In precisely the same manner the favorite seasons for these ghastly meetings correspond almost invariably with the times of high festivals held in heathen days, and hence, they were generally adopted by the early Christians, with the feast and saints' days of Christendom. Thus the old Germans observed, when they were still pagans, the first of May for two reasons: as a day of solemn judgment, and as a season for rejoicing, during which prince and peasant joined in celebrating the return of summer with merry songs and gay dances around the May-pole. The witches were nothing loth to adopt the day for their own festivities also, and added it to the holidays of St. John the Baptist and St. Bartholomew, on which, in like manner, anciently the holding of public courts had brought together large assemblies. The meetings, however, must always fall upon a Thursday, from a determined, though yet unexplained association of witchcraft with the old German god of thunder, Donar, who was worshipped on the Blocksberg, and to whom a goat was sacrificed--whence also the peculiar fondness of witches for that animal. The hours of meeting are invariably from eleven o'clock at night to one or two in the morning. The assembly consists, according to circumstances, of a few hundred or of several thousands, but the female sex always largely prevails. For this fact the famous text-book of judges of witchcraft, the _Malleus_, assigned not less than four weighty reasons. Women, it said, are more apt to be addicted to the fearful crime than men because, in the first place, they are more credulous; secondly, in their natural weakness they are more susceptible; thirdly, they are more imprudent and rash, and hence always ready to consult the Devil, and fourthly and mainly, _femina_ comes from _fe_, faith and _minus_, less, hence they have less faith! The guests appear generally in their natural form, but at times they are represented as assuming the shape of various animals; the Devil's followers having a decided preference for goats and for monkeys, although the latter is a passion of more recent date. The crowd is naturally in a state of incessant flowing and ebbing; the constant coming and going, crowding and pressing admits of not a moment's quiet and even here it is proven that the wicked have neither rest nor peace.