Heresy and sorcery were now identified, and the punishment for the former was the same as that for the latter, viz. burning at the stake and confiscation of property. The attitude of this Pontiff evidently found a sympathiser in Bishop de Ledrede, who deemed it necessary to follow the example set by the Head of the Church, with what results we have already shown: thus we find in Ireland a ripple of the wave that swept over Europe at this period. It is very probable, too, that there were many underlying local causes of which we can know little or nothing; the discontent and anger of the disinherited children at the loss of the wealth of which Dame Alice had bereft them by her exercise of "undue influence" over her husbands, family quarrels, private hatreds, and possibly national jealousy helped to bring about one of the strangest series of events in the chequered history of Ireland. CHAPTER III A.D. 1223-1583 THE KYTELER CASE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS OF SORCERY AND HERESY--MICHAEL SCOT--THE FOURTH EARL OF DESMOND--JAMES I AND THE IRISH PROPHETESS--A SORCERY ACCUSATION OF 1447--WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--STATUTES DEALING WITH THE SUBJECT--EYE-BITERS--THE ENCHANTED EARL OF DESMOND In one respect the case of Dame Alice Kyteler stands alone in the history of magical dealings in Ireland prior to the seventeenth century. We have of the entire proceedings an invaluable and contemporary account, or at latest one compiled within a very few years after the death of Petronilla of Meath; while the excitement produced by the affair is shown by the more or less lengthy allusions to it in early writings, such as _The Book of Howth_ (Carew MSS.), the Annals by Friar Clyn, the Chartularies of S. Mary's Abbey (vol. ii.), &c. It is also rendered more valuable by the fact that those who are best qualified to give their opinion on the matter have assured the writer that to the best of their belief no entries with respect to trials for sorcery or witchcraft can be found in the various old Rolls preserved in the Dublin Record Office.