'saith, that since she gave information against severall persons who ridd her to severall places where they had conversation with the divell, she hath beene severall times lately ridden by Anne Driden and Anne Forster, and was last night ridden by them to the rideing house in the close on the common.... Whilst she was lying in that condition [i.e. "a fitt">[, which happened one night a little before Christmas, about the change of the moone, the informant see the said Anne Forster come with a bridle, and bridled her and ridd upon her crosse-leggd, till they come to (the) rest of her companions at Rideing millne bridg-end, where they usually mett. And when she light of her back, pulld the bridle of this informer's head, now in the likenesse of a horse; but, when the bridle was taken of, she stood up in her own shape.... And when they had done, bridled this informer, and the rest of the horses, and rid home.... Upon Collupp Munday last, being the tenth of February, the said persons met at Allensford, where this informant was ridden upon by an inchanted bridle by Michael Aynsley and Margaret his wife. Which inchanted bridle, when they tooke it from her head, she stood upp in her owne proper person.... On Monday last at night, she, being in her father's house, see one Jane Baites, of Corbridge, come in the forme of a gray catt with a bridle hanging on her foote, and breath'd upon her and struck her dead, and bridled her, and rid upon her in the name of the devill southward, but the name of the place she does not now remember. And the said Jane allighted and pulld the bridle of her head.'[357]
The method of locomotion which has most impressed the popular imagination and has become proverbial was riding on a stick, generally said to be a broomstick. It must, however, be remembered that one of the earliest cases on record of stick-riding does not definitely state that the witch flew through the air. This was the case of the Lady Alice Kyteler in 1324, when 'in rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a Pipe of oyntment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon the which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin, when and in what maner she listed'.[358] Though Holinshed is not always a reliable authority, it is worth while to compare this account with the stick-riding of the Arab witches and the tree-riding of the Aberdeen Covens (see pp. 110, 134).
The number of cases vouched for by the persons who actually performed or saw the feat of riding on a stick through the air are disappointingly few. Guillaume Edeline, prior of St. Germain-en-Laye (1453), 'se mit en telle servitude de l'ennemy, qu'il luy convenoit estre en certain lieu toutes fois qu'il estoit par ledit ennemy évocqué: ouquel lieu ilz avoient accoustumé faire leur consistoire, et ne luy falloit que monter sur ung balay, qu'aussi-tost il estoit prestement transporté là où ledit consistoire se faisoit'.[359] The Guernsey witch, Martin Tulouff (1563), confessed 'q̱̄ il soy est trouvé avecq la dite viellesse ou elle chevaucha ung genest et luy ung aultre, et q̱̄ ladte viellesse monta a mont la chemynee et q̱̄ il en perdyt la veue et q̱̄ elle disoet devãt q̱̄ monter "Va au nom du diable et luciffer dessq̱̃ roches et espyñes" et q̱̄ por luy il ne pouvoet ainsy faire, et dt q̱̄ sa mere a chevauche le genest p̱ iv ou v foys et q̱̄ il l'a veue monter a mont la cheminee'.[360] Danaeus (1575) sums up the evidence of the witches themselves: 'He promiseth that himself will conuay them thither, that are so weak that they cannot trauaile of themselues: which many tymes he doth by meanes of a staffe or rod, which he deliuereth vnto thẽ, or promiseth to doo it by force of a certen oyntment, which he will geue them: and sometimes he offreth them an horse to ride vpon.'[361] Boguet's experience (1598) is more dramatic than that of Danaeus: 'Les autres y vont, tantost sur vn Bouc, tantost sur vn cheual, & tantost sur vn ballet, ou ramasse, sortans ces derniers de leurs maisons le plus souuent par la cheminee.... Les vns encor se frottent auparauant de certaine graisse, & oignement: les autres ne se frottent en aucune façon.'[362] He also records the actual evidence of individual witches: Françoise Secretain said 'qu'elle avoit esté vne infinité de fois au Sabbat & assemblee des Sorciers ... & qu'elle y alloit sur vn baston blanc, qu'elle mettoit entre ses iambes.[363]—Claudine Boban, ieune fille confessa, qu'elle, & sa mere montoient sur vne ramasse,[364] & que sortans le contremont de la cheminée elles alloient par l'air en ceste façon au Sabbat.'[365] In Belgium Claire Goessen (1603) confessed 'qu'elle s'est trouvée à diverses assemblées nocturnes tenues par lui, dans lesquelles elle s'est laissée transporter au moyen d'un bâton enduit d'onguent'.[366] Isobell Gowdie (1662) was fully reported as regards the methods of locomotion used by the witches, though in other places her evidence is unfortunately cut short:
'I haid a little horse, and wold say, "Horse and Hattock, in the Divellis name!" And than ve void flie away, quhair ve vold, be ewin as strawes wold flie wpon an hie-way. We will flie lyk strawes quhan we pleas; wild-strawes and corne-strawes wilbe horses to ws, an ve put thaim betwixt our foot, and say, "Horse and Hattok, in the Divellis name!" ... Quhan we wold ryd, we tak windle-strawes, or been-stakes [bean-stalks], and put them betwixt owr foot, and say thryse,
Horse and Hattok, horse and goe,
Horse and pellattis, ho! ho!
