pushed against it with their utmost +strength, and by a violent effort, either breaking the hinge or driving it +out of its socket, they effected an entrance by force. The moment they +were within the chamber, they saw the baker hanging quite dead from one of +the beams of the ceiling, but the woman who had accompanied him had +disappeared, and was nowhere to be seen." + +This evoking of the dead to destroy the living, this warring of a corpse +with a living sold, and then the sudden dismissal, when its foul and fatal +errand had been accomplished, of the ghost to its grave, presents to the +mind a climax of terrors, for which we do not know where, in history or in +fiction, to find a counterpart. + +The Lex Majestatis, or law of High Treason, was one of the most effectual +and terrible weapons which the imperial constitution of Rome placed in the +hands of its military despots. Against one offence this double-handled and +sure-smiting engine was frequently levelled, viz. against the crime or the +charge of inquiring into the probable duration of the Emperor's life. This +was done in various ways,--by fire applied to waxen images, by consulting +the stars, by casting nativities, by employing prophets, by casual omens, +but especially by certain permutations and combinations of numbers, +"numeros Babylonios," or the letters of the alphabet. The following +extract from Ammianus Marcellinus affords an example of this treasonable +sacrilege, the practice or suspicion of which, on so many occasions, led +to the expulsion of the "mathematicians" from Italy. The Romans indeed, +profoundly ignorant of science, or contemning it as the art of Greek +adventurers or Egyptian priests, neither of whom were in good odour with +the government at any period, gave to the current impostors of those days +an appellation which Cambridge wranglers now account equal to a patent of +nobility. + +The following story seems to have been substantially a deposition taken +before the magistrates of Constantinople, and extracted from the witnesses +or defendants by torture. The principal deponent is said to have been +brought "ad summas angustias"--to the last gasp almost, before he would +confess. + +"This unlucky table," he said, "which is now produced in court, we made up +of laurel boughs, after the fashion of that which stands before the +curtain at Delphi. Terrible were the auspices, awful the charms, long and +painful the dances, which preceded and accompanied its construction and +consecration. And as often as we consulted this disc or table, the +following was our mode of procedure. It was set in the midst of a chamber +which had previously been well purified by the smoke of Arabian gums and +incense. On the table was placed a round dish, welded of divers metals. On +the rim of the dish were engraven the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, +separated from one another by equal and exactly measured spaces. Beside +the table stood a certain man clad in linen, and having linen buskins or +boots on his feet, with a handkerchief bound around his head. He waved in +one hand a branch of vervain, that propitious herb; he recited a set +formulary of verses, such as are wont to be sung before the Averruncal +gods, He that stood by the table was no ordinary magician. With his other +he held and shook a ring which was attached to curtains, spun from the +finest Carpathian thread, and which had often before been used for such +mystic incantations. The ring thus shaken dropped ever and anon between +the interspaces of the letters, and formed by striking the letters +together certain words, which the sorcerer combined into number and +measure, much after the manner of the priests who manage the oracles of +the Pythian and Branchidian Apollo. Then, when we inquired who perchance +would succeed to the reigning Emperor, the bright and smooth ring, leaping +among the letters, struck together T, H, E, O, and afterwards a final S, +so that one of the bystanders at once exclaimed that THEO[DORU]S was the +emperor designated by the Fates. We asked no more questions: seeing that +Theodorus was the person whom we had sought for." + +The lingering belief in the old religion, and in the magical and +thaumaturgical practices which had, like ivy around an oak, gradually +accrued to it, was productive in the decline of Paganism of many poetical +forms of superstition. It is curious and instructive to remark the +increasing earnestness with which the decaying creed of Heathendom sought +to array itself against the encroachments of Christianity. The light +_persiflage_ with which the philosophy of the Augustan age treated the +state-religion nearly disappears. The indifference of the magistrate gives +place to an intolerant and indignant tone of reclamation. The Pagan Cæsars +attack the new religion as a formidable antagonist; the Christian +emperors, in their turn, assail directly or ferret out perseveringly the +superstitions which lingered among the rural towns and districts. The +ancient gods are no longer regarded by either their worshipers or their +opponents as simply deified heroes or men, but as powerful and mysterious +beings, informed with demoniac energies and capable of conferring temporal +good or evil,--beauty, power, and wealth, on the one hand; deformity, +ignominy, and disease, on the other,--upon those who honoured or abjured +them. Such conceptions of blessing or of bale were embodied in strange +narratives of weeping or jubilant processions of majestic forms when the +moon was hid in her vacant interlunar cave, of demons assuming the shape +of fair enchantresses who beguiled men to their undoing, of palaces reared +in a night and dislimning in the day, of banquets, like that visionary +banquet in the wilderness, which Milton has adorned with all the graces of +imagination in his 'Paradise Lost.' + +We can afford room for only two of the narratives of demoniac influence in +which the later Pagans expressed their belief in the influence of the +early gods. + +1. The superstition of the Lamia. One result of the consolidation of +Western Asia with Europe, under the Roman Empire, was to spread widely +over the latter continent the germs of the serpent-worship of the East. +The subtlest beast of the field, retaining in full vigour his powers of +assuming tempting forms and uttering beguiling words, was wont, it seems, +to disport himself among the sons and daughters of men under the shape in +which he deceived our general mother, the over-curious Eve. Especially did +he delight to entrap some hopeful youth who was studying philosophy in the +schools of Athens or Berytus, or some neophyte in the Christian Church. A +fair young gentleman at Corinth had been abroad on a pleasure excursion, +and might perchance be returning home a little the worse for wine. However +this may have been, at the gates of Corinth he encountered a damsel richly +attired, "beautiful exceedingly," but with hair dishevelled, and drowned +in tears. He began by inquiring the cause of her distress. Faithless +servants had carried off her litter and left her lone. He offered her +consolation, which she accepted, and his arm also, which she did not +decline. She led him to a lordly palace in a bye street of the city, where +he had never yet been. At its marble portico waited a crowd of slaves with +torches awaiting their absent mistress, and the pair, now become fond, +were ushered into a sumptuous banqueting hall, where a board was spread +covered with all the delicacies of the season, and garnished with +effulgent plate. In this palace of delight the young man abode many days, +taking no account of time. But at length, cloyed with sweets, he proposed +inviting a party of his college friends, much to the dismay of his fair +hostess, who, with many tears and embraces, besought him to forego his +wish. In an evil hour however he persevered, and his rooms were filled +with gownsmen, marvelling much, not without envy, at the good fortune that +had befallen their chum, Lucius, no one knew how or why. But among the +undergraduates came a grave and grey college tutor, deeply read in +conjurors' books, who could detect by his skill the devil under any shape. +Pale and silent the old man sat at the festive board, and was ill-bred +enough to stare the lady not only out of countenance, but out of her +beauty also. She grew pale, livid, an indiscriminate form: she melted +away; the palace melted also; the plate, the viands, and the wines +vanished also; and in place of columns and ceiled roofs was a void square +in Corinth, and in place of the damsel was a loathsome serpent, writhing +in the agonies of dissolution. The white-bearded fellow had scanned and +scotched and slain the snake--the Lamia--but he destroyed his patient +also, for Lucius became a maniac; had the charm lasted awhile longer, his +soul would have become the fiend's property. + +2. A young man had sorely offended the great goddess Venus, or, as she was +called in his native city, the Syrian Byblus, Astarte. To redeem himself +from the curse upon his board and bed,--for he had recently married a fair +wife,--he applied to a wise astrologer. The sage heard his case, and +advised him, as his only remedy, to go on a certain night, at its very +noon, to a spot just without the gates, called the Pagan's Tomb,--to +station himself on the roof of it, and to recite, at a prescribed moment, +a certain formulary, with which his