The ceremonies of the compact by which a woman became a witch have been already referred to. It was almost an essential condition in the vulgar creed that she should be, as Gaule ('Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches,' &c., 1646) represents, an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There are three sorts of the devil's agents on earth—the black, the gray, and the white witches. The first are omnipotent for evil, but powerless for good. The white have the power to help, but not to hurt.[91] As for the third species (a mixture of white and black), they are equally effective for good or evil.
[91] A writer at the beginning of the seventeenth century (Cotta, Tryall of Witchcraft) says, 'This kind is not obscure at this day, swarming in this kingdom, whereof no man can be ignorant who lusteth to observe the uncontrouled liberty and licence of open and ordinary resort in all places unto wise men and wise women, so vulgarly termed for their reputed knowledge concerning such diseased persons as are supposed to be bewitched.' And (Short Discoverie of Unobserved Dangers, 1612) 'the mention of witchecraft doth now occasion the remembrance in the next place of a sort of practitioners whom our custom and country doth call wise men and wise women, reputed a kind of good and honest harmless witches or wizards, who, by good words, by hallowed herbs and salves, and other superstitious ceremonies, promise to allay and calm devils, practices of other witches, and the forces of many diseases.' Another writer of the same date considers 'it were a thousand times better for the land if all witches, but specially the blessing witch, might suffer death. Men do commonly hate and spit at the damnifying sorcerer as unworthy to live among them, whereas they fly unto the other in necessity; they depend upon him as their God, and by this means thousands are carried away, to their final confusion. Death, therefore, is the just and deserved portion of the good witch.'—Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, by Brand, ed. by Sir H. Ellis.
Equally various and contradictory are the motives and acts assigned to witches. Nothing is too great or too mean for their practice: they engage with equal pleasure in the overthrow of a kingdom or a religion, and in inflicting the most ordinary evils and mischiefs in life. Their mode of bewitching is various: by fascination or casting an evil eye ('Nescio,' says the Virgilian shepherd, 'quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos'); by making representations of the person to be acted upon in wax or clay, roasting them before a fire; by mixing magical ointments or other compositions and ingredients revealed to us in the witch-songs of Shakspeare, Jonson, Middleton, Shadwell, and others; sometimes merely by muttering an imprecation.
They ride in sieves on the sea, on brooms, spits magically prepared; and by these modes of conveyance are borne, without trouble or loss of time, to their destination. By these means they attend the periodical sabbaths, the great meetings of the witch-tribe, where they assemble at stated times to do homage, to recount their services, and to receive the commands of their lord. They are held on the night between Friday and Saturday; and every year a grand sabbath is ordered for celebration on the Blocksberg mountains, for the night before the first day of May. In those famous mountains the obedient vassals congregate from all parts of Christendom—from Italy, Spain, Germany, France, England, and Scotland. A place where four roads meet, a rugged mountain range, or perhaps the neighbourhood of a secluded lake or some dark forest, is usually the spot selected for the meeting.[92]
[92] 'When orders had once been issued for the meeting of the sabbath, all the wizards and witches who failed to attend it were lashed by demons with a rod made of serpents or scorpions. In France and England the witches were supposed to ride uniformly upon broom-sticks; but in Italy and Spain, the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, used to transport them on his back, which lengthened or shortened according to the number of witches he was desirous of accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the sabbath, could get out by a door or window were she to try ever so much. Their general mode of ingress was by the key-hole, and of egress by the chimney, up which they flew, broom and all, with the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the witches being noticed by their neighbours, some inferior demon was commanded to assume their shapes, and lie in their beds, feigning illness, until the sabbath was over. When all the wizards and witches had arrived at the place of rendezvous, the infernal ceremonies began. Satan having assumed his favourite shape of a large he-goat, with a face in front and another in his haunches, took his seat upon a throne; and all present in succession paid their respects to him and kissed him in his face behind. This done, he appointed a master of the ceremonies, in company with whom he made a personal examination of all the witches, to see whether they had the secret mark about them by which they were stamped as the devil's own. This mark was always insensible to pain. Those who had not yet been marked received the mark from the master of the ceremonies, the devil at the same time bestowing nick-names upon them. This done, they all began to sing and dance in the most furious manner until some one arrived who was anxious to be admitted into their society. They were then silent for a while until the new comer had denied his salvation, kissed the devil, spat upon the Bible, and sworn obedience to him in all things. They then began dancing again with all their might and singing.... In the course of an hour or two they generally became wearied of this violent exercise, and then they all sat down and recounted their evil deeds since last meeting. Those who had not been malicious and mischievous enough towards their fellow-creatures received personal chastisement from Satan himself, who flogged them with thorns or scorpions until they were covered with blood and unable to sit or stand. When this ceremony was concluded, they were all amused by a dance of toads. Thousands of these creatures sprang out of the earth, and standing on their hind-legs, danced while the devil played the bagpipes or the trumpet. These toads were all endowed with the faculty of speech, and entreated the witches there to reward them with the flesh of unbaptized infants for their exertions to give them pleasure. The witches promised compliance. The devil bade them remember to keep their word; and then stamping his foot, caused all the toads to sink into the earth in an instant. The place being thus cleared, preparations were made for the banquet, where all manner of disgusting things were served up and greedily devoured by the demons and witches, although the latter were sometimes regaled with choice meats and expensive wines, from golden plates and crystal goblets; but they were never thus favoured unless they had done an extraordinary number of evil deeds since the last period of meeting. After the feast, they began dancing again; but such as had no relish for any more exercise in that way, amused themselves by mocking the holy sacrament of baptism. For this purpose the toads were again called up, and sprinkled with filthy water, the devil making the sign of the cross, and all the witches calling out—[some gibberish]. When the devil wished to be particularly amused, he made the witches strip off their clothes and dance before him, each with a cat tied round her neck, and another dangling from her body in form of a tail. When the cock crew they all disappeared, and the sabbath was ended. This is a summary of the belief that prevailed for many centuries nearly all over Europe, and which is far from eradicated even at this day.'—Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, by C. Mackay.
