Witchcraft in America. Charles Wentworth Upham
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to, and its propriety will easily be recognised by, the spirit and ghost advocates of the present day.
82. Sadducismus Triumphatus. Considerations about Witchcraft. Sect. xi.
83. 'Jove nondum Barbato.'
84. Milton indignantly exclaims, alluding to this common fancy of the leaders of the Primitive Church, 'Who would think him fit to write an apology for Christian faith to the Roman Senate that could tell them "how of the angels"—of which he must needs mean those in Genesis called the Sons of God—"mixing with women were begotten the devils," as good Justin Martyr in his Apology told them.' (Reformation in England, book i.). And 'Clemens Alexandrinus, Sulpicius Severus, Eusebius, &c., make a twofold fall of angels—one from the beginning of the world; another a little before the deluge, as Moses teacheth us, openly professing that these genii can beget and have carnal copulation with woman' (Anatomy of Melancholy, part i.). Robert Burton gives in his adhesion to the sentiments of Lactantius (xiv. 15). It seems that the later Jewish devils owe their origin (according to the Talmudists, as represented by Pererius in the Anatomy) to a former wife of Adam, called Lilis, the predecessor of Eve.
85. Probably,
'Belial, the dissolutest spirit that fell,
The sensualist; and after Asmodai
The fleshliest Incubus.'—Par. Reg.
86. See Early English Metrical Romances, ed. by Sir H. Ellis.
87. A sufficiently large collection from ancient and modern writers of the facts of inhuman connections may be seen in the Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. 2. Having repeated the assertions of previous authors proving the fact of intercourses of human with inferior species of animals, Burton fortifies his own opinion of their reality by numerous authorities. If those stories be true, he reasons, that are written of Incubus and Succubus, of nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, and those heathen gods which were devils, those lascivious Telchines of whom the Platonists tell so many fables; or those familiar meetings in our day (1624) and company of witches and devils, there is some probability for it. I know that Biarmannus, Wierus, and some others stoutly deny it ... but Austin (lib. xv. de Civit. Dei) doth acknowledge it. And he refers to Plutarch, Vita Numæ; Wierus, de Præstigiis Dæmon., Giraldus Cambrensis, Malleus Malef., Jacobus Reussus, Godelman, Erastus, John Nider, Delrio, Lipsius, Bodin, Pererius, King James, &c. The learned and curious work of the melancholy Student of Christ Church and Oxford Rector has been deservedly commended by many eminent critics. That 'exact mathematician and curious calculator of nativities' calculated exactly, according to Anthony Wood (Athenæ Oxon.), the period of his own death—1639.
88. The wife of Bath, who had buried only her fifth husband, must appear modest by comparison. Not to mention Seneca's or Martial's assertions or insinuations, St. Jerome was acquainted with the case of a woman who had buried her twenty-second husband, whose conjugal capacity, however, was exceeded by the Dutch wife who, on the testimony of honest John Evelyn, had buried her twenty-fifth husband!
89. See the fourth book of the Discoverie.
90. 'It is written in the legend of St. Bernard,' we are told, 'that a pretty wench that had the use of Incubus his body by the space of six or seven years in Aquitania (being belike weary of him for that he waxed old), would needs go to St. Bernard another while. But Incubus told her if she would so forsake him, he would be revenged upon her. But befal what would, she went to St. Bernard, who took her his staff and bad her lay it in the bed beside her. And, indeed, the devil, fearing the staff or that St. Bernard lay there himself, durst not approach into her chamber that night. What he did afterwards I am uncertain.' This story will not appear so evidential to the reader as Scot seems to infer it to be. If any credit is to be given to the strong insinuations of Protestant divines of the sixteenth century, the 'holy bishop Sylvanus' is not the only example among the earlier saints of the frailty of human nature.
Chapter II.
Three Sorts of Witches—Various Modes of Witchcraft—Manner of Witch-Travelling—The Sabbaths—Anathemas of the Popes against the Crime—Bull of Adrian VI.—Cotemporary Testimony to the Severity of the Persecutions—Necessary Triumph of the Orthodox Party—Germany most subject to the Superstition—Acts of Parliament of Henry against Witchcraft—Elizabeth Barton—The Act of 1562—Executions under Queen Elizabeth's Government—Case of Witchcraft narrated by Reginald Scot.
The ceremonies of the compact by which a woman became a witch have been already referred to. It was almost an essential condition in the vulgar creed that she should be, as Gaule ('Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches,' &c., 1646) represents, an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There are three sorts of the devil's agents on earth—the black, the gray, and the white witches. The first are omnipotent for evil, but powerless for good. The white have the power to help, but not to hurt.91 As for the third species (a mixture of white and black), they are equally effective for good or evil.
Equally various and contradictory are the motives and acts assigned to witches. Nothing is too great or too mean for their practice: they engage with equal pleasure in the overthrow of a kingdom or a religion, and in inflicting the most ordinary evils and mischiefs in life. Their mode of bewitching is various: by fascination or casting an evil eye ('Nescio,' says the Virgilian shepherd, 'quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos'); by making representations of the person to be acted upon in wax or clay, roasting them before a fire; by mixing magical ointments or other compositions and ingredients revealed to us in the witch-songs of Shakspeare, Jonson, Middleton, Shadwell, and others; sometimes merely by muttering an imprecation.
They ride in sieves on the sea, on brooms, spits magically prepared; and by these modes of conveyance are borne, without trouble or loss of time, to their destination. By these means they attend the periodical sabbaths, the great meetings of the witch-tribe, where they assemble at stated times to do homage, to recount their services, and to receive the commands of their lord. They are held on the night between Friday and Saturday; and every year a grand sabbath is ordered for celebration on the Blocksberg mountains, for the night before the first day of May. In those famous mountains the obedient vassals congregate from all parts of Christendom—from Italy, Spain, Germany, France, England, and Scotland. A place where four roads meet, a rugged mountain range, or perhaps the neighbourhood of a secluded lake or some dark forest, is usually the spot selected for the meeting.92
A mock sermon often concludes the night's proceedings, the ordinary salutation of the osculum in tergo being first given. But these circumstances are innocent compared with the obscene practices when the lights are put out; indiscriminate debauchery being then the order of the night. A new rite of baptism initiated the neophyte into his new service: the candidate being signed with the sign of the devil on that part of the body least observable, and submitting at the same time to the first act of criminal compliance, to be often repeated. On these occasions the demon