WITCHCRAFT.

"Witchcraft is an illegitimate miracle; a miracle is legitimate
witchcraft."

--JACOB BOEHME.

Perhaps in no direction has the human mind ever shown greater weakness
than in the opinions entertained of witchcraft. If Hecate, the oldest
patroness of witches, wandered about at night with a gruesome following,
and frightened lovers at their stealthy meeting, or lonely wanderers on
open heaths and in dark forests, her appearance was at least in keeping
with the whole system of Greek mythology. Tacitus does not frighten us
by telling us that witches used to meet at salt springs (Ann. xiii. 57),
nor the Edda when speaking of the "bearers of witches' kettles," against
whom even the Salic Law warns all good Christians. But when the Council
of Ancyra, in the fifth century, fulminates its edicts against women
riding at night upon weird animals in company with Diana and Herodias,
the strange combination of names and the dread penalties threatened,
make us almost think of witches as of real and most marvelous beings.

And when wise councillors of French Parliaments and gray dignitaries of
the Holy German Empire sit in judgment over a handful of poor old women,
when great English bishops and zealous New England divines condemn
little children to death, because they have made pacts with the Devil,
attended his sabbaths, and bewitched their peaceful neighbors--then we
stand amazed at the delusions, to which the wisest and best among us are
liable.

Christianity, it is true, shed for a time such a bright light over the
earth, that the works of darkness were abhorred and the power of the
Evil One seemed to be broken, according to the sacred promises that the
seed of woman should bruise the serpent's head. Thus Charlemagne, in his
fierce edict issued after the defeat of the Saxons, ordered that death
should be inflicted on all who after pagan manner gave way to devilish
delusions, and believed that men or women could be witches, persecuted
and killed them; or, even went so far as to consume their flesh and give
it to others for like purposes! But almost at the same time the belief
in the Devil, distinctly maintained in Holy Writ, spread far and wide,
and as early as the fourth century diseases were ascribed not to organic
causes, but to demoniac influences, and the Devil was once more seen
bodily walking to and fro on the earth, accompanied by a host of smaller
demons. It was but rarely that a truly enlightened man dared to combat
the universal superstition. Thus Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, shines
like a bright star on the dark sky of the ninth century by his open
denunciation of all belief in possession, in the control of the weather
or the decision of difficulties by ordeal. For like reasons we ought to
revere the memory of John of Salisbury, who in the twelfth century
declared the stories of nightly assemblies of witches, with all their
attending circumstances, to be mere delusions of poor women and simple
men, who fancied they saw bodily what existed only in their imagination.

The Church hesitated, now requiring her children to believe in a Devil
and demons, and now denouncing all faith in supernatural beings. The
thirteenth century, by Leibnitz called the darkest of all, developed the
worship of the Evil One to its fullest perfection; the writings of St.

Augustine were quoted as confirming the fact that demons and men could
and did intermarry, and the Djinns of the East were mentioned as spirits
who "sought the daughters of men for wives." The first trace of a
witches' dance is found in the records of a fearful Auto-da-fe held in
Toulouse in the year 1353, and about a century later the Dominican monk,
Jaquier, published the first complete work on witches and witchcraft. He
represented them as organised--after the prevailing fashion of the
day--in a regular guild, with apprentices, companions, and masters, who
practised a special art for a definite purpose. It is certainly most
remarkable that the same opinion, in all its details, has been
entertained in this century even, and by one of the most famous German
philosophers, Eschenmayer. While the zeal and madness of
devil-worshippers were growing on one side, persecution became more
violent and cruel on the other side, till the trials of witches assumed
gigantic proportions and the proceedings were carried on according to a
regular method. These trials originated, invariably, with theologians,
and although the system was not begun by the Papal government it
obtained soon the Pope's legal sanction by the famous bull of Innocent
VIII., _Summis desiderantes_, dated December 4, 1484, and decreeing the
relentless persecution of all heretical witches. The far-famed _Malleus
maleficatum_ (Cologne, 1489), written by the two celebrated judges of
witches, Sprenger and Gremper, and full of the most extraordinary views
and statements, reduced the whole to a regular method, and obtained a
vast influence over the minds of that age. The rules and forms it
prescribed were not only observed in almost all parts of Christendom,
but actually retained their force and legality till the end of the
seventeenth century. Nor were these views and practices confined to
Catholic countries; a hundred and fifty years after the Reformation, a
great German jurist and a Protestant, Carpzon, published his _Praxis
Criminalis_, in which precisely the same opinions were taught and the
same measures were prescribed. The Puritans, it is well-known, pursued a
similar plan, and the New World has not been more fortunate in avoiding
these errors than the Old World. A curious feature in the
above-mentioned works is the fact that both abound in expressions of
hatred against the female sex, and still more curious, though
disgraceful in the extreme, that the special animosity shown by judges
of witchcraft against women is solely based upon the weight which they
attached to the purport of the Mosaic inhibition: "Thou shalt not suffer
a _witch_ to live" (Exodus xii. 18).

