The Inquisitor, Sprenger, lost little time in making use of this delegated authority--and such was his zeal and so many his opportunities of acquiring knowledge that within two years after the issue of the Bull he gave to the world his famous "Witch's Hammer," for the direction and guidance of those upon whom should fall the duty of exterminating so vile a heresy. This "Malleus Maleficarum" contains minute accounts of every description of witch, with suggestions for counteracting and exterminating their influence. Like most of his predecessors--and successors--Sprenger blames the whole existence of witchcraft upon the notorious frailty of women. The very word "fœmina," he declares, in the accents of authority, is derived from "fe" and "minus"--because women have less faith than have men. From this unhappy constitution of the sex countless ills have sprung--among them innumerable varieties of witch. Of these, thirteen are exhaustively described, that all may recognise them. Worst are those who slay and devour children. Others raise hail, tempests, lightning and thunder, procure barrenness in man, woman and beast, make horses kick until they throw their riders, or pass from place to place through the air, invisible. Others can render themselves taciturn and insensible under torture, can find things hidden or lost, foretell the future and alter men's minds to inordinate love or hate. They can draw down the moon, destroy unborn children, raise spirits--in a word, there is no department of devilry, major or minor, in which they are not adepts, if we may trust their enthusiastic historian, whose work at once became an authority--almost a ready reckoner of witchcraft, by which anyone with a knowledge of Latin had at his fingers' ends the best possible method of recognising, convicting and destroying any variety or variant whatsoever.