Qui les cinc sens ainsinc deçoit
Par les fantosmes, qu’il reçoit,
Don maintes gens par lor folie
Cuident estre par nuit estries,
Errans aveques Dame Habonde;
Et dient, que par tout le monde
Li tiers enfant de nacion
Sunt de ceste condicion.
And again, line 18,686:
Dautre part, que li tiers du monde
Aille ainsinc eavec Dame Habonde.
[35] See the derivation of pagan from paganus, one who lived in the country, as opposed to urbanus, a townsman.
[36] Snorro’s Edda, Dasent’s Translation, pp. 29 (Stockholm 1842).
[37] Keisersberg Omeiss, 46 b., quoted by Grimm, D.M. pp. 991, says:
“Wen man ein man verbrent, so brent man wol zehen frauen.”
[38] See the passage from Vincent, Bellov. Spec. Mor., iii, 2, 27, quoted in Grimm, D. M. pp. 1,012-3.
[39] The following passage from The Fortalice of Faith of Alphonso Spina, written about the year 1458, will suffice to show how disgustingly the Devil, in the form of a goat, had supplanted the “Good Lady”: Quia nimium abundant tales perversae mulieres ine Delphinatu et Guasconia, ubi se asserunt concurrere de nocte in quâdam planitie deserta ubi est caper quidam in rupe, qui vulgariter dicitur el boch de Biterne et clued ibi conveniunt cum candelis accensis et adorant illum caprum osculpntes eum in ano suo. Ideo captae plures earum, ab inquisitoribus fidei et convictae comburuntur.”
About the same time, too, began to spread the notion of formal written agreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his after a certain time, during which he was to help them to all earthly goods. This, too, came with Christianity from the East. The first instance was Theophilus, vicedominus of the Bishop of Adana, whose fall and conversion form the original of all the Faust Legends. See Grimm, D. M. 969, and “Theophilus in Icelandic, Low German, and other tongues, by G. W. Dasent, Stockholm, 1845.” There a complete account of the literature of the legend may be found. In almost all these early cases the Fiend is outwitted by the help of the Virgin or some other saint, and in this way the reader is reminded of the Norse Devil, the successor of the Giants, who always makes bad bargains. When the story was applied to Faust in the sixteenth century, the terrible Middle Age Devil was paramount, and knew how to exact his due.
[40] How strangely full of common sense sounds the following article from the Capitularies of Charlemagne, De part. Sax., 5:
“Si quis a diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem. Paganorum, virum aliquem aut faeminam strigam esse et homines comedere, et propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem eius ad comedendum dederit, capitis sententia punietur.” And this of Rotharius, Lex. Roth., 379: “Nullus praesumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi strigam occidere, quod Christianis mentibus nullatenus est credendum nec possible est, ut hominem mulier vivum intrinsecus possit comedere.”
Here the law warns the common people from believing in witches, and from taking its functions into their own hands, and reasons with them against the absurdity of such delusions. So, too, that reasonable parish priest who thrashed the witch, though earlier in time, was far in advance of Gregory and his inquisitors, and even of our wise King James.
[41] The following is the title of this strange tract, Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough, in Januarie last 1591, which Doctor was register to the devil, that sundrie times preached at North Baricke Kirke to a number of notorious Witches. With the true examinations of the said Doctor and witches, as they uttered them in the presence of the Scottish king. Discovering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestic in the sea, comming from Denmarke, with such other wonderfull matters as the like, hath not bin heard at anie time. Published according to the Scottish copie. Printed for William Wright. It was reprinted in 1816 for the Roxburghe Club by Mr H. Freeling, and is very scarce even in the reprint, which, all things considered, is perhaps just as well.