These are dark pages in the history of Christendom, blackened by the
smoke of funeral piles and stained with the blood of countless victims
of cruel superstition. For here the peculiarity was that in the majority
of cases not the humble sufferers whose lives were sacrificed, but the
haughty judges were the true criminals. The madness seems to have been
contagious, for Protestant authorities were as bloodthirsty as
Catholics; the Inquisition waged for generations unceasing war against
this new class of heretics among the nations of the Romanic race.

Germany saw great numbers sacrificed in a short space of time, and in
sober England, even, three thousand lost their lives during the Long
Parliament alone, while, according to Barrington, the whole number who
perished amounted to not less than thirty thousand! If only few were
sacrificed in New England, the exception was due more to the sparse
population than to moderation; in South America, on the contrary, the
persecution was carried on with relentless cruelty. And all this
happened while fierce war was raging almost everywhere, so that, while
the sword destroyed the men, the fire consumed the women! Occasionally
most startling contrasts would be exhibited by different governments. In
the North, James I., claiming to be as wise as Solomon, and more learned
than any man in Christendom, imagined that he was persecuted by the Evil
One on account of his great religious zeal, and saw in every Catholic an
instrument of his adversary. His wild fancy was cunningly encouraged by
those who profited by his tyranny, and Catholics were represented as
being, one and all, given up to the Devil, the mass and witchcraft, the
three unholy allies opposed to the Trinity! In the South, the Republic
of Venice, with all its petty tyranny and proverbial political cruelty,
stood almost alone in all Christendom as opposed to persecutions of
wizards and witches, and fought the battle manfully on the side of
enlightenment and Christian charity. The horrors of witch-trials soon
reached a height which makes us blush for humanity. The accused were
tortured till they confessed their guilt, so that they might lose not
only life upon earth, but also hope for eternity. If, under torture,
they declared themselves innocent, but ready to confess their guilt and
to die, they were told that in such a case they would die with a
falsehood on their lips, and thus forfeit salvation. Some of the
sufferers were found to have a stigma on their bodies, a place where the
nerves had been paralysed, and no pain was consequently felt--this was a
sure sign of their being witches, and they were forthwith burnt; if they
had no such stigma, the judge decided that the Devil marked only his
doubtful adherents, and left his trusty followers unmarked! The terror
became so great that in the seventeenth century repentant "witches
abounded, because it had become customary" merely to hang or to
decapitate those who confessed, while all others were burned alive.

Hundreds suffering of painful diseases or succumbing to unbearable
privations, forthwith fancied themselves bewitched, or actually sought
relief from the ills of this life by voluntarily appearing before the
numerous tribunals for the trial of witchcraft. The minds of men were so
thoroughly blinded, that even when husbands testified the impossibility
of their wives having attended the witches' sabbath, because they had
been lying all night by their side in bed, they were told, and quite
ready to believe, that a phantom had taken the place of their absent
wives! In one of the most famous trials five women confessed, after
suffering unspeakable torture, that they had disinterred an infant, the
child of one of their number, and supped upon it with the Devil; the
father of the child persevered till the grave was opened, and behold,
the child's body was there unharmed! But the judges declared it to be a
phantom sent by the Evil One, since the confession of the criminals was
worth more than mere ocular proof, and the women were burnt accordingly.

(Horst. Demonomagie, i. p. 349.) The most signal proof of the absurdity
of all such charges was obtained in our own country. Here the number of
those who complained of being plagued and injured by demoniac agencies
became larger in precise proportion as trials increased and
condemnations succeeded. But when nineteen of the accused had been
executed, and the judges becoming appalled at the daily growing number
of complaints, set some of the prisoners free, and declined to arrest
others, there was suddenly an end of these grievances, no more accounts
of enchantment and witchcraft were heard, and soon the evil disappeared
entirely.