counsel, learned in magical law, +furnished him. On the Pagan's Tomb accordingly the young man placed +himself at the noon of night, and awaited his deliverance. And presently, +towards the confines of morning, was heard a sound of sad and solemn +music, and of much wailing, and of the measured tread of a long +procession. And there drew nigh a mournful company of persons, who might +have seemed men and women, but for their extraordinary stature, and their +surpassing majesty and beauty: and the young man remembered the words of +the magician, and knew that before him was the goodly company of the gods +whom his forefathers in past generations had worshiped. One only of that +august and weeping band was borne in a chariot--the god Saturn--perhaps by +reason of his great age; and to Saturn he addressed his prayer, which was +of such potency that Saturn straightway commanded Astarte to release the +petitioner from the curse she had laid upon him. + +We have been able merely to indicate how wide a field lies beyond the +proper domain of medieval witchcraft. It would be curious to trace the +similarity of the Heathen and Christian superstitions, or rather the +derivation of one from the other. But we must reserve this subject to some +other occasion, and conclude with repeating the wish with which we +commenced, that some competent hand would undertake to trace through all +its ramifications the obscure yet recompensing subject of Magic and +Witchcraft. + + +THE END. + + + + +JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, PRINTER, + +LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Since they were written, Sir Walter Scott's 'Demonology and +Witchcraft' has been published, a book replete with interesting historical +notices. + +[2] Faustus, who is a sort of Delolme in matters infernal, has an able +treatise on the subject, entitled 'Mirakel- Kunst- und Wunder-Buch, oder +der schwartze Rabe, auch der dreifache Höllen Zwang genannt,' in which the +political system of Lucifer's dominions is examined. Dionysius the +Areopagite indeed is not more exact in his calendar of the celestial +hierarchy. Perhaps these treatises are the common parents of the modern +'Blue Books.' + +[3] Reginald Scott's 'Discoverie of Witchcraft' contains an army-list or +muster-roll of the infernal forces. Thus the Duke of Amazeroth, who seems +to be a sort of brigadier-general, has the command of sixty legions, etc. + +[4] Satan is a mere third-rate spirit, as they will find by consulting a +list of the Infernal Privy Council for 1669, contained in Faust's 'Black +Raven.' But we are not told the exact date of his deposition from his +primacy. It is singular that both in the book of Job, where he is +mentioned for the first time, and in the Scandinavian mythologers, he +appears in a similar character--"The Ranger," or "Roving Spirit of +Tartarus." See Whiter, Etymologicon, vol. iii., in which very learned, +though now forgotten work, there is much diabolical erudition. + +[5] Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren. Yet, like Cato the Censor, Lucifer +may have taken to study late in life. + +[6] Lotichius, Oratorio super fatalibus hoc tempore Academiarum periculis: +1631. Lotichius took the trouble to compose a Latin poem on the subject of +his triumphal entry. A book entitled 'Mammon' had some reputation in its +day. The acknowledged author's name indeed is Harris; yet some commentator +of the year 2150 will perhaps suggest that it was 'Old Harry's Mammon.' We +have seen worse "conjectural emendations." + +[7] Colloquia Mensalia. + +[8] Legenda Aurea Jacob. de Voragine, leg. 123. + +[9] _Ibid._ leg. 21. + +[10] Or even a bishop. See Southey's pithy and profitable tale of +'Eleemon, or a Sinner Saved.' + +[11] In the case of St. Lydvina, when he pleaded his case in person, and +thought it a clear one, he was fairly laughed out of court, "deriso +explosoque Dæmone." (Brugmann, Vita Lydvinæ, p. 290.) He was hoaxed in a +still more ingenious manner by Nostradamus, who having agreed that the +devil should have him, if he was buried either in the church or out of it, +left directions that he should be buried in a hole in the wall. Sometimes +however he was the gainer in such equivocal compacts,--as, for example, in +the case of the monk who was to live so long as he abstained from sleeping +between sheets. The monk always slept in a chair; but in an unlucky hour +Satan caught him as fast as a top with his head between _the sheets_ of a +sermon, and claimed his bond. + +[12] Inferno, canto vi. + +[13] The trials at Arras, in 1459. Vide Monstrelet's Chronicle, vol. iii. +p. 84: Paris, 1572. But these were rather religious prosecutions against +supposed heretics, and the crime