Isobel Gowdie and Janet Breadheid of Auldearne both said that the Devil was 'a meikle, blak, roch man, werie cold; and I fand his nature als cold within me as spring-well-water'. Isobel continues, 'He is abler for ws that way than any man can be, onlie he ves heavie lyk a malt-sek; a hudg nature, verie cold, as yce.'[709]
Another point which goes to prove that the intercourse was by artificial means was that pregnancy did not follow, except by special consent of the woman. Jeannette d'Abadie, aged sixteen, said, 'Elle fuyoit l'accouplement du Diable, à cause qu'ayant son membre faict en escailles il fait souffrir vne extresme douleur; outre que la semence est extresmement froide, si bien qu'elle n'engrosse iamais, ni celle des autres hommes au sabbat, bien qu'elle soit naturelle.'[710] Boguet remarks, 'Il me souuient, qu'Antoinette Tornier, & Antoinette Gandillon, estans interroguées, si elles craignoient point de deuenir enceintes des œuures du Diable; l'vne respondit qu'elle estoit trop vieille; l'autre que Dieu ne le vouloit pas permettre.'[711] According to Jeanne Hervillier, the Devil 'coucha auec elle charnellement, en la mesme sorte & maniere que font les hommes auec les femmes, horsmis que la semence estoit froide. Cele dit elle continua tous les huict ou quinze iours.... Et vn iour le diable luy demanda, si elle vouloit estre enceinte de luy, ce qu'elle ne voulut pas.'[712] But when the witch was willing to have a child, it is noticeable that there is then no complaint of the Devil's coldness. At Maidstone in 1652 'Anne Ashby, Anne Martyn, and one other of their Associates, pleaded that they were with child pregnant, but confessed it was not by any man, but by the Divell.... Anne Ashby and Anne Martyn confessed that the Divell had known them carnally, and that they had no hurt by it.'[713]
The Devil appears to have donned or doffed his disguise in the presence of his worshippers, and this was often the case at the time of the sexual rites, whether public or private:
'Il cognoist les Sorcieres tantost en forme d'homme tout noir, & tantost en forme de beste, comme d'vn chien, d'vn chat, d'vn bouc, d'vn mouton. Il cognoissoit Thieuenne Paget, & Antoine Tornier en forme d'vn homme noir: Et lors qu'il accouploit auec Iaquema Paget, & Antoine Gandillon, il prenoit la figure d'vn mouton noir, portant des cornes. Françoise Secretain a dit que son Demon se mettoit tantost en chien, tantost en chat, et tantost en poule, quand il la vouloit cognoistre charnellement. Or tout cecy me fait de tant mieux asseurer l'accouplement reel du Sorcier, & de la Sorciere auec le Demon.'[714]
In the Basses-Pyrénées Marie d'Aspilcouette 'disoit le mesme, pour ce qui est du membre en escailles, mais elle deposoit, que lors qu'il les vouloit cognoistre, il quitoit la forme de Bouc, & prenoit celle d'homme.'[715] 'Il entra dans sa chambre en forme d'ung chat et se changea en la posture d'un home vestu de rouge.'[716] At an attempt to wreck a ship in a great storm 'the devil was there present with them all, in the shape of a great horse.... They returned all in the same likeness as of before, except that the devil was in the shape of a man.'[717] 'The Deivill apeired vnto her, in the liknes of ane prettie boy in grein clothes.... And at that tyme the Deivil gaive hir his markis; and went away from her in the liknes of ane blak doug.'[718] 'He wold haw carnall dealling with ws in the shap of a deir, or in any vther shap, now and then. Somtym he vold be lyk a stirk, a bull, a deir, a rae, or a dowg, etc., and haw dealling with ws.'[719] 'Yow the said Margaret Hamilton, relict of James Pullwart ... had carnall cowpulatiown with the devil in the lyknes of ane man, bot he removed from yow in the lyknes of ane black dowg.'[720] The most important instance is in Boguet's description of the religious ceremony at the Sabbath: 'Finalement Satan apres auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc, se consume en feu, & reduit en cendre.'[721]
