Part 7

"This unlucky table," he said, "which is now produced in court, we made up of laurel boughs, after the fashion of that which stands before the curtain at Delphi. Terrible were the auspices, awful the charms, long and painful the dances, which preceded and accompanied its construction and consecration. And as often as we consulted this disc or table, the following was our mode of procedure. It was set in the midst of a chamber which had previously been well purified by the smoke of Arabian gums and incense. On the table was placed a round dish, welded of divers metals. On the rim of the dish were engraven the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, separated from one another by equal and exactly measured spaces. Beside the table stood a certain man clad in linen, and having linen buskins or boots on his feet, with a handkerchief bound around his head. He waved in one hand a branch of vervain, that propitious herb; he recited a set formulary of verses, such as are wont to be sung before the Averruncal gods, He that stood by the table was no ordinary magician. With his other he held and shook a ring which was attached to curtains, spun from the finest Carpathian thread, and which had often before been used for such mystic incantations. The ring thus shaken dropped ever and anon between the interspaces of the letters, and formed by striking the letters together certain words, which the sorcerer combined into number and measure, much after the manner of the priests who manage the oracles of the Pythian and Branchidian Apollo. Then, when we inquired who perchance would succeed to the reigning Emperor, the bright and smooth ring, leaping among the letters, struck together T, H, E, O, and afterwards a final S, so that one of the bystanders at once exclaimed that THEO[DORU]S was the emperor designated by the Fates. We asked no more questions: seeing that Theodorus was the person whom we had sought for."

The lingering belief in the old religion, and in the magical and thaumaturgical practices which had, like ivy around an oak, gradually accrued to it, was productive in the decline of Paganism of many poetical forms of superstition. It is curious and instructive to remark the increasing earnestness with which the decaying creed of Heathendom sought to array itself against the encroachments of Christianity. The light _persiflage_ with which the philosophy of the Augustan age treated the state-religion nearly disappears. The indifference of the magistrate gives place to an intolerant and indignant tone of reclamation. The Pagan Cæsars attack the new religion as a formidable antagonist; the Christian emperors, in their turn, assail directly or ferret out perseveringly the superstitions which lingered among the rural towns and districts. The ancient gods are no longer regarded by either their worshipers or their opponents as simply deified heroes or men, but as powerful and mysterious beings, informed with demoniac energies and capable of conferring temporal good or evil,--beauty, power, and wealth, on the one hand; deformity, ignominy, and disease, on the other,--upon those who honoured or abjured them. Such conceptions of blessing or of bale were embodied in strange narratives of weeping or jubilant processions of majestic forms when the moon was hid in her vacant interlunar cave, of demons assuming the shape of fair enchantresses who beguiled men to their undoing, of palaces reared in a night and dislimning in the day, of banquets, like that visionary banquet in the wilderness, which Milton has adorned with all the graces of imagination in his 'Paradise Lost.'

We can afford room for only two of the narratives of demoniac influence in which the later Pagans expressed their belief in the influence of the early gods.

1. The superstition of the Lamia. One result of the consolidation of Western Asia with Europe, under the Roman Empire, was to spread widely over the latter continent the germs of the serpent-worship of the East. The subtlest beast of the field, retaining in full vigour his powers of assuming tempting forms and uttering beguiling words, was wont, it seems, to disport himself among the sons and daughters of men under the shape in which he deceived our general mother, the over-curious Eve. Especially did he delight to entrap some hopeful youth who was studying philosophy in the schools of Athens or Berytus, or some neophyte in the Christian Church. A fair young gentleman at Corinth had been abroad on a pleasure excursion, and might perchance be returning home a little the worse for wine. However this may have been, at the gates of Corinth he encountered a damsel richly attired, "beautiful exceedingly," but with hair dishevelled, and drowned in tears. He began by inquiring the cause of her distress. Faithless servants had carried off her litter and left her lone. He offered her consolation, which she accepted, and his arm also, which she did not decline. She led him to a lordly palace in a bye street of the city, where he had never yet been. At its marble portico waited a crowd of slaves with torches awaiting their absent mistress, and the pair, now become fond, were ushered into a sumptuous banqueting hall, where a board was spread covered with all the delicacies of the season, and garnished with effulgent plate. In this palace of delight the young man abode many days, taking no account of time. But at length, cloyed with sweets, he proposed inviting a party of his college friends, much to the dismay of his fair hostess, who, with many tears and embraces, besought him to forego his wish. In an evil hour however he persevered, and his rooms were filled with gownsmen, marvelling much, not without envy, at the good fortune that had befallen their chum, Lucius, no one knew how or why. But among the undergraduates came a grave and grey college tutor, deeply read in conjurors' books, who could detect by his skill the devil under any shape. Pale and silent the old man sat at the festive board, and was ill-bred enough to stare the lady not only out of countenance, but out of her beauty also. She grew pale, livid, an indiscriminate form: she melted away; the palace melted also; the plate, the viands, and the wines vanished also; and in place of columns and ceiled roofs was a void square in Corinth, and in place of the damsel was a loathsome serpent, writhing in the agonies of dissolution. The white-bearded fellow had scanned and scotched and slain the snake--the Lamia--but he destroyed his patient also, for Lucius became a maniac; had the charm lasted awhile longer, his soul would have become the fiend's property.

