That there existed during the middle ages numerous superstitions relating to a connection that witches were imagined to have had with Diana, it will be no difficult task to prove. From an ecclesiastical statute, promulgated during the reign of Louis II., king of France, it appears that certain mischievous women professed their belief in that goddess, obeying her as their mistress; and that accompanied by her and a great multitude of other females, they travelled over immense spaces of the earth at midnight, mounted upon various animals. Many other ecclesiastical regulations, and some of the councils, notice these superstitions, and denounce very severe vengeance against those persons who were thought to practise them. In one we find the following declaration: "Nulla mulier se nocturnis equitare cum Diana dea Paganorum, vel cum Herodiade seu Benzoria et innumera mulierum multitudine profiteatur; hæc enim dæmoniaca est illusio."—Ducange, Gloss. v. Diana. These witches sometimes assembled at the river Jordan, the favourite spot of Diana or Herodias. The Jesuit Delrio very gravely denies the possibility of the above pranks, remarking that there is in reality no Diana, and that Herodias the dancer, whom he here confounds with her daughter, is at present in hell. Disquisit. magic. lib. ii. quæst. 16. Eccard, in his preface to Leibnitz's Collectanea etymologica, relates that in a journey through Misnia in Saxony, he discovered traces of the German Hecate among the peasants in their frauholde or frau faute, i. e. lady fate. John Herold or Herolt, a German friar of the fifteenth century, in one of his Sermons exclaims against those "qui deam, quam quidam Dianam nominant, in vulgari die fraurve unhold dicunt cum suo exercitu ambulare."—Sermones discipuli, serm. xi. He states this practice to have taken place at Christmas time. See likewise Carpentier Suppl. ad Ducangii glossar. v. holda. His majesty King James the First, author of that most sapient work entitled Dæmonologie, informs his readers that the spirits whom the gentiles called Diana and her wandering court, were known among his countrymen by the name of pharie. Other appellations of this personage are likewise to be met with, as Hera, Nicneven, and Dame Habunde; all as the chief or queen of the witches, whom she generally accompanied in their nocturnal dances and excursions through the air.
For the name of Herodias it is not easy to account. It may not be deemed a very extravagant conjecture, that the common people had converted Herod's wife into a witch from their abhorrence of her cruelty towards Saint John the Baptist; for the old mysteries have preserved to us the indignant manner in which they treated Pontius Pilate. The circumstance too of her daughter's dancing, compared with the predilection of witches for that amusement, might contribute to the idea. The learned Schiller thinks that Herodias was the same as Juno. He founds this opinion on the testimony of Gobelinus Persona, a Monk of Paderborn in the fifteenth century, who in his general history of the world had asserted that the Saxons worshipped Juno under the Greek name of Hera, and that the common people still believed in the flight of the lady Hera through the air about the time of Christmas; a superstition which seems to have been derived from an older notion, that Juno presided over that element. Ducange imagined he had found the name in Hera Diana; but he has not brought forward any instance of the use of such an expression. With respect to Benzoria or Bensozia, very little is known. Carpentier, in his Supplement to Ducange's glossary, conjectures that she was designed for the daughter of Herodias, and to assist in the magic dances. It is not improbable that this character is in some way or other connected with the Irish Banshee or Benshi, a kind of fairy. In these subjects we can perceive many corruptions which it is impossible to account for.
Dr. Leyden, in p. [318] of the glossary to his edition of The complaynt of Scotland, mentions the "gyre carling, the queen of fairies, the great hag Hecate, or mother witch of peasants," and cites Polwart's Flyting of Montgomery for "Nicneven and her nymphs." In the fragment of an old Scotish poem in Lord Hyndford's manuscript, in strict conformity with what has been just advanced concerning Juno, she is termed "quene of Jowis." See Ancient Scot. poems, 1768, p. 231.
As Dame Habunde or Abunde has been classed among the names given to the president of the witches, it becomes necessary to take some further notice of her, though a character of an opposite description to those already mentioned. She appears to have been the genuine queen of fairies, and of a most innocuous and benevolent disposition, bestowing happiness and abundance on all her votaries. In the passage before mentioned in Gobelinus Persona, Hera is spoken of as conferring temporal abundance; and although she is represented as flying through the air, it is not by night, nor accompanied by others. Ducange has therefore improperly assimilated her to Diana and her tribe of mischief, and of course his etymology of Herodias is rendered very improbable. In an ancient fabliau by Haisiau, never entirely printed, Dame Abunde is thus introduced:
"Ceste richesce nus abonde
Nos lavon de par Dame Avonde."
She is also mentioned in the works of William Auvergne, bishop of Paris, in the fourteenth century, as a spirit enriching the houses that she visited. Delrio adds, that on her coming with the rest of the good ladies, the superstitious old women used to provide plenty of victuals for them, leaving all the dishes and wine-vessels uncovered to prevent any obstruction to their getting at the food, and expecting on the occasion nothing but plenty and prosperity. See Disquisit. magic. 1. ii. quæst. 27. sect. 2. In the life of Saint Germain, bishop of Auxerre, we find these dames paying their respects to the holy man; and as the story is misrepresented in its most material part by Caxton's translation of the Golden legend, it shall be given from a valuable manuscript of the same work much older than his time. "Narratio. In a tyme he was herboured in a place wher men made redy the borde for to go to dyner aftir he had soupid, and he was gretli merveiled, and asked for whom the borde was sette aᵹen; and thei seide for the good women that walke by nyᵹte; and than Seinte Germayne ordeyned that nyᵹte to be waked. And than at a certeyn hour gret multitude of feendis come to the borde in liknesse of men and of women. And than Germayn comaundid him that thei shold not passe thens, and than he awoke al the meyne, and asked yf thei knewe eny of thoo persones, and they seide that thei wer her neyᵹebores, and than he sente to her housis, and thei wer alle founde in bedde, and than thei alle had gret merveile and thouᵹte wel that thei were feendis that had so longe scorned hem."
The Samogitæ, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic, and who remained idolaters so late as the fifteenth century, believed in the existence of a sort of demi-fairies about a palm high, with beards, whom they called Kaukie. To these little beings they made an offering of all kinds of food to avert their displeasure. They likewise invoked a deity called Putscet to send them the Barstuccæ to live with them and make them fortunate. To effect this, they placed every night in the barn a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale; and if these were taken away before morning, they looked for good fortune, but if left, for nothing but ill luck. See Lasicius De diis Samagitarum, 1615, 4to, pp. 51, 55. A similar superstition prevailed in England, and is thus recorded in Browne's Britannia's pastorals, book i. song 2.
"Within one of these rounds was to be seene
A hillocke rise, where oft the Fairie queene
At twy-light sate, and did command her elves
To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves:
And further, if by maidens oversight,
Within doores water were not brought at night;
Or if they spread no table, set no bread,
They should have nips from toe unto the head:
And for the maid that had perform'd each thing,
She in the water-paile bad leave a ring."
Mr. Bell, in his Description of the condition and manners of the Irish peasantry, relates that the fairies or good people were supposed to enter habitations after the family retired to rest, to indulge in sportive gambols, and particularly to wash themselves in clean water; but if there were no water in the house, to play some mischievous tricks in revenge.