'sur le ventre d'une femme': 'Astaroth, Asmodée, princes d'amitié, je vous conjure d'accepter le sacrifice que je vous présente de cet enfant pour les choses que je vous demande, qui sont l'amitié du Roi, de Mgr le Dauphin me soit continuée et être honorée des princes et princesses de la cour, que rien ne me soit dénié de tout ce que je demanderai au Roi, tant pour mes parents que serviteurs.'[594]
A very interesting case is that of the Rev. George Burroughs in New England (1692):
'He was Accused by Eight of the Confessing Witches, as being an Head Actor at some of their Hellish Randezvouses, and one who had the promise of being a King in Satan's kingdom, now going to be Erected.... One Lacy testify'd that she and the prisoner [Martha Carrier] were once Bodily present at a Witch-meeting in Salem Village; and that she knew the prisoner to be a Witch, and to have been at a Diabolical sacrament.... Another Lacy testify'd that the prisoner was at the Witch-meeting, in Salem Village, where they had Bread and Wine Administred unto them.... Deliverance Hobbs affirmed that this [Bridget] Bishop was at a General Meeting of the Witches, in a Field at Salem-Village, and there partook of a Diabolical Sacrament in Bread and Wine then administred.'[595]
Hutchinson had access to the same records and gives the same evidence, though even more strongly: 'Richard Carrier affirmed to the jury that he saw Mr. George Burroughs at the witch meeting at the village and saw him administer the sacrament. Mary Lacy, senr. and her daughter Mary affirmed that Mr. George Burroughs was at the witch meetings with witch sacrements, and that she knows Mr. Burroughs to be of the company of witches.'[596] John Hale has a similar record: 'This D. H. [Deliverance Hobbs] confessed she was at a Witch Meeting at Salem Village.... And the said G. B. preached to them, and such a Woman was their Deacon, and there they had a Sacrament.'[597] Abigail Williams said 'that the Witches had a Sacrament that day at an house in the Village, and that they had Red Bread and Red Drink'.[598] With the evidence before him Mather seems justified in saying that the witches had 'their Diabolical Sacraments, imitating the Baptism and the Supper of our Lord'.[599]
8. Sacrifices
There are four forms of sacrifice: (1) the blood sacrifice, which was performed by making an offering of the witch's own blood; (2) the sacrifice of an animal; (3) the sacrifice of a human being, usually a child; (4) the sacrifice of the god.
1. The blood-sacrifice took place first at the admission of the neophyte. Originally a sacrifice, it was afterwards joined to the other ceremony of signing the contract, the blood serving as the writing fluid; it also seems to be confused in the seventeenth century with the pricking for the Mark, but the earlier evidence is clear. A writer who generalizes on the witchcraft religion and who recognizes the sacrificial nature of the act is Cooper; as he wrote in 1617 his evidence belongs practically to the sixteenth century. He says:
'In further token of their subiection unto Satan in yeelding vp themselues wholy vnto his deuotion, behold yet another ceremony heere vsually is performed: namely, to let themselues bloud in some apparant place of the body, yeelding the same to be sucked by Satan, as a sacrifice vnto him, and testifying thereby the full subiection of their liues and soules to his deuotion.'[600]
The earliest account of the ceremony is at Chelmsford in 1556. Elizabeth Francis 'learned this arte of witchcraft from her grandmother. When shee taughte it her, she counseiled her to geue of her bloudde to Sathan (as she termed it) whyche she delyuered to her in the lykenesse of a whyte spotted Catte. Euery time that he [the cat] did any thynge for her, she sayde that he required a drop of bloude, which she gaue him by prycking herselfe.' Some time after, Elizabeth Francis presented the Satan-cat to Mother Waterhouse, passing on to her the instructions received from Elizabeth's grandmother. Mother Waterhouse 'gaue him for his labour a chicken, which he fyrste required of her and a drop of her blod. And thys she gaue him at all times when he dyd any thynge for her, by pricking her hand or face and puttinge the bloud to hys mouth whyche he sucked.'[601] In 1566 John Walsh, a Dorset witch, confessed that 'at the first time when he had the Spirite, hys sayd maister did cause him to deliuer one drop of his blud, whych bloud the Spirite did take away vpon hys paw'.[602] In Belgium in 1603 Claire Goessen, 'après avoir donné à boire de son sang à Satan, et avoir bu du sien, a fait avec lui un pacte.[603]
In the case of the Lancashire witch, Margaret Johnson, in 1633, it is difficult to say whether the pricking was for the purpose of marking or for a blood sacrifice; the slight verbal alterations in the two MS. accounts of her confession suggest a confusion between the two ideas; the one appears to refer to the mark, the other (quoted here) to the sacrifice: 'Such witches as have sharp bones given them by the devill to pricke them, have no pappes or dugges whereon theire devil may sucke; but theire devill receiveth bloud from the place, pricked with the bone; and they are more grand witches than any yt have marks.'[604] In Suffolk in 1645 'one Bush of Barton widdow confessed that the Deuill appeared to her in the shape of a young black man ... and asked her for bloud, which he drew out of her mouth, and it dropped on a paper'.[605] At Auldearne, in 1662, the blood was drawn for baptizing the witch; Isobel Gowdie said, 'The Divell marked me in the showlder, and suked owt my blood at that mark, and spowted it in his hand, and, sprinkling it on my head, said, "I baptise the, Janet, in my awin name."' Janet Breadheid's evidence is practically the same: 'The Divell marked me in the shoulder, and suked out my blood with his mowth at that place; he spowted it in his hand, and sprinkled it on my head. He baptised me thairvith, in his awin nam, Christian.'[606]