Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that islandMacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
History
Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that island
MacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
Folklore -- Guernsey
The favourite form assumed by Satan on these occasions seems to have
been that of a large black dog, standing upright on his hind legs, but
he sometimes appeared in the shape of a he-goat.
Isabell Le Moigne described him as a black dog of large size, with
long erect horns, and hands like those of a man. Deeds were done
at the Sabbath which will not bear being spoken of; but there are
circumstances which lead one to suppose that the poor deluded wretches
of women may, in some cases, have been deceived by designing men, who
enticed them from their houses at night, and, under assumed disguises,
abused their credulity.
All sorcerers were marked by Satan in some part or other of the body,
and the mark thus made was insensible to pain, and bloodless.
One of the witches asserted that the Devil, before her enlistment into
his service, required of her the gift of some living animal, and that
she presented him with a young fowl. The next night at the Sabbath,
whither she was conveyed through the air after having duly anointed her
body with the ointment given her by the Devil, she was made to renounce
the Holy Trinity, and to promise obedience to her infernal master.
It appeared also from the confessions that if the servants of Satan
refused to do his behests, they are beaten and otherwise maltreated by
him.
It is clear from the evidence given in many of the trials for
witchcraft that the accused, in a majority of cases, were persons
who trafficked on the ignorance and credulity of the people, and who
encouraged the idea of their being possessed of supernatural powers so
long as they found it profitable to do so.
Even in the present day there are people who are afraid to refuse to
give alms to a beggar, lest an evil eye should be cast upon them;
and who can say how many deaths of cattle and pigs, attributed to
witchcraft, may not have been caused by poison adroitly administered
out of revenge for a supposed injury?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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