and immediatlie we flie away whair euir we wold.... All the Coeven did fflie lyk cattis, bot Barbara Ronald, in Brightmanney, and I, still [always] read on an horse, quhich ve vold mak of a straw or beein-stalk.'[367]
Julian Cox (1664) said that 'one evening she walkt out about a Mile from her own House, and there came riding towards her three persons upon three Broom-staves, born up about a yard and an half from the ground. Two of them she formerly knew, which was a Witch and a Wizzard.... The third person she knew not. He came in the shape of a black Man.'[368] Two of the New England witches (1692) confessed to riding on a pole; Mary Osgood, wife of Capt. Osgood of Andover, 'was carried through the air to five-mile pond ... she was transported back again through the air, in company with the forenamed persons, in the same manner as she went, and believes they were carried upon a pole'.[369] Goody Foster's evidence was reported by two authors: 'One Foster confessed that the Devil carry'd them on a pole, to a Witch-meeting; but the pole broke, and she hanging about [Martha] Carrier's neck, they both fell down, and she then received an hurt by the Fall, whereof she was not at this very time recovered.'[370] The second account is substantially the same: 'In particular Goody F. said (Inter alia) that she with two others (one of whom acknowledged the same) Rode from Andover to the same Village Witch meeting upon a stick above ground, and that in the way the stick brake, and gave the said F. a fall: whereupon, said she, I got a fall and hurt of which I am still sore.'[371]
Site.—The Sabbath seems to have been originally held on a fixed site. So much so was this the case that de Lancre is able to say, 'communement ils l'appellent Aquelarre, qui signifie Lane de Bouc, comme qui diroit la lane ou lãde, où le Bouc conuoque ses assemblees. Et de faict les Sorciers qui confessent, nommẽt le lieu pour la chose, & la chose ou Assemblee pour le lieu: tellement qu'encore que proprement Lane de Bouc, soit le Sabbat qui se tient és landes, si est-ce qu'ils appellent aussi bien Lane de Bouc, le Sabbat qui se tient és Eglises, & és places des villages, paroisses, maisons, & autres lieux.'[372] The confusion of the original Lane de Bouc, i.e. the Sabbath or Great Assembly, with local meetings is thus shown to be due to the inaccuracy of the witches themselves; and therefore it is not surprising that de Lancre and other authors should also fail to distinguish between the two. Still, in many of the records there are certain indications by which it is possible to recognize the localities where the real Sabbath, the true Lane de Bouc, was held.
De Lancre himself notes that the Sabbath must be held near a lake, stream, or water of some kind.[373] Bodin, however, gives a better clue, 'Les lieux des assemblees des Sorciers sont notables, & signalez de quelques arbres, ou croix.'[374] The croix is clearly the Christian form of the standing stone which is a marked feature in many descriptions of the Sabbath; and Bodin's statement recalls one of the laws of Cnut in the eleventh century, 'We earnestly forbid every heathenism: heathenism is, that men worship idols; that is that they worship heathen gods, or stones, or forest trees of any kind.'
Estebène de Cambrue (1567) said, 'Le lieu de ceste grande conuocation s'appelle generalement par tout le pays la Lanne de Bouc. Où ils se mettent à dancer à l'entour d'vne pierre, qui est plantée audit lieu, sur laquelle est assis vn grand homme noir.'[375] At Poictiers in 1574 four witches, one woman and three men, said that they went 'trois fois l'an, à l'assemblee generale, où plusieurs Sorciers se trouuoyẽt prés d'vne croix d'vn carrefour, qui seruoit d'enseigne'.[376] At Aberdeen in 1596 the witches acknowledged that they danced round the market cross and the 'fische croce' on All-Hallow-eve; and also round 'ane gray stane' at the foot of the hill at Craigleauch.[377] Margaret Johnson (1633) said 'shee was not at the greate meetinge at Hoarestones at the Forest of Pendle upon All Saints day'.[378] Though no stone is actually mentioned the name suggests that there had been, or still were, one or more stones standing in that place. The Swedish witches (1669) seem to have used the same site for both kinds of meetings; Blockula seems to have been a building of some kind, set in a meadow which was entered by a painted gate; within the building were rooms and some kind of chapel for the religious service.[379] The New England recorders (1692) did not enter into much detail, but even among them the fact is mentioned that there was 'a General Meeting of the Witches, in a Field at Salem-Village'.[380]