2. A young man had sorely offended the great goddess Venus, or, as she was called in his native city, the Syrian Byblus, Astarte. To redeem himself from the curse upon his board and bed,--for he had recently married a fair wife,--he applied to a wise astrologer. The sage heard his case, and advised him, as his only remedy, to go on a certain night, at its very noon, to a spot just without the gates, called the Pagan's Tomb,--to station himself on the roof of it, and to recite, at a prescribed moment, a certain formulary, with which his counsel, learned in magical law, furnished him. On the Pagan's Tomb accordingly the young man placed himself at the noon of night, and awaited his deliverance. And presently, towards the confines of morning, was heard a sound of sad and solemn music, and of much wailing, and of the measured tread of a long procession. And there drew nigh a mournful company of persons, who might have seemed men and women, but for their extraordinary stature, and their surpassing majesty and beauty: and the young man remembered the words of the magician, and knew that before him was the goodly company of the gods whom his forefathers in past generations had worshiped. One only of that august and weeping band was borne in a chariot--the god Saturn--perhaps by reason of his great age; and to Saturn he addressed his prayer, which was of such potency that Saturn straightway commanded Astarte to release the petitioner from the curse she had laid upon him.

We have been able merely to indicate how wide a field lies beyond the proper domain of medieval witchcraft. It would be curious to trace the similarity of the Heathen and Christian superstitions, or rather the derivation of one from the other. But we must reserve this subject to some other occasion, and conclude with repeating the wish with which we commenced, that some competent hand would undertake to trace through all its ramifications the obscure yet recompensing subject of Magic and Witchcraft.

THE END.

JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, PRINTER,

LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Since they were written, Sir Walter Scott's 'Demonology and Witchcraft' has been published, a book replete with interesting historical notices.

[2] Faustus, who is a sort of Delolme in matters infernal, has an able treatise on the subject, entitled 'Mirakel- Kunst- und Wunder-Buch, oder der schwartze Rabe, auch der dreifache Höllen Zwang genannt,' in which the political system of Lucifer's dominions is examined. Dionysius the Areopagite indeed is not more exact in his calendar of the celestial hierarchy. Perhaps these treatises are the common parents of the modern 'Blue Books.'

[3] Reginald Scott's 'Discoverie of Witchcraft' contains an army-list or muster-roll of the infernal forces. Thus the Duke of Amazeroth, who seems to be a sort of brigadier-general, has the command of sixty legions, etc.

[4] Satan is a mere third-rate spirit, as they will find by consulting a list of the Infernal Privy Council for 1669, contained in Faust's 'Black Raven.' But we are not told the exact date of his deposition from his primacy. It is singular that both in the book of Job, where he is mentioned for the first time, and in the Scandinavian mythologers, he appears in a similar character--"The Ranger," or "Roving Spirit of Tartarus." See Whiter, Etymologicon, vol. iii., in which very learned, though now forgotten work, there is much diabolical erudition.

[5] Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren. Yet, like Cato the Censor, Lucifer may have taken to study late in life.

[6] Lotichius, Oratorio super fatalibus hoc tempore Academiarum periculis: 1631. Lotichius took the trouble to compose a Latin poem on the subject of his triumphal entry. A book entitled 'Mammon' had some reputation in its day. The acknowledged author's name indeed is Harris; yet some commentator of the year 2150 will perhaps suggest that it was 'Old Harry's Mammon.' We have seen worse "conjectural emendations."

[7] Colloquia Mensalia.

[8] Legenda Aurea Jacob. de Voragine, leg. 123.

[9] _Ibid._ leg. 21.

[10] Or even a bishop. See Southey's pithy and profitable tale of 'Eleemon, or a Sinner Saved.'