It was a similar return to reason which at last led in Europe also to a
reaction. The Doge of Venice and the Great Council appealed to the pope,
Leo X., to put a curb upon the intemperate zeal of his ministers, and he
saw himself forced to check the merciless persecution. Occasionally
voices had been raised, already before that public appeal, condemning
such wholesale slaughter; among these were men like Bacon of Verulam,
Reginald Scotus, and, marvel of marvels, two famous Jesuits, Tanner and
Spee. And yet even these merciful and enlightened men never, for a
moment, doubted the genuineness of witchcraft and its fatal effects.

Father Spee, a most learned man, writing against the ceaseless
persecutions of pretended witches, nevertheless declared, in 1631, in
his renowned _Cautio criminalis_, by far the best work written on that
side of the question, that "there are in the world some few wizards and
enchanters, which could not be denied by any body without frivolity and
great ignorance," and even Bayle, while condemning the cruelty of
witches' trials, seriously proposes to punish witches for their
"ill-will." Vaude, the well-known librarian of Cardinal Mazarin, wrote
an able work as an apology of all the great men who had been suspected
of witchcraft, including even Clemens V., Sylvester II., and other
popes, and a renowned Capuchin monk, d'Autun, pursued the same subject
with infinite subtlety of thought and great happiness of diction in his
_L'incredulite savante et la credulite ignorante_. A witch was, however,
still condemned to be burned in 1698, in Germany; fortunately the judge,
a distinguished jurist of the University of Halle, was remonstrated with
by an esteemed colleague, and thus induced to examine himself as well as
the whole grievous subject with unsparing candor. This led him to see
clearly the error involved in trials of witchcraft, and he wrote, in
1701, a most valuable and influential work against the Crime of Magic.

He succeeded, especially, in destroying the enormous prestige heretofore
enjoyed by Del Rio's great work _Disquisitiones magicae_, the favorite
hand-book of judges of all lands, which was even adopted, though from
the pen of a Jesuit, by the Protestants of Germany. In no case, however,
were the personal existence of the Devil, and his activity upon earth,
denied by these writers; on the contrary, it is well known that Luther,
Melanchthon, and even Calvin, continued always to speak of Satan as
having a corporeal existence and as being perceptible to human senses.

The negation contended for applied only to his direct agency in the
physical world; his moral influence was ever readily admitted. Sporadic
cases of witchcraft, and their trial by high courts of justice, have
continued to occur down to our day. Maria Theresa was the first
peremptorily to forbid any further persecutions on account of
_Veneficium_, as it had become the fashion to call the acts of magic by
which men or beasts were said to be injured. There are, however, writers
who maintain, in this century, and in our generation, even, the direct
agency of the Devil in daily life, and see in demoniac sufferings the
punishment of the wicked in this life already.

The question of how much truth there may have been in this belief in
witchcraft, held by so many nations, and persevered in during so many
centuries, has never yet been fully answered. It is hardly to be
presumed that during this long period all men, even the wisest and
subtlest, should have been completely blinded or utterly demented. Many
historians as well as philosophers have looked upon witchcraft as a mere
creation of the Inquisition. Rome, they argue, was in great danger, she
had no new dogma to proclaim which would give food to inquiring minds,
and increase the prestige of her power; she was growing unpopular in
many countries heretofore considered most faithful and submissive, and
she was engaged in various dangerous conflicts with the secular powers.

In this embarrassment her Inquisitors looked around for some means of
escape, and thought a remedy might be found in this new combination of
the two traditional crimes of heresy and enchantment. Witchcraft, as a
crime, because of the deeds of violence with which it was almost
invariably associated, belonged before the tribunal of the secular
judge; as a sin it was to be punished by the bishop, but as heresy it
fell, according to the custom of the day, to the share of neither judge
nor bishop, but into the hands of the Inquisition.

