This wild and awful revel was called the Sabbat because it took place after midnight on Friday; that is, on the Jewish Sabbath—a curious illustration of the popular antipathy against the Jews.
The spot where it was held never bloomed again with flower or herb; the burning feet of the demons blighted it for ever.
Witch or warlock who failed to obey the summons of the master was lashed by devils with rods made of scorpions or serpents, in chastisement of his or her contumacy.
The guests repaired thither, according to the belief entertained in France and England, upon broomsticks; but in Spain and Italy it was thought that the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, conveyed them on his back, which he contracted or elongated according to the number he carried. The witch, when starting on her aerial journey, would not quit her house by door or window; but astride on her broomstick made her exit by the chimney. During her absence, to prevent the suspicions of her neighbours from being aroused, an inferior demon assumed the semblance of her person, and lay in her bed, pretending to be ill or asleep.
A curious story may here be introduced. In April, 1611, a Provençal curé, named Gaurifidi, was accused of sorcery before the Parliament of Aix. In the course of trial much was said in proof of the power of the demons. Several witnesses asserted that Gaurifidi, after rubbing himself with a magic oil, repaired to the Sabbat, and afterwards returned to his chamber down the chimney. One day, when this sort of thing was exciting the imagination of the judges, an extraordinary noise was heard in the chimney of the hall, terminating suddenly in the apparition of a tall black man, who shook his head vigorously. The judges, thinking the devil had come in person to the rescue of his servant, took to their heels, with the exception of one Thorm, the reporter, who was so hemmed in by his desk that he was unable to move. Terror-stricken at the sight before him, with his body all of a tremble, and his eyes starting from his head, he made repeated signs of the cross, until the supposed fiend was equally alarmed, since he could not understand the cause of the reporter’s evident perturbation. On recovering from his embarrassment he made himself known—he was a sweep, who had been operating on a chimney on the roof above, but, when ready to return, had mistaken the entrance, and thus unwillingly intruded himself into the chamber of the Parliament.
The unclean ceremonies of the Witches’ Sabbat were ‘inaugurated’ by Satan, who, in his favourite assumption of a huge he-goat (a suggestion, no doubt, from Biblical imagery), with one face in front, and another between his haunches, took his place upon his throne. After all present had done homage by kissing him on the posterior face, he appointed a master of the ceremonies, and, attended by him, made a personal examination of any guest to ascertain if he or she bore the stigma, which indicated his right of ownership. Any who were found without it received the mark at once from the master of the ceremonies, while the devil bestowed on them a nickname. Thereafter all began to dance and sing with wild extravagance—
‘There is no rest to-night for anyone:
When one dance ends another is begun’—
until some neophyte arrived, and sought admission into the circle of the initiated. Silence prevailed while the newcomer went through the usual form of denying her salvation, spitting upon the Bible, kissing the devil, and swearing obedience to him in all things. The dancing then renewed its fury, and a hoarse chorus went up of—
‘Alegremos, alegremos,
Que gente va tenemos!’
When spent with the violent exercise, they sat down, and, like the witches in ‘Macbeth,’ related the evil things each had done since the last Sabbat, those who had not been sufficiently active being chastised by Satan himself until they were drenched in blood. A dance of toads was the next entertainment. They sprang up out of the earth by thousands, and danced on their hind-legs while Satan played on the bagpipes or the trumpet, after which they solicited the witches to reward them for their exertions by feeding them with the flesh of unbaptized babes. Was there ever a more curious mixture of the grotesque and the horrible? At a stamp from the devil’s foot they returned to the earth whence they came, and a banquet was served up, the nature of which the reader may be left to imagine! Dancing was afterwards resumed, while those who had no partiality for the pastime found amusement in burlesquing the sacrament of baptism, the toads being again summoned and sprinkled with holy water, while the devil made the sign of the cross, and the witches cried out in chorus: ‘In nomine Patricâ, Aragueaco Patrica, agora, agora! Valentia, jurando gome guito goustia!’ that is, ‘In the name of Patrick, Patrick of Aragon now, now, all our ills are over!’