of witchcraft only introduced as +aggravating their offences. + +[14] Christoph von Ranzow, a nobleman of Holstein, burned eighteen at once +on _one_ of his estates. + +[15] Some of our readers may wish to see a specimen of this precious +production. We shall take a stanza or two, descriptive of the joke of +which the poor witch was the victim. + + Ein Hexen hat man gefangen, zu Zeit die war sehr reich + Mit der man lang umbgaben ehe sie bekannte gleich, + Dann sie blieb darauf beständig es gescheh ihr Unrecht gross, + Bis man ihr macht nothwendig _diesen artlichen Poss_(!), + + Das ich mich drüber wunder; man schickt ein Henkersknecht + Zu ihr ins Gefängniss 'nunter, den man hat kleidet recht + Mit einer Bärnhaute als wenns der Teufel wär; + Als ihm die Drut anschaute meynts ihr Buhl kam daher. + + Sie sprach zu ihm behende, wie lestu mich so lang + In der Obrigkeit Hände? Hilf mir aus ihren Zwang, + Wie du mir hast verheissen, ich bin ja eben dein; + Thu mich aus der Angst entreissen, o liebster Bule mein! + + Sie thet sich selbst verrathen, und gab Anzeigung viel + Sie hat nit geschmeckt den Braten, _was das war für ein Spiel_(!). + Er tröstet sie und saget, ich will dir helfen wohl; + Darum sey unverzaget, Morgens geschehen soll. + +It bears the colophon "Printed at Smalcald in the year 1627." + +[16] When these horrors were thus versified, it is not wonderful to find +them "improved" by the preachers of the time. At Riga, in 1626, there +appeared 'Nine Select Witch Sermons, by Hermann Sampsonius, superintendent +at Riga,' and many others in the course of that century. + +[17] Criminal Law. Tit. x. + +[18] Records of Justiciary. Trial of the Master of Orkney. + +[19] Calef's Journal. + +[20] Cobbett's State Trials. + +[21] Trial of Bartie Paterson. Records of Scottish Justiciary. Dec. 18, +1607. + +[22] In Wenham's case, Mr. Chauncy deposed that a cat belonging to Jane +Wenham had come and _knocked_ at his door at night, and that he had killed +it. This was founded on evidence at the trial. + +[23] Rec. of Just. 1613, Dec. 1. + +[24] See the 'Neue Necrologie der Deutschen, 1823,' for an account of +these remarkable appearances. + +[25] Divina et Vera Metaphysica. + +[26] Wordsworth's 'Dion.' + +[27] The prefixed characters which Ashmole interprets to mean Responsum +Raphaelis seem remarkably to resemble that cabalistic-looking initial +which in medical prescriptions is commonly interpreted "Recipe." + +[28] Dapper (Beschreibung von Amsterdam, p. 150) describes her as a +melancholy or hypochondriac girl. She was burned however as usual. These +rhyming or alliterative charms are of very remote antiquity. Cato, in his +treatise on Husbandry, recommends the following formulary for a sprain or +fracture: "Huat Hanat, Huat Ista, Pista Sista, Domiabo Damnaustra," or +"Motas Væta, Daries Dardaries, Astataries Dissunapiter." + +[29] This, indeed, is an almost invariable feature in the witch trials, +and, if the subject could justify the discussion, might lead to some +singular medical conclusions. + +[30] The trade of a pricker, as it was called, _i. e._ a person who put +pins into the flesh of a witch, was a regular one in Scotland and England, +as well as on the Continent. Sir George Mackenzie mentions the case of one +of them who confessed the imposture (p. 48); and a similar instance is +mentioned by Spottiswood (p. 448). Sir Walter Scott gives the following +account of this trade:--"One celebrated mode of detecting witches, and +torturing them at the same time, to draw forth confession, was, by running +pins into their body, on pretence of discovering the devil's stigma, or +mark, which was said to be inflicted by him upon all his vassals, and to +be insensible to pain. This species of search, the practice of the +infamous Hopkins, was in Scotland reduced to a trade; and the young +witch-finder was allowed to torture the accused party, as if in exercise +of a lawful calling, although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatizes it as a +horrid imposture. I observe in the Collections of Mr. Pitcairn, that, at +the trial of Janet Peaston of Dalkeith, the magistrates and ministers of +that market-town caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to +exercise his craft upon her, 'who found two marks of what he called the +devil's making, and which appeared indeed to be so, for she could not feel +the pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did they (the +marks) bleed when they were taken out again; and when she was asked where +she thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her body +distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length.' +Besides the fact, that the persons of old people especially sometimes +contain spots void of sensibility, there is also room to believe that the +professed prickers used a pin, the point or lower part of which was, on +being pressed down, sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the +purpose, and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at +all."