The extreme uniformity of witchcraft from the Tagus to the Vistula, and
in New England as in Old England, is adduced as an additional evidence
of its having been "manufactured" by the Inquisition. Nothing is gained,
however, by looking upon it as a mere invention; nor would such an
explanation apply to the wizards and witches who are repeatedly
mentioned and condemned in Holy Writ. Witchcraft was neither purely
artificial, a mere delusion, nor can it be accounted for upon a purely
natural basis. The essential part in it is the magic force, which does
not belong to the natural but to the spiritual part of man. Hence it is
not so very surprising, as many authors have thought it, that thousands
of poor women should have done their best to obtain visions which only
led to imprisonment, torture, and death by fire, while they procured for
them apparently neither comfort nor wealth, but only pain, horror, and
disgrace. For there was mixed up with all this a sensation of pleasure,
vague and wild, though it was in conformity with the rude and coarse
habits of the age. It is the same with the opium eater and hasheesh
smoker, only in a more moderate manner; the delight these pernicious
drugs afford is not seen, but the disease, the suffering, and the
wretched death they produce, are visible enough. The stories of witches'
sabbaths taking place on certain days of the year, arose no doubt from
the fact that the prevailing superstition of the times regarded some
seasons as peculiarly favorable for the ceremony of anointing one's self
with narcotic salves, and this led to a kind of spiritual community on
such nights, which to the poor deluded people appeared as a real meeting
at appointed places. In like manner there was nothing absolutely absurd
or impossible in the idea of a compact with the Devil. Satan presented
himself to the minds of men in those ages as the bodily incarnation of
all that is evil and sinful, and hence when they fancied they made a
league with him, they only aroused the evil principle within themselves
to its fullest energy and activity. It was in fact the selfish, covetous
nature of man, ever in arms against moral laws and the commandments of
God, which in these cases became distinctly visible and presented itself
in the form of a vision. This evil principle, now relieved from all
constraint and able to develop its power against a feebly resisting
soul, would naturally destroy the poor deluded victim, in body and in
spirit. Hence the trials of witchcraft had at least some justification,
however unwise their form and however atrocious their abuses. The
majority of the crimes with which the so-called witches were charged,
were no doubt imaginary; but many of the accused also had taken real
delight in their evil practices and in the grievous injury they had done
to those they hated or envied. Nor must it be forgotten that the age in
which these trials mainly occurred was emphatically an age of
superstition; from the prince on his throne to the clown in his hut,
everybody learnt and practiced some kind of magic; the ablest statesmen
and the subtlest philosophers, the wisest divines and the most learned
physicians, all were more or less adepts of the Black Art, and many
among them became eminently dangerous to their fellow-beings. Others,
ceaselessly meditating and brooding over charms and demoniac influences,
finally came to believe in their own powers of enchantment, and
confessed their guilt, although they had sinned only by volition,
without ever being able really to call forth and command magic powers.

Still others labored under a regular panic and saw witchcraft in the
simplest events as well as in all more unusual phenomena in nature. A
violent tempest, a sudden hailstorm, or an unusual rise in rivers, all
were at once attributed to magic influences, and the authorities urged
and importuned to prevent a recurrence with all its disastrous
consequences by punishing the guilty authors. Has not the same insane
fury been frequently shown in contagious diseases, when the common
people believed their fountains poisoned and their daily bread infected
by Jews or other suspected classes, and promptly took justice into their
own hands? It ought also to be borne in mind, as an apology for the
horrible crimes committed by judges and priests in condemning witches,
that in their eyes the crime was too enormous and the danger too
pressing and universal to admit of delay in investigation, or mercy in
judgment. The severe laws of those semi-barbarous times were immediately
applied and all means considered fair in eliciting the truth. Torture
was by no means limited to trials of witches, for some of the greatest
statesmen and the most exalted divines had alike to endure its terrors.

Moreover no age has been entirely free from similar delusions, although
the form under which they appear and the power by which they may be
supported, differ naturally according to the spirit of the times.

Science alone cannot protect us against fanaticism, if the heart is once
led astray, and fearful crimes have been committed not only in the name
of Liberty but even under the sanction of the Cross. Basil the Great
already restored a slave _ad integrum_, who said he had made a pact with
the Devil, but the first authentic account of such a transaction occurs
in connection with an Imperial officer, Theophilus of Adana, in the days
of Justinian. His bishop had undeservedly humiliated him and thus
aroused in the heart of the naturally meek man intense wrath and a
boundless desire of revenge. While he was in this state of
uncontrollable excitement, a Jew appeared and offered to procure for him
all he wanted, if he would pledge his soul to Satan. The unhappy man
consented, and was at once led to the circus where he saw a great number
of torch-bearers in white robes, the costume of servants of the church,
and Satan seated in the midst of the assembly. He obeyed the order to
renounce Christ and certified his apostacy in a written document. The
next day already the bishop repented of his injustice and restored
Theophilus in his office, whereupon the Jew pointed out to him how
promptly his master had come to his assistance. Still, repentance comes
to Theophilus also, and in a new revelation the Virgin appears to the
despairing man after incessant prayer of forty days and nights--a fit
preparation for such a vision. She directs him to perform certain
atoning ceremonies and promises him restoration to his Christian
privileges, which he finally obtains by finding the certificate of his
apostasy lying on his breast, and then dies in a state of happy relief.