[11] In the case of St. Lydvina, when he pleaded his case in person, and thought it a clear one, he was fairly laughed out of court, "deriso explosoque Dæmone." (Brugmann, Vita Lydvinæ, p. 290.) He was hoaxed in a still more ingenious manner by Nostradamus, who having agreed that the devil should have him, if he was buried either in the church or out of it, left directions that he should be buried in a hole in the wall. Sometimes however he was the gainer in such equivocal compacts,--as, for example, in the case of the monk who was to live so long as he abstained from sleeping between sheets. The monk always slept in a chair; but in an unlucky hour Satan caught him as fast as a top with his head between _the sheets_ of a sermon, and claimed his bond.

[12] Inferno, canto vi.

[13] The trials at Arras, in 1459. Vide Monstrelet's Chronicle, vol. iii. p. 84: Paris, 1572. But these were rather religious prosecutions against supposed heretics, and the crime of witchcraft only introduced as aggravating their offences.

[14] Christoph von Ranzow, a nobleman of Holstein, burned eighteen at once on _one_ of his estates.

[15] Some of our readers may wish to see a specimen of this precious production. We shall take a stanza or two, descriptive of the joke of which the poor witch was the victim.

Ein Hexen hat man gefangen, zu Zeit die war sehr reich Mit der man lang umbgaben ehe sie bekannte gleich, Dann sie blieb darauf beständig es gescheh ihr Unrecht gross, Bis man ihr macht nothwendig _diesen artlichen Poss_(!),

Das ich mich drüber wunder; man schickt ein Henkersknecht Zu ihr ins Gefängniss 'nunter, den man hat kleidet recht Mit einer Bärnhaute als wenns der Teufel wär; Als ihm die Drut anschaute meynts ihr Buhl kam daher.

Sie sprach zu ihm behende, wie lestu mich so lang In der Obrigkeit Hände? Hilf mir aus ihren Zwang, Wie du mir hast verheissen, ich bin ja eben dein; Thu mich aus der Angst entreissen, o liebster Bule mein!

Sie thet sich selbst verrathen, und gab Anzeigung viel Sie hat nit geschmeckt den Braten, _was das war für ein Spiel_(!). Er tröstet sie und saget, ich will dir helfen wohl; Darum sey unverzaget, Morgens geschehen soll.

It bears the colophon "Printed at Smalcald in the year 1627."

[16] When these horrors were thus versified, it is not wonderful to find them "improved" by the preachers of the time. At Riga, in 1626, there appeared 'Nine Select Witch Sermons, by Hermann Sampsonius, superintendent at Riga,' and many others in the course of that century.

[17] Criminal Law. Tit. x.

[18] Records of Justiciary. Trial of the Master of Orkney.

[19] Calef's Journal.

[20] Cobbett's State Trials.

[21] Trial of Bartie Paterson. Records of Scottish Justiciary. Dec. 18, 1607.

[22] In Wenham's case, Mr. Chauncy deposed that a cat belonging to Jane Wenham had come and _knocked_ at his door at night, and that he had killed it. This was founded on evidence at the trial.

[23] Rec. of Just. 1613, Dec. 1.

[24] See the 'Neue Necrologie der Deutschen, 1823,' for an account of these remarkable appearances.

[25] Divina et Vera Metaphysica.

[26] Wordsworth's 'Dion.'

[27] The prefixed characters which Ashmole interprets to mean Responsum Raphaelis seem remarkably to resemble that cabalistic-looking initial which in medical prescriptions is commonly interpreted "Recipe."

[28] Dapper (Beschreibung von Amsterdam, p. 150) describes her as a melancholy or hypochondriac girl. She was burned however as usual. These rhyming or alliterative charms are of very remote antiquity. Cato, in his treatise on Husbandry, recommends the following formulary for a sprain or fracture: "Huat Hanat, Huat Ista, Pista Sista, Domiabo Damnaustra," or "Motas Væta, Daries Dardaries, Astataries Dissunapiter."

[29] This, indeed, is an almost invariable feature in the witch trials, and, if the subject could justify the discussion, might lead to some singular medical conclusions.

