Aye to quell his enemy
With charms and with conjurisons:
Thus he assayed the regions,
That him came for to assail,
In very manner of battail;
By clear candle in the night,
He made each one with other fight.’”
“No bad way,” said Thompson, “of testing the advantage of that royal and national luxury—war.”
“The rhymer makes his charms successful, especially in the case of one King Philip, a great and powerful prince, who brought nine-and-twenty great lords to battle against Nectabanus. Once put into his charmed basin, the magician saw the end of the battle, the defeat and death of his enemy.”
“The old Romans had as much fear of the waxen image, as good King James,” remarked Herbert; “and were as firm believers in the feats of Canidia over the enchanted model, as the Scottish King in the modelling of his national wiches, and the secret cavern on the hill, where Satan and his imps manufacture devils’ arrows to shoot at the enemies of the witches.”