After that similar cases of a league being made with Satan occur quite
frequently in the history of saints and eminent men, till the belief in
its efficacy gradually died out and recent efforts like those recorded
by Goerres (III. p. 620) have proved utterly fruitless.

Among the magic phenomena connected with witchcraft, none is more
curious than the so-called witches' sabbath, the formal meeting of all
who are in league with Satan, for the purpose of swearing allegiance to
him, to enjoy unholy delights, and to introduce neophytes. That no such
meeting ever really took place, need hardly be stated. The so-called
sabbaths were somnambulistic visions, appearing to poor deluded
creatures while in a state of trance, which they had produced by
narcotic ointments, vile decoctions, or even mere mental effort. For the
most skillful among the witches could cause themselves to fall into the
Witches' Sleep, as they called this trance, whenever they chose; others
had to submit to tedious and often abominable ceremonies. The knowledge
of simples, which was then very general, was of great service to cunning
impostors; thus it was well known that certain herbs, like aconite,
produce in sleep the sensation of flying, and they were, of course,
diligently employed. Hyosciamus and taxus, hypericum and asafoetida were
great favorites, and physicians made experiments with these salves to
try their effect upon the system. Laguna, for instance, physician to
Pope Julius III., once applied an ointment which he had obtained from a
wizard, to a woman, who thereupon fell into a sleep of thirty-six hours'
duration, and upon being aroused, bitterly complained of his cruelty in
tearing her from the embraces of her husband. The Marquis d'Agent tells
us in his _Lettres Juifs_ (i. l. 20), that the celebrated Gassendi
discovered a drug which a shepherd used to take whenever he wished to go
to a witches' assembly. He won the man's confidence, and, pretending to
join him in his journey, persuaded him to swallow the medicine in his
presence. After a few minutes, the shepherd began to stagger like an
intoxicated person, and then fell into profound sleep, during which he
talked wildly. When he roused himself again many hours afterwards, he
congratulated the physician on the good reception he had met at Satan's
court, and recalled with delight the pleasant things they had jointly
seen and enjoyed! The symptoms of the witches' sleep differ, however;
while the latter is, in some cases, deep and unbroken, in other cases
the sleepers become rigid and icy cold, or they are subject to violent
spasms and utter unnatural sounds in abundance. The sleep differs,
moreover, from that of possessed people in the consciousness of bodily
pain which bewitched people retain, while the possessed become
insensible. Invariably the impression is produced that they meet kindred
spirits at some great assembly, but the manner of reaching it differs
greatly. Some go on foot; but as Abaris already rode on a spear given to
him by Apollo (Iamblichus De Vita, Pyth. c. 18), others ride on goats.

In Germany a broomstick, a club, or a distaff, became suitable vehicles,
provided they had been properly anointed. In Scotland and Sweden the
chimney is the favorite road, in other countries no such preference is
shown over doors and windows. The expedition, however joyous it may be,
is always very fatiguing, and when the revellers awake they feel like
people who have been dissipated. The meetings differ in locality
according to size: whole provinces assemble on high, isolated mountains,
among which the Brocken, in the Hartz Mountains, is by far the most
renowned; smaller companies meet near gloomy churches or under dark
trees with wide-spreading branches.

In the north of Europe the favorite resort is the Blue Mountain,
popularly known as Blokulla, in Sweden, and as Blakalla in Norway, an
isolated rock in the sea between Smoland and Oland, which seems to have
had some association in the minds of the people with the ancient
sea-goddess Blakylle. In Italy the witches loved to assemble under the
famous walnut tree near Benevent, which was already to the Longobards an
object of superstitious veneration, since here, in ancient times, the
old divinities were worshipped, and afterwards the _strighe_ were fond
of meeting. In France they had a favorite resort on the Puy de Dome,
near Clermont, and in Spain on the sands near Seville, where the
_hechizeras_ held their sabbaths. The Hekla, of Iceland, also passes
with the Scandinavians for a great meeting-place of witches, although,
strangely enough, the inhabitants of the island have no such tradition.

It is, however, clear that in all countries where witchcraft prospered,
the favorite places of meeting were always the same as those to which,
in ancient times, the heathens had made pilgrimages in large numbers, in
order to perform their sacrifices, and to enjoy their merry-makings.

In precisely the same manner the favorite seasons for these ghastly
meetings correspond almost invariably with the times of high festivals
held in heathen days, and hence, they were generally adopted by the
early Christians, with the feast and saints' days of Christendom. Thus
the old Germans observed, when they were still pagans, the first of May
for two reasons: as a day of solemn judgment, and as a season for
rejoicing, during which prince and peasant joined in celebrating the
return of summer with merry songs and gay dances around the May-pole.