--_Demonology and Witchcraft_, p. 297. + +[31] Peter died in prison just in time to escape the flames. He was burned +in effigy however after his death. + +[32] Lindon, cited by Wyttenbach, 'Versuch einer Geschichte von Trier,' +vol. iii. p. 110. + +[33] Beyträge zur Beförderung einer nähern Einsicht in das gesammte +Geisterreich, vol. i. p. 284. + +[34] The Abbé Fiard, one of the latest believers on record, has printed +the Requête at full length in his 'Lettres sur la Magie,' p. 117 _et seq._ + +[35] Even now a complaint of 'being bewitched' is occasionally made to +Justices of the Peace by the very ignorant or the very malignant. + +[36] Trials and other Proceedings in Matters Criminal before the High +Court of Justiciary in Scotland, selected from the Records of that Court. +By Robert Pitcairn. Edinburgh. + +[37] Holingshed, vol. i. pp. 50, 317. + +[38] At the second marriage of Alexander III., Fordun, vol. ii. p. 128. +Boece, p. 294, ed. 1574. + +[39] Boece, p. 149. + +[40] In the case of Cameron, Bishop of Glasgow, 1466.--Buchanan. +Pitscottie. + +[41] + + "Quell' altro, che nei fianchi è così poco, + Michele Scotto fu, che veramente + Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco."--_Canto xx._ + +[42] As in the case of the witches at Forres, who attempted to destroy +King Duffus by the favourite pagan charm of roasting his image in wax, and +those burnt at Edinburgh for a similar attempt against James III., in +1479. + +[43] Scot of Scotstarvet, Home of Godscroft, _passim_. + +[44] Nov. 8, 1576. Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 48. + +[45] Ibid. p. 51. + +[46] Rec. of Just. May 27, 1601. + +[47] News from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Dr. +Fian.--Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 213. + +[48] We need hardly remind our readers of the torture of Macbriar by the +Boots, before the Privy Council, in the 'Tales of my Landlord.' + +[49] Old French, _Turquois_, a smith's pincers, from _torquere_. + +[50] Sir James Melville, p. 294. + +[51] Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 211. + +[52] Crook--the hook from which pots are hung over a Scottish kitchen +fire. + +[53] Just. Records, 1590-1610. + +[54] Most of the cases here cited are found in the Justiciary Records, +from about 1605 to 1640. + +[55] Feb. 4, 1629. + +[56] Just. Records, Jan. 1630. + +[57] Just. Rec., Dec. 1643. + +[58] The paper is marked on the back, "Edinburgh, July 10th, 1662: +considered and found relevant by the Justice Depute." The part of Janet +Braidhead's deposition, which appears to have borne a similar marking by +the Justice Depute, is torn off. + +[59] Her fellow-witch, Braidhead, was baptized by the very inappropriate +name of _Christian_. + +[60] This seems to have been a common practice in the Infernal ritual. Law +gives the nicknames of the Renfrewshire witches, in the Bangarran Case. +(Memorials, p. 122.) + +[61] Taking the form of foul and ominous birds was a favourite practice of +witches in all ages. Apuleius, in his character of Lucius, thus describes +the metamorphosis of his hostess at Larissa:-- + +"Pamphile divested herself of all her garments, and opening a certain +cabinet took out of it a number of boxes. From one of these she selected a +salve, and anointed herself from head to foot; and after much muttering, +she began to rock and wave herself to and fro. Presently a soft down +covered her limbs, and a pair of wings sprang from her shoulders: her nose +became a beak: her nails talons. Pamphile was now in form a complete owl. +Then uttering a low shriek she began to jump from the floor, and after a +brief while flew out of the window and vanished. She winged her way, I was +assured by Fotis, to some expectant lover. And this was the last I saw of +the old lady." + +[62] Just. Records. Jan. 27, 1662. + +[63] Vol. i. Decisions, p. 14. + + + + +Reading for Travellers. + +A NEW LIBRARY OF RAILWAY LITERATURE. + +_Printed in a clear and legible type, expressly adapted to the convenience +of Railway Travellers._ + +"TELLUS IN LONGAS EST PATEFACTA VIAS."--_Tibullus._ + + +In introducing to the notice of the Public a new Series of Railway +Literature, the Publishers desire to explain briefly the course which it +is their intention to pursue. + +The above title--READING FOR TRAVELLERS--may sufficiently express the +principal object in view. 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