[30] The trade of a pricker, as it was called, _i. e._ a person who put pins into the flesh of a witch, was a regular one in Scotland and England, as well as on the Continent. Sir George Mackenzie mentions the case of one of them who confessed the imposture (p. 48); and a similar instance is mentioned by Spottiswood (p. 448). Sir Walter Scott gives the following account of this trade:--"One celebrated mode of detecting witches, and torturing them at the same time, to draw forth confession, was, by running pins into their body, on pretence of discovering the devil's stigma, or mark, which was said to be inflicted by him upon all his vassals, and to be insensible to pain. This species of search, the practice of the infamous Hopkins, was in Scotland reduced to a trade; and the young witch-finder was allowed to torture the accused party, as if in exercise of a lawful calling, although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatizes it as a horrid imposture. I observe in the Collections of Mr. Pitcairn, that, at the trial of Janet Peaston of Dalkeith, the magistrates and ministers of that market-town caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to exercise his craft upon her, 'who found two marks of what he called the devil's making, and which appeared indeed to be so, for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did they (the marks) bleed when they were taken out again; and when she was asked where she thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her body distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length.' Besides the fact, that the persons of old people especially sometimes contain spots void of sensibility, there is also room to believe that the professed prickers used a pin, the point or lower part of which was, on being pressed down, sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the purpose, and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at all."--_Demonology and Witchcraft_, p. 297.

[31] Peter died in prison just in time to escape the flames. He was burned in effigy however after his death.

[32] Lindon, cited by Wyttenbach, 'Versuch einer Geschichte von Trier,' vol. iii. p. 110.

[33] Beyträge zur Beförderung einer nähern Einsicht in das gesammte Geisterreich, vol. i. p. 284.

[34] The Abbé Fiard, one of the latest believers on record, has printed the Requête at full length in his 'Lettres sur la Magie,' p. 117 _et seq._

[35] Even now a complaint of 'being bewitched' is occasionally made to Justices of the Peace by the very ignorant or the very malignant.

[36] Trials and other Proceedings in Matters Criminal before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, selected from the Records of that Court. By Robert Pitcairn. Edinburgh.

[37] Holingshed, vol. i. pp. 50, 317.

[38] At the second marriage of Alexander III., Fordun, vol. ii. p. 128. Boece, p. 294, ed. 1574.

[39] Boece, p. 149.

[40] In the case of Cameron, Bishop of Glasgow, 1466.--Buchanan. Pitscottie.

[41]

"Quell' altro, che nei fianchi è così poco, Michele Scotto fu, che veramente Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco."--_Canto xx._

[42] As in the case of the witches at Forres, who attempted to destroy King Duffus by the favourite pagan charm of roasting his image in wax, and those burnt at Edinburgh for a similar attempt against James III., in 1479.

[43] Scot of Scotstarvet, Home of Godscroft, _passim_.

[44] Nov. 8, 1576. Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 48.

[45] Ibid. p. 51.

[46] Rec. of Just. May 27, 1601.

[47] News from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Dr. Fian.--Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 213.

[48] We need hardly remind our readers of the torture of Macbriar by the Boots, before the Privy Council, in the 'Tales of my Landlord.'

[49] Old French, _Turquois_, a smith's pincers, from _torquere_.

[50] Sir James Melville, p. 294.

[51] Pitcairn, vol. i. p. 211.

[52] Crook--the hook from which pots are hung over a Scottish kitchen fire.

[53] Just. Records, 1590-1610.

[54] Most of the cases here cited are found in the Justiciary Records, from about 1605 to 1640.

[55] Feb. 4, 1629.

[56] Just. Records, Jan. 1630.

[57] Just. Rec., Dec. 1643.

[58] The paper is marked on the back, "Edinburgh, July 10th, 1662: considered and found relevant by the Justice Depute." The part of Janet Braidhead's deposition, which appears to have borne a similar marking by the Justice Depute, is torn off.

[59] Her fellow-witch, Braidhead, was baptized by the very inappropriate name of _Christian_.

[60] This seems to have been a common practice in the Infernal ritual. Law gives the nicknames of the Renfrewshire witches, in the Bangarran Case. (Memorials, p. 122.)

[61] Taking the form of foul and ominous birds was a favourite practice of witches in all ages. Apuleius, in his character of Lucius, thus describes the metamorphosis of his hostess at Larissa:--

"Pamphile divested herself of all her garments, and opening a certain cabinet took out of it a number of boxes. From one of these she selected a salve, and anointed herself from head to foot; and after much muttering, she began to rock and wave herself to and fro. Presently a soft down covered her limbs, and a pair of wings sprang from her shoulders: her nose became a beak: her nails talons. Pamphile was now in form a complete owl. Then uttering a low shriek she began to jump from the floor, and after a brief while flew out of the window and vanished. She winged her way, I was assured by Fotis, to some expectant lover. And this was the last I saw of the old lady."

[62] Just. Records. Jan. 27, 1662.

[63] Vol. i. Decisions, p. 14.

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