"6. The examination and confession of the children or servants of the Witch.
"7. Their owne voluntary confession, which exceeds all other euidence."
Bodin, a French writer, in his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," published in 1587, says, "On half-proof or strong presumption, the judge may proceed to torture." The judge might, moreover, in his opinion, lie with impunity, and promise a suspected person a pardon on confession, without the intention of carrying it into effect. But this is not much from a man, who could cite with approval and even relish, the decision of a magistrate that a person "who had eaten flesh on a Friday should be burned alive unless he repented, and if he repented, yet he was hanged out of compassion." Yet this same Bodin was a Protestant, forsooth!
Walburgar, writing in the following century, is not much less tolerant of judicial mendacity. He does not, indeed, recommend direct lying, but equivocation. The judge may inform the suspected that her confession will induce in him favourable action, that a new house should be built for her, and that it will tend to the saving of her life. And yet, after the poor deluded creature has committed herself, he regards it as perfectly just and honourable that the sapient administrator of the law should inform her that his action in burning her will be favourable to the commonwealth, that her new house will be of wood at the stake, and that the destruction of her body will tend to the salvation of her soul!
In Würtzburg, as recently as 1749, a girl was burnt alive as a legally condemned practitioner of witchcraft. Witches were burned in Scotland till 1772, and in France in 1718. The severe acts passed in the reign of James I., condemnatory of witchcraft, were not repealed till the 9th George II. (1736).
There appears to have been three kinds of witches—the black, the white, and the grey. The black had power only for evil, the white for good, and the grey possessed authority both in matters good and evil. These seem to have originally been merely personifications of the black, white, and grey-coloured clouds of the Aryan elemental conflicts. Perhaps Shakspere formed his principal group of three from the circumstance that the destiny of his hero was influenced to some extent by one of each class. Many altars, of the period of the Roman occupation, dedicated to the deæ matres, or mother goddesses, have been found in various parts of the north of England. It is believed they were introduced by Teutonic auxiliaries. These deities have undergone much change in their transference to more modern superstitions; but some of their attributes may be detected without difficulty. Mr. Thomas Wright, in "Celt, Roman, and Saxon," says:
"They are sometimes regarded as the three Fates—the norni of the north, the wæleyrian of the Anglo-Saxons (the weird sisters, transformed in Shakspere into three witches) disposing of the fates of individuals, and dealing out life and death. But they are also found distributing rewards and punishments, giving wealth and property, and conferring fruitfulness. They are the three fairies who are often introduced in the fairy legends of a later period, with these same characteristics."
I have said that many of the "theatrical properties" of mediæval witchcraft may be traced to an Aryan origin. The chief of these, the cauldron, is familiar to all from Shakspere's admirable pictures in Macbeth. I have previously referred to the fact that the phrase "brewing a storm" is derived from this source. Cauldron stories are common amongst ancient tribes. Guy of Warwick's "porridge pot" is of this class. Kelly says, speaking of the "genii of the lightning, the beings who brewed and lightned in the storm,"—
"If the Bhrigus or their associates were brewers they must needs have had brewing utensils; at the very least they must have had a brewing pot; and therefore we are justified in referring back the origin of the witches' cauldron to the remotest antiquity. Perhaps the oldest example of such a vessel of which there is any distinct record is the cauldron which Thor carried off from the giant Hymir, to brew drink for the gods at Oegir's harvest feast. It was five miles deep, and modern expounders of the Eddic myths are of opinion that it was the vaulted sky."
It must be borne in mind that the "heavenly liquor," so much vaunted, was neither more nor less than rain water, "brewed" by the action of the storm deities and their assistants, whether dignified by the name of soma, amrita, or nectar.