Causa, quòd horrendâ stridere nocte solent.
This is that sort of bird that Gesner calleth Caprimulgus, and the Greeks Ἀιγαθήλας, the Germans Rachtvogel or Rachtraven, the Hebrews לילית Lillith, as is said in Isaiah: Quin & ibi subitò quievit strix (seu lamia) & invenit sibi requiem. It is taken to be a kind of Owl, little bigger than an Ousel, and less than a Cuckow, they are blind upon the day, and flye abroad upon the nights, making an horrible noise, and were to be found about Rome, Helvetia, and Crete or Candy, and do certainly suck the dugs of Goats, that thereby they waste away and become blind. And that they are also sometimes found in Denmark, that learned Physician and laborious Anatomist Bartholinus doth make manifest, and that they do suck the breasts or navils of young children. Now what affinity hath this to a Witch or Witchcraft? but that Witchmongers would bring in any allusion or Metaphor, though never so impertinent or incongruous? For if it were transferred to the actions of Witches, yet as Calepine tells us: Ab hujus avis nocumento striges appellamus mulieres puellulos fascinantes suo contactu, & lactis mammarúmq; oblatione. So that if the assimulation were proper in any proportion or particular, those Women they do account Witches, do but hurt the little children with the virulent steams of their breath, and the effluviums that issue from their filthy and polluted bodies, and so wrought by contact and contrectation, by which the contagious poyson is conveyed, but not by Witchcraft.
Act. 1. 26.
Prov. 16. 33.
3. There is another word that they apply to Witches, as insignificant and improper as the other, and that is Sortilegus, χρησμολόγος, a Teller of Fortunes by Lots or Cuts: and Lambertus Danæus, who in other things was a judicious and learned person, yet doted extremely about this opinion, calling a Witch Sortiarius, deriving it from Sortilegus, which the French call Sorcier. Now what affinity or congruity hath casting or using of Lots with that which these men call Witchcraft? surely none at all. For though Lots may, like the best things, be abused and wrested to a vain or evil end, yet are they not altogether evil, but that a civil and lawful use may be made of them, as is manifest this day at the famous City of Venice, where their chief Officers are chosen by them. And also there hath been a godly and divine use made of them even by the Apostles themselves, in the deciding of the Election of Barsabas and Matthias, upon the latter of which the Lot fell, and so he was numbred with the eleven Apostles. And Solomon tells us, The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And sure these men were at a loss to find a suitable word to fix upon these Creatures, to whom they ascribe such impossible and incredible actions, when they were fain to bring this appellation of Sortilegus, that hath no kinship at all with such Witches, as they mean and intend.
4. Sometimes they call them by the name Saga, which signifieth no more than a Wife and subtil Woman, being derived à sagiendo to perceive quickly, or to smell a thing quickly forth, which the Germans call Vnhold, which is no more than malevolus, or evil-willed.
5. They use the word Veneficus, venefica, and veneficium, and this in its proper signification and derivation from the Latine, doth import no more than a Poysoner, or to make poyson, venenum facere, and so might perhaps be given unto them, because by Tradition they had learned several ways to poyson secretly and strangely, as doubtless there may be divers hidden and not ordinarily known ways (as we shall shew hereafter) by which either by smelling, tasting, touching (and it may be by sight) they could kill and destroy, though the means they used, and the effects produced, were meerly natural; yet because the manner was very occult and unperceivable, it was through ignorance and want of due inspection into the matters accounted Diabolical; when there was no more of a Devil in the business, than is in a Thief or Murtherer, but only in the Use and Application, which is to steal, kill, or destroy. And this, though now improperly and abusively called Witchcraft, doth but signifie poysoning, and so the French call it Empoisonnement, and the Italians Veneficio or Avenenatione, and the Germans Vergifftung, which all amount to one purpose. And this Veneficium or poysoning the Greeks call Φαρμάκευσις and Φαρμακία from Φάρμακον Medicamentum v.l. Venenum; for sometimes it was taken in the better sense for a curing and healing Medicine; and sometimes in the worse for poyson that did kill or destroy. Neither can it be found in any Greek Author to signifie any more, than such men or women that used Charms and Incantations, and were believed by the Vulgar to effect strange things by them, when in truth and indeed they effected nothing at all but by natural means and secret poysons, and from thence had these names. And the Poets spoke of them to adorn and imbellish their Poems withal, according to common opinion; not that either they themselves believed the things to be so done, as the Vulgar believed, nor to give credit to such false Fables and impossibilities; but to make their Poems more delectable and welcome to the common people, who are usually taken with such fond Romantick stories and lyes. But after the year 1300. when the Spanish Inquisitors, the Popish Doctors and Writers had found the sweetness and benefit of the confiscated Goods of those that they had caused to be accused and condemned for Witches, in their sense then these words either in the Greek or Latine were wrested to signifie a Witch that made a visible and corporeal League with the Devil, when in the true sense of them they did but signifie a secret Poysoner. So that all things were hurried, though never so improper and dissonant, to be made serviceable to their filthy lucre and avaritious self-endedness. Templum venale Deúsq;.
6. Lastly, For Witchcraft they used the Latine Fascinum and Fascinatio, and so they called a Witch Fascinator and Fascinatrix, and this the Greeks called Βασκανίον, Βασκανία, Fascinum, Fascinatio, also invidia, odium, seu invidentia, ἀπὸ τοῦ Βασκανεῖν, à fascinando, seu oculis occidendo: the Germans call it Zaubery, and Verzauberung, and sometimes Hexenwerk; the French Ensorcellement and Sorcelerie; the Italians Lestrigare & amaliare, amaliamento; the Belgicks Betoovenge: the Saxons called them and it Ƿɩcce and Ƿɩcce-cꞃeeꝼꞇ, from whence we have the name Witch and Witchcraft, that signified Saga, Venefica, Lamia, and Fascinum, Magia, Incantatio, Fascinatio, Præstigium: of which (because we shall have occasion to speak more of it hereafter) we shall here only note these few things.
Vid. Alexand. Aphrod. lib. 2. Probl. 53.
1. It is taken sometimes for Envy and Malice, because those that were supposed to use Fascination, did direct it to one Creature more than another through their envious minds, as may be perceived by some few Authors: And so was accounted a kind of eye-biting whereby (as the Vulgar believed) children did wax lean, and pined away, the original whereof they referred to the crooked and wry looks of malicious persons, never examining the truth of the matter of fact, whether those children that pined away, had any natural disease or not, that caused that macilency or pining away; nor considered, whether or no there was any efficiency in the envy or wry looks of those malicious persons, but vainly ascribed effects to those things that had in them no causality at all to produce such effects.