A mock sermon often concludes the night's proceedings, the ordinary salutation of the osculum in tergo being first given. But these circumstances are innocent compared with the obscene practices when the lights are put out; indiscriminate debauchery being then the order of the night. A new rite of baptism initiated the neophyte into his new service: the candidate being signed with the sign of the devil on that part of the body least observable, and submitting at the same time to the first act of criminal compliance, to be often repeated. On these occasions the demon presents himself in the form of either sex, according to that of his slaves. It was elicited from a witch examined at a trial that, from the period of her servitude, the devil had had intercourse with her ut viri cum fœminis solent, excepting only in one remarkable particular.
During the pontificate of Julius II.—the first decade of the sixteenth century—a set of sorceresses was discovered in large numbers: a dispute between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities averted their otherwise certain destruction. The successors of Innocent VIII. repeated his anathemas. Alexander VI., Leo X., and Adrian VI. appointed special commissioners for hunting up sorcerers and heretics. In 1523, Adrian issued a bull against Hæresis Strigiatûs with power to excommunicate all who opposed those engaged in the inquisition. He characterises the obnoxious class as a sect deviating from the Catholic faith, denying their baptism, showing contempt for the sacraments, in particular for that of the Eucharist, treading crosses under foot, and taking the devil as their lord.[93] How many suffered for the crime during the thirty or forty years following upon the bull of 1484, it is difficult exactly to ascertain: that some thousands perished is certain, on the testimony of the judges themselves. The often-quoted words of Florimond, author of a work 'On Antichrist,' as given by Del Rio the Jesuit ('De Magiâ'), are not hyperbolical. 'All those,' says he, 'who have afforded us some signs of the approach of antichrist agree that the increase of sorcery and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period of his advent; and was ever age so afflicted with them as ours? The seats destined for criminals before our judicatories are blackened with persons accused of this guilt. There are not judges enough to try enough. Our dungeons are gorged with them. No day passes that we do not render our tribunals bloody by the dooms we pronounce, or in which we do not return to our homes discountenanced and terrified at the horrible contents of the confessions which it has been our duty to hear. And the devil is accounted so good a master that we cannot commit so great a number of his slaves to the flames but what there shall arise from their ashes a number sufficient to supply their place.'
[93] Francis Hutchison's Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, chap. xiv.; the author quotes Barthol. de Spina, de Strigibus.
It is within neither the design nor the limits of these pages to repeat all the witch-cases, which might fill several volumes; it is sufficient for the purpose to sketch a few of the most notorious and prominent, and to notice the most remarkable characteristics of the creed.
Maximilian I., Emperor of Germany, protected the inquisitorial executioners from the indignant vengeance of the inhabitants of the districts of Southern Germany, which would have been soon almost depopulated by an unsparing massacre and a ferocious zeal: while Sigismund, Prince of the Tyrol, is said to have been inclined to soften the severity of a persecution he was totally unable, if he had been disposed, to prevent. Ulric Molitor, under the auspices of this prince, however, published a treatise in Switzerland ('De Pythonicis Mulieribus') in the form of a dialogue, in which Sigismund, Molitor, and a citizen of Constance are the interlocutors. They argue as to the practice of witchcraft; and the argument is to establish that, although the practicers of the crime are worthy of death, much of the vulgar opinion on the subject is false. Even in the middle of the fifteenth century, and in Spain, could be found an assertor, in some degree, of common sense, whose sentiments might scandalise some Protestant divines. Alphonse de Spina was a native of Castile, of the order of St. Francis: his book was written against heretics and unbelievers, but there is a chapter in which some acts attributed to sorcerers, as transportation through the air, transformations, &c., are rejected as unreal.