I would here express my gratitude to the many friends who have assisted me with material, and especially to Miss Muriel Harris, whose valuable help has done much to lighten my task. LONDON, _September, 1908_. THE BOOK OF WITCHES CHAPTER I ON A POSSIBLE REVIVAL OF WITCHCRAFT To the superficial glance it might seem that he who would urge a revival of witchcraft is confronted by a task more Herculean than that of making dry bones live--in that the bones he seeks to revivify have never existed. The educated class--which, be it remembered, includes those who have studied in the elementary schools of whatever nation--is united in declaring that such a person as a witch never did, never could, and never will exist. It is true that there are still those--a waning band--who, preserving implicit faith in the literal exactitude of revealed religion, maintain that witchcraft--along with Gardens of Eden, giants, and Jewish leaders capable of influencing the movements of sun and moon--flourished under the Old Dispensation, even though it has become incredible under the New. Yet, speaking generally, the witch is as extinct in civilised men's minds as is the dodo; so that they who accept as gospel the vaticinations of race-course tipsters or swallow patent medicines with implicit faith, yet moralise upon the illimitability of human superstition when they read that witch-doctors still command a following in West Africa, or that Sicilian peasants are not yet tired of opening their purses to sham sorcerers.