"So he watched, and one night he saw his sister go out of the door, sullo punto delta mezza notte--just at midnight. Then he caught her by the hair, and twisted it round his arm. She began to scream terribly, when--ecco! there came running a great number of cats--e cominciarono a miolare, e fare un gran chiasso--they began to mew and make a great row, and for an hour the sister struggled to escape--but in vain, for her hair was fast--and screamed while the cats screeched, till it struck one, when the cats vanished and the sorella was insensible. But from that time she had no witchcraft in her, and became a buona donna, or good girl, as she had been before--'come era prima.'" It is very evident that in this story there is no diabolical agency, and that the witchcraft is simply a quality which is transferred like a disease, and which may be removed. Thus in Venice--where, as is evident from the works of Bernoni, the witches are of Gypsy-Slavic-Greek origin--a witch loses all her power if made to shed even one drop of blood, or sometimes if she be defeated or found out to be a witch. In none of these countries has she received the horrible character of a mere instrument of a stupendous evil power, whose entire will and work is to damn all mankind (already full of original sin) to eternal torture. For this ne plus ultra of horror could only result from the Hebrew-Persian conception of perfect malignity, incarnate as an anti-god, and be developed by gloomy ascetics who begrudged mankind every smile and every gleam of sunlight. In India and Eastern Europe the witch and demon are simply awful powers of nature, like thunder and pestilence, darkness and malaria, they nowhere appear as aiming at destroying the soul. For such an idea as this it required a theology and mythology emanating from the basis of an absolutely perfect monotheos, which gave birth to an antithesis; infinite good, when concentrated, naturally suggesting a shadow counterpart of evil. In Eastern Europe the witch is, indeed, still confused with the Vila, who was once, and often still is, a benevolent elementary spirit, who often punishes only the bad, and gladly favours the good. It is as curious as it is interesting to see how, under the influence of the Church, everything which was not directly connected with the current theology was made to turn sour and bitter and poisonous, and how darkness and frost stole over flowery fields which once were gay in genial sunshine. It is a necessary result that in attaining higher ideals the lesser must fade or change. Devilism, or the dread of the child and savage of the powers of darkness and mysterious evil, ends by incarnating all that is painful or terrible in evil spirits, which suggest their opposites. From Devilism results Polytheism, with one leading and good spirit, who in time becomes supreme. Then we have Monotheism. But as evil still exists, it is supposed that