The witches were nothing loth to adopt the day for their own festivities
also, and added it to the holidays of St. John the Baptist and St.

Bartholomew, on which, in like manner, anciently the holding of public
courts had brought together large assemblies. The meetings, however,
must always fall upon a Thursday, from a determined, though yet
unexplained association of witchcraft with the old German god of
thunder, Donar, who was worshipped on the Blocksberg, and to whom a goat
was sacrificed--whence also the peculiar fondness of witches for that
animal. The hours of meeting are invariably from eleven o'clock at night
to one or two in the morning.

The assembly consists, according to circumstances, of a few hundred or
of several thousands, but the female sex always largely prevails. For
this fact the famous text-book of judges of witchcraft, the _Malleus_,
assigned not less than four weighty reasons. Women, it said, are more
apt to be addicted to the fearful crime than men because, in the first
place, they are more credulous; secondly, in their natural weakness they
are more susceptible; thirdly, they are more imprudent and rash, and
hence always ready to consult the Devil, and fourthly and mainly,
_femina_ comes from _fe_, faith and _minus_, less, hence they have less
faith!

The guests appear generally in their natural form, but at times they are
represented as assuming the shape of various animals; the Devil's
followers having a decided preference for goats and for monkeys,
although the latter is a passion of more recent date. The crowd is
naturally in a state of incessant flowing and ebbing; the constant
coming and going, crowding and pressing admits of not a moment's quiet
and even here it is proven that the wicked have neither rest nor peace.

Among this crowd flocks are seen, consisting of toads and watched over
by boys and girls; in the centre sits Satan on a stone, draped in weird
majesty, with terrible but indistinct features, and uttering short
commands with an appalling voice of unnatural and unheard of music. A
queen in great splendor may sit by his side, promoted to the throne from
a place among the guests. Countless demons, attending to all kinds of
extraordinary duties, surround their master; or, dash through the crowd
scattering indecent words and gestures in all directions. English
witches meet, also, innumerable kittens on the Sabbath and show the
scars of wounds inflicted by the malicious animals. Every visitor must
pay his homage to the lord of the feast, which is done in an
unmentionable manner; and yet they receive nothing in return--according
to their unanimous confessions--except unfulfilled promises and delusive
presents. Even the dishes on the table are but shams; there is neither
salt nor bread to be found there. They are bound, besides, to pledge
themselves to the performance of a certain number of wicked works, which
are distributed over the week, so that the first days are devoted to
ordinary sins and the last to crimes of special horror. Music of
surpassing weirdness is heard on all sides, and countless couples whirl
about in restless, obscene dances; the couples joining back to back and
trying in vain to see each other's faces. Very often young children are
brought up by their mothers to be presented to the Master; when this is
done, they are set to attend the flocks of toads till the ninth year,
when they are called up by the Queen to abjure their Christian faith and
are regularly enrolled among witches.

The descriptions of minor details vary, of course according to the
individual dispositions of the accused, whose confessions are invariably
uniform as to the facts stated heretofore. The coarser minds naturally
see nothing but the grossest indecency and the vilest indulgences, while
to more refined minds the apparent occurrences appear in a light of
greater delicacy; they hear sweet music and witness nothing but gentle
affection and brotherly love. But in all cases these witches' sabbaths
become a passion with the poor deluded creatures; they enjoy there a
paradise of delight,--whether they really indulge in sensual pleasure or
surrender mind and will so completely to the unhallowed power that they
cease to wish for anything else, and are plunged in vague, unspeakable
pleasure. And yet not even the simple satisfaction of good looks is
granted them; witches are as ugly as angels are fair; they emit an evil
odor and inspire others with unconquerable repugnance.

How exclusively all these descriptions of witches' sabbaths have their
origin in the imagination of the deluded women is seen from the fact
that they vary consistently with the prevailing notions of those by whom
they are entertained; with coarse peasants, the meetings are rude feasts
full of obscene enjoyments; with noble knights, they become the rovings
of the wild huntsman, or a hellish court under the guise of a Venus'
mountain; with ascetic monks and nuns, a subterranean convent filled
with vile blasphemies of God and the saints. This only is common to all
such visions, that they are always conceived in a spirit of bitter
antagonism to the Church: all the doctrines not only but also the
ceremonies of the latter are here travestied. The sabbath has its
masses, but the host is desecrated, its holy water obtained from the
lord of the feast; its host and its candles are black, and the _Ite
missa est_ of the dismissing priest is changed into: "Go to the Devil!"
Here, also, confession is required; but, the penitent confesses having
omitted to do evil and being guilty of occasional acts of mercy and
goodness; the penalty imposed is to neglect one or the other of the
twelve commandments.