The witches' habit of speaking of every person of the other sex with whom they had sexual intercourse at the Sabbath as a 'devil' has led to much confusion in the accounts. The confusion has been accentuated by the fact that both male and female witches often used a disguise, or were at least veiled. 'Et pource que les hommes ne cedent guieres aux femmes en lubricité, c'est pourquoy le Demon se met aussi en femme ou Succube.... Ce qu'il fait principalement au Sabbat, selon que l'ont rapporté Pierre Gandillon, & George Gandillon, pere & fils, & les autres, lesquels disent tout vnanimement, qu'en leurs assemblées il y a plusieurs Demons, & que les vns exercent le mestier de l'homme pour les femmes, & les autres le mestier des femmes pour les hommes.'[722] 'The Incubus's in the shapes of proper men satisfy the desires of the Witches, and the Succubus's serve for Whores to the Wizards.'[723] Margaret Johnson said the same: 'Their spirittes vsuallie have knowledge of theire bodies.... Shee also saith, that men Witches usualie have woemen spirittes and woemen witches men spirittes.'[724] The girls under Madame Bourignon's charge 'declared that they had daily carnal Cohabitation with the Devil; that they went to the Sabbaths or Meetings, where they Eat, Drank, Danc'd, and committed other Whoredom and Sensualities. Every one had her Devil in form of a Man; and the Men had their Devils in the form of a Woman.... They had not the least design of changing, to quit these abominable Pleasures, as one of them of Twenty-two Years old one day told me. No, said she, I will not be other than I am; I find too much content in my Condition; I am always Caressed.'[725] One girl of twelve said definitely that she knew the Devil very well, 'that he was a Boy a little bigger than her self; and that he was her Love, and lay with her every Night'; and another girl named Bellot, aged fifteen, 'said her Mother had taken her with her [to the Sabbath] when she was very Young, and that being a little Wench, this Man-Devil was then a little Boy too, and grew up as she did, having been always her Love, and Caressed her Day and Night.'[726] Such connexions sometimes resulted in marriage. Gaule mentions this fact in his general account: 'Oft times he marries them ere they part, either to himselfe, or their Familiar, or to one another; and that by the Book of Common Prayer (as a pretender to witchfinding lately told me in the Audience of many).'[727] This statement is borne out in the trials: 'Agnes Theobalda sagte, sie sey selbst zugegen auff der Hochzeit gewesen, da Cathalina und Engel von Hudlingen, ihren Beelzebub zur Ehe genommen haben.'[728] The Devil of Isobel Ramsay's Coven was clearly her husband,[729] but there is nothing to show whether the marriage took place before she became a witch, as in the case of Janet Breadheid of Auldearne, whose husband 'enticed her into that craft'.[730] I have quoted above (p. 179) the ceremony at the marriage of witches in the Basses-Pyrénées. Rebecca Weste, daughter of a witch, married the Devil by what may be a primitive rite; he came to her 'as shee was going to bed, and told her, he would marry her, and that shee could not deny him; shee said he kissed her, but was as cold as clay, and married her that night, in this manner; he tooke her by the hand and lead her about the chamber, and promised to be her loving husband till death, and to avenge her of her enemies; and that then shee promised him to be his obedient wife till death, and to deny God, and Christ Jesus.'[731] At Edinburgh in 1658 a young woman called Anderson was tried: 'her confessioun was, that scho did marry the devill.'[732] The Swedish witches in 1670 confessed that at Blockula 'the Devil had Sons and Daughters which he did marry together'.[733] Giraldus Cambrensis gives an account of a 'spirit' in the form of a red-haired young man, called Simon, who 'was begotten upon the wife of a rustic in that parish, by a demon, in the shape of her husband, naming the man, and his father-in-law, then dead, and his mother, still alive; the truth of which the woman upon examination openly avowed'.[734]
FOOTNOTES:
[664] Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 206; Glanvil, pt. ii, p. 301.
[665] Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 207.
[666] J. G. Campbell, pp. 293-4. The book was in manuscript, and when last heard of was in the possession of the now-extinct Stewarts of Invernahyle.