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Devil 'the body of a dead child of her own to make a roast of'.[3]
[1. Ravaisson, p. 334, 335
2. Sharpe, p. 147.
3. Chambers, iii, p. 450.]
It is possible that the killing of children by poison was one method of
sacrifice when the cult was decadent and victims difficult to obtain.
Reginald Scot's words, written in 1584, suggest that this was the case:
'This must be an infallible rule, that euerie fortnight, or at the least
euerie moneth, each witch must kill one child at the least for hir part.'
'Sinistrari d'Ameno, writing about a century later, says the same: 'They
promise the Devil sacrifices and offerings at stated times: once a fortnight
or at least each month, the murder of some child, or an homicidal act of
sorcery.'[2] It is impossible to believe in any great frequency of this
sacrifice, but there is considerable foundation in fact for the statement
that children were killed, and it accounts as nothing else can for the
cold-blooded murders of children of which the witches were sometimes
accused. The accusations seem to have been substantiated on several
occasions, the method of sacrifice being by poison.[3]
The sacrifice of a child was often performed as a means of procuring certain
magical materials or powers, which were obtained by preparing the sacrificed
bodies in several ways. Scot says that the flesh of the child was boiled and
consumed by the witches for two purposes. Of the thicker part of the
concoction 'they make ointments, whereby they ride in the aire; but the
thinner potion they put into flaggons, whereof whosoeuer drinketh, obseruing
certeine ceremonies, immediatelie becommeth a maister or rather a mistresse
in that practise and facultie.'[4] The Paris Coven confessed that they
'distilled' the entrails of the sacrificed child after Guibourg had
celebrated the mass for Madame de Montespan, the method being probably the
same as that described by Scot. A variant occurs in both France and
Scotland, and is interesting as throwing light on the reasons for some of
the savage rites of the witches: 'Pour ne confesser iamais le secret de
.
l'escole, on faict au sabbat vne paste de millet noir, auec de la poudre du
foye de quelque enfant non baptisé qu'on faict secher, puis
[1. Scot, Bk. III, p. 42.
2. Sinistrari de Ameno, p. 27.
3. See, amongst others, the account of Mary Johnson (Essex, 1645), who was
accused of poisoning two children; the symptoms suggest belladonna. Howell,
iv, 844, 846.
4. Scot, Bk. III, p. 41.]
meslant cette poudre avec ladicte paste, elle a cette vertu de taciturnité:
si bien que qui en mange ne confesse iamais.'[1] At Forfar, in 1661, Helen
Guthrie and four others exhumed the body of an unbaptized infant, which was
buried in the churchyard near the south-east door of the church, 'and took
severall peices therof, as the feet, hands, a pairt of the head, and a pairt
of the buttock, and they made a py therof, that they might eat of it, that
by this meanes they might never make a confession (as they thought) of their
witchcraftis.'[2] Here the idea of sympathetic magic is very clear; by
eating the flesh of a child who had never spoken articulate words, the
witches' own tongue's would be unable to articulate.
4. Sacrifice of the God.--The sacrifice of the witch-god was a decadent
custom when the records were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The accounts of the actual rite come from France and Belgium,
where a goat was substituted for the human victim. The sacrifice was by fire
in both those countries, and there are indications that it was the same in
Great Britain. It is uncertain whether the interval of time between the
sacrifices was one, seven, or nine years.
Bodin and Boguet, each writing from his own knowledge of the subject, give
very similar accounts, Bodin's being the more detailed. In describing a
trial which took place in Poictiers in 1574, he says: 'Là se trouuoit vn
grand bouc noir, qui parloit comme vne personne aux assistans, & dansoyent à
l'entour du bouc: puis vn chacun luy baisoit le derriere, auec vne chandelle
ardente: & celà faict, le bouc se consommoit en feu, & de la ce{n}dre chacun
en prenoit pour faire mourir le bS
uf [etc.]. Et en fin le Diable leur disoit
d'vne voix terrible des mots, Vengez vous ou vous mourrez.'[3] Boguet says
that in the Lyons district in 1598 the Devil celebrated mass, and 'apres
auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc, se consume en feu, & reduit en cendre,
laquelle les Sorciers recueillent, & cachent pour s'en seruir à l'execution
de leurs desseins pernicieux & abominables'.[4] In 1603, a Belgian witch,
Claire Goessen, was present at such a sacrifice, and her account is
therefore that of an eyewitness. 'Elle s'est laissée transporter à
l'assemblée
[1. De Lancre, Tableau, p. 128.
2. Kinloch, p. 121.
A Collection of Sacred Magick | The Esoteric Library | www.sacred-magick.com
3. Bodin, Fléau, pp. 187-8.
4. Boguet, p. 141.]
nocturne de Lembeke, où, après la danse, elle a, comme tous les assistans,
baisé un bouc à l'endroit de sa queue, lequel bouc fut ensuite brûlè et ses
cendres distribuées et emportées par les convives.'[1] Jeanne de Belloc in
1609 'a veu le Grand maistre de l'assemblee se ietter dans les flammes an
sabbat, se faire brusler iusques à ce qu'iI estoit reduit en poudre, & les
grandes & insignes sorcieres prendre les dictes poudres pour ensorceler les
petits enfants & les metier an sabbat, & en prenoient aussi dans la bouche
pour ne reueler iamais'.[2] A French witch in 16S2 declared that at the
Sabbath 'le diable s'y at mis en feu et en donné des cendres lesquelles tous
faisaient voller en I'air pour faire mancquer les fruits de la terre'.[3] At
Lille in 1661 the girls in Madame Bourignon's orphanage stated that 'on y
adoroit une bète; & qu'on faisoit avec elle des infamies; & puis sur la fin
on la brûloit, & chacun en prenoit des cendres, avec lesquelles on faisoit
languir ou mourir des personnes, ou autres animaux.'[4]
The collection and use of the ashes by the worshippers point to the fact
that we have here a sacrifice of the god of fertility. Originally the
sprinkling of the ashes on fields or animals or in running water was a
fertility charm; but when Christianity became sufficiently powerful to
attempt the suppression of the ancient religion, such practices were
represented as evil, and were therefore said to be 'pour faire mancquer les
fruits de la terre'.
The animal-substitute for the divine victim is usually the latest form of
the sacrifice; the intervening stages were first the volunteer, then the
criminal, both of whom were accorded the power and rank of the divine being
whom they personated. The period of time during which the substitute acted
as the god varied in different places; so also did the interval between the
sacrifices. Frazer has pointed out that the human victim, whether the god
himself or his human substitute, did not content himself by merely not
attempting to escape his destiny, but in many cases actually rushed on his
fate, and died by his own hand or by voluntary submission to the sacrificer.
[1. Cannaert, p. 50.
2. De Lancre, Tableau, p. 133.
3. La Tradition, 1891, V, p. 215. Neither name nor place are given.
4. Bourignon, Parole, p. 87.] [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]