When witches were brought to trial, one of the first measures was to
search for special marks which were believed to betray their true
character. These were especially the so-called witches' moles, spots of
the size of a pea, on which for some reason or other the nerves had lost
their sensibility, and where, in consequence, no pain was felt. These
were supposed to have been formed by being punctured, the Evil One
performing the operation with a pin of false gold, with his claws or his
horns. Other evidences were found in the peculiar coloring of the eyes,
which was said to represent the feet of toads; in the absence of tears
when the little gland had been injured, and, above all, in the specific
lightness of the body. In order to ascertain the latter the accused were
bound hand and foot crosswise, tied loosely to a rope, and then, three
times, dropped into the water. If they remained floating their guilt was
established; for either they had been endowed by their Master with
safety from drowning, or the water refused to receive them because they
had abjured their baptism! It need not be added that the executioners
soon found out ways to let their prisoners float or sink as they
chose--for a consideration.

Witches' trials began in the earliest days of Christianity, for the
Emperor Valens ordered, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, all the
wizards and enchanters to be held to account who had endeavored by
magic art to ascertain his successor. Several thousands were accused of
witchcraft, but the charge was then, as in almost every later age, in
most cases nothing more than a pretext for proceedings against obnoxious
persons. The next monster process, as it began to be called already in
those early days, was the persecution of witches in France under the
Merovingians. The child of Chilperic's wife had died suddenly and under
suspicious circumstances, which led to the imprisonment of a prefect,
Mummolus, whom the queen had long pursued with her hatred. He was
accused of having caused her son's death by his charms, and was
subjected to fearful tortures in company with a number of old women.

Still, he confessed nothing but that the latter had furnished him with
certain drugs and ointments which were to secure to him the favor of the
king and the queen. A later trial of this kind, in which for a time calm
reason made a firm stand against superstition, but finally succumbed
ingloriously, is known as the _Vaudoisie_, and took place in Arras in
1459. It was begun by a Count d'Estampes, but was mainly conducted by a
bishop and some eminent divines of his acquaintance, whose inordinate
zeal and merciless cruelty have secured to the proceedings a peculiarly
painful memory in the annals of the church. A large number of perfectly
innocent men and women were tortured and disgracefully executed, but
fortunately the death of the main persecutor, DuBlois, made a sudden end
to the existence of witchcraft in that province. One of the most
remarkable trials of this kind was caused by a number of little
children, and led to most bloody proceedings. It seems that in the year
1669 several boys and girls in the parish of Mora, one of the most
beautiful parts of the Swedish province of Dalarne, and famous through
the memory of Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus III., were affected by a
nervous fever which left them, after their partial recovery, in a state
of extreme irritability and sensitiveness. They fell into fainting fits
and had convulsions--symptoms which the simple but superstitious
mountaineers gradually began to think inexplicable, and hence to ascribe
to magic influences. The report spread that the poor children were
bewitched, and soon all the usual details of satanic possession were
current. The mountain called Blakulla, in bad repute from of old, was
pointed out as the meeting-place of the witches, where the annual
sabbath was celebrated, and these children were devoted to Satan. Church
and State combined to bring their great power to bear upon the poor
little ones, an enormous number of women, mostly the mothers of the
young people, were involved in the charges, and finally fifty-two of the
latter with fifteen children were publicly executed as witches, while
fifty of the younger were condemned to severe punishment! More than
three hundred unfortunate children under fourteen had made detailed
confessions of the witches' sabbath and the ceremonies attending their
initiation into its mysteries. A similar fearful delusion took hold of
German children in Wuertemberg, when towards the end of the seventeenth
century a large number of little boys and girls, none of whom were older
than ten years, began to state that they were every night fetched away
and carried to the witches' sabbath. Many were all the time fast asleep
and could easily be roused, but a few among them fell regularly into a
trance, during which their little bodies became cold and rigid. A
commission of great judges and experienced divines was sent to the
village to investigate the matter, and found at last that there was no
imposture attempted, but that the poor children firmly believed what
they stated. It became, however, evident that a few among them had
listened to old women's tales about witches, with eager ears, and, with
inflamed imaginations, retailed the account to others, till a deep and
painful nervous excitement took hold of their minds and rapidly spread
through the community. Many of the children were, as was natural at
their age, led by vanity to say that they also had been at the sabbath,
while others were afraid to deny what was so positively stated by their
companions. Fortunately the commission consisted, for once, of sensible
men who took the right view of the matter, ordered a good whipping here
and there, and thus saved the land from the crime of another witches'
trial.

