This narrative is not so much a story as an account of the manner in which bewitchment is undone by another witch. The reader will find the incantations in the chapter entitled “The Spell of the Boiling Clothes,” in my work on “Etruscan-Roman Remains.” One of the most serious riots which has occurred in Milan for many years took place March 3, 1891, when the populace tortured terribly and tried to kill a witch, who had, it was believed, been detected by this spell.
“Hæc fabula docet,” adds the wise Flaxius, “this story suggests a reason why a certain kind of ladies of ecclesiastical proclivities are always called tabbies. And that there is something in it I can well believe, knowing one who, when she calls her rector or bishop ‘De-ar man!’ does so in a manner
which marvellously suggests the purring of a cat. And the manner in which the tabby pounces on the small birds, mice, and gold-fish of others—i.e., their peccadilloes, and small pets or pleasures, which in good faith do her no harm—seems like literally copying the feline—upon line. . . .
“Oh! ye who visit the cloister, and see the cats, think well on this legend, and especially on the deep identity of witches with tabbies!
“And for a moral, note that, with all their sins, what the witches and cats aimed at above all things was food, with which they have remained content, according to the exquisite lyric by the divine Shelley, p. 661, Dowden’s edition:—
“‘This poor little cat
Only wanted a rat,
To stuff out its own little maw,
And it were as good
Some people had such food
To make them hold their jaw.’”
LEGEND OF THE PIAZZA SAN BIAGIO
“For by diabolical art he assumed varied forms, even the human, and deceived people by many occult tricks.”—Fromann, Tractatus de Fascinatione, 1675.
This is a slight tale of light value, and not new, but it has assumed local colour, and may amuse the reader.
“It was a great art of witches and sorcerers of old to give a man or woman by art the appearance of another person, and this they called ‘drawing white lines with charcoal,’ and there is many a fine tale about it. Now it was about the time when Berta spun and owls wore silk cloaks that a Signore Nannincino lived in the old Piazza San Biagio. He had many small possessions in Florence, but the roast chickens of the supper, or his great piece, was an estate in the country called the Mula a Quinto, for which all his relations longed, like wolves for a fat sheep. And Nannincini, being sharp to a keen edge, and knowing how to lend water and borrow wine, had promised this estate in secret to everybody, and got from them many a gratification, and supped and dined with them for years, yet after this died without leaving a will.