Читать книгу The Discoverie of Witchcraft - Reginald Scot - Страница 45

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The order of the witches homage done (as it is written by lewd inquisitors and peevish witchmoongers) to the divell in person; of their songs and danses, and namelie of La volta, and of other ceremonies, also of their excourses.

OMETIMES their homageHomage of witches to the divell. with their oth and bargaine is received for a certeine terme of yeares; sometimes for ever. Sometimes it consisteth in the deniall of the whole faith, sometimes in part. The first is, when the soule is absolutelie yeelded to the divell and hell fier: the other is, when they have but bargained [not] to/42. observe certeine ceremonies and statutes of the church; as to conceale faults at shrift, to fast on sundaies, &c. And this is doone either by oth, protestation of words, or by obligation in writing, sometimes sealed with wax, sometimes signed with bloud, sometimes by kissing the divels bare buttocks; as did a Doctor called Edlin, who as (Bodin saith) was burned for witchcraft.

Bar. Spineus, cap. 1. in novo Mal. malef. You must also understand, that after they have delicatlie banketted with the divell and the ladie of the fairies; and have eaten up a fat oxe, and emptied a butt of malmesie, and a binne of bread at some noble mans house, in the dead of the night, nothing is missed of all this in the morning. For the ladie Sibylla, Minerva, or Diana with a golden rod striketh the vessell & the binne, and they are fullie replenished againe. Yea, she causeth the bullocks bones to be brought and laid togither upon the hide, and lappeth the foure ends thereof togither, laieng her golden rod thereon; and then riseth up the bullocke againe in his former estate and condition: and yet at their returne home they are like to starve for hunger; as SpineusIdem Ibid. saith. And this must be an infallible rule, that everie fortnight, or at the least everie moneth, each witch must kill one child at the least for hir part.

And here some of Monsieur BodinsI. Bod. de dæmon. lib. 2, cap. 4. lies may be inserted, who saith that at these magicall assemblies, the witches never faile to danse; and in their danse they sing these words; Har har, divell divell, danse here, danse here, plaie here, plaie here, Sabbath, sabbath. And whiles they sing and danse, everie one hath a broome in hir hand, and holdeth it up aloft. Item he saith, that these night-walking or rather night-dansing witches, brought out of Italie into France, that danse, which is called La volta.

A part of their league is, to scrape off the oile,Mal. malef. which is received in extreame follie (unction I should have said). But if that be so dangerous, they which socke the corps had neede to take great care, that they rub not off the oile, which divers other waies may also be thrust out of the forehead; and then I perceive all the vertue thereof is gone, and farewell it. But I marvell how they take on to preserve the water powred on them in baptisme, which I take to be largelie of as great force as the other; and yet I thinke is commonlie wiped and washed off, within foure and twentie houres/37. 43. after baptisme: but this agreeth with the residue/ of their follie.

And this is to be noted, that the inquisitors affirme, that during the whole time of the witches excourse, the divell occupieth the roome and place of the witch, in so perfect a similitude, as hir husband in his bed, neither by feeling, speech, nor countenance can discerne hir from his wife. Yea the wife departeth out of her husbands armes insensiblie, and leaveth the divell in hir roome visiblie. Wherein their incredulitie is incredible, who will have a verie bodie in the feined plaie, and a phantasticall bodie in the true bed: and yet (forsooth) at the name of Jesus, or at the signe of the crosse,Grillandus. de sort. 10. vol. tract. all these bodilie witches (they saie) vanish awaie.