Our own experiences in New England, at the time when Sir William Phipps
was governor of the colonies, have been forcibly reported by the great
Cotton Mather. Nearly every community had its young men and women who
were addicted to the practices of magic; they loved to perform
enchantments, to consult sieves and turning keys, and thus were
gradually led to attempt more serious and more dangerous practices. In
Salem, men and women of high standing and unimpeached integrity, even
pious members of the church, were suddenly plagued and tortured by
unknown agencies, and at last a little black and yellow demon appeared
to them, accompanied by a number of companions with human faces. These
apparitions presented to them a book which they were summoned to sign or
at least to touch, and if they refused they were fearfully twisted and
turned about, pricked with pins, burnt as if with hot irons, bound hand
and foot with invisible fetters, and carried away to great distances.

Some were left unable to touch food or drink for many days; others,
attempting to defend themselves against the demons, snatched a distaff
or tore a piece of cloth from them, and immediately these proofs of the
real existence of the evil spirits became visible to the eyes of the
bystanders. The magic phenomena attending the disease were of the most
extraordinary character. Several men stated that they had received
poison because they declined to worship Satan, and immediately all the
usual sequences of such treatment appeared, from simple vomiting to most
fearful suffering, till counteracting remedies were employed and began
to take effect. In other cases the sufferers complained of burning rags
being stuffed into their mouths, and although nothing was seen, burnt
places and blisters appeared, and the odor and smoke of smouldering rags
began to fill the room. When they reported that they were branded with
hot irons, the marks showed themselves, suppuration took place, and
scars were formed which never again disappeared during life--and all
these phenomena were watched by the eager eyes of hundreds. The
authorities, of course, took hold of the matter, and many persons of
both sexes and all ages were brought to trial. While they were tortured
they continued to have visions of demoniac beings and possessed men and
women; when they were standing, blindfolded, in court, felt the approach
of those by whom they pretended to be bewitched and plagued, and
urgently prayed to be delivered of their presence. Finally many were
executed, not a few undoubtedly against all justice, but the better
sense of the authorities soon saw the futility, if not the wickedness of
such proceedings, and an end was made promptly, witchcraft disappearing
as soon as persecution relaxed and the sensation subsided.

Similar trials have nevertheless continued to be held in various parts
of Europe during the whole of the last century, and many innocent lives
have been forfeited to this apparently ineradicable belief in
witchcraft. Even after torture was abandoned in compliance with the
wiser views of our age, long imprisonment with its attending sufferings
and great anxiety as to the issue, proved fully sufficient to extort
voluntary confessions, which were, of course, of no value in themselves,
but served the purpose of keeping alive the popular superstition. In
1728 a specially fearful trial of this kind took place in Hungary,
during which nearly all the disgraceful scenes of mediaeval barbarity
were reenacted, and which ended in a number of cruel executions. The
last witches' trial in Germany took place in 1749, when the
mother-superior of a convent near Wuerzburg, in Bavaria, known as Emma
Renata, was condemned to be burnt, but by the leniency of the
authorities, was allowed to die by decapitation. Switzerland was the
scene of the last of these trials ever held, for with this act of
justice, as it was called by the good people of Glarus, the persecution
ended.

Even in England, however, the feeling itself seems to have lingered long
after actual trials had ceased. Thus it is well known that the terrible
trial of witches held at Marlboro, under Queen Elizabeth, led to the
establishment of a so-called witches' sermon to be delivered annually at
Huntingdon, and this custom was faithfully observed down to the latter
part of the eighteenth century. Nearly about the same time--in 1743--an
earnest effort was made in Scotland to kindle once more the fire of
fierce persecution. In the month of February of that year, the Associate
Presbytery, in a public document addressed to the Presbytery of the
Seceded Churches, required for certain purposes a solemn acknowledgment
of former sins, and a vow to renounce them forever. Among these sins
that austere body enumerated the "_abolition_ of the death penalty for
witchcraft," since the latter was forbidden in Holy Writ, and the
leniency which had taken the place of the former severity in punishing
this crime, had given an opening to Satan to tempt and actually to
seduce others by means of the same old accursed and dangerous
snares.--(_Edinb. Rev._, Jan. 1847.)