The history of witchcraft and demonologySummers, Montague
History
The history of witchcraft and demonology
Summers, Montague
Demonology; Demonology -- History; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- History
It was advisable that the selected locality should be remote and deserted
to obviate any chance of espionage or casual interruption, and in many
provinces some wild ill-omened gully or lone hill-top was shudderingly
marked as the notorious haunt of witches and their fiends. De Lancre says
that the Grand Sabbat must be held near a stream, lake, or water of some
kind,[12] and Bodin adds: “The places where Sorcerers meet are remarkable
and generally distinguished by some trees, or even a cross.”[13] These
ancient cromlechs and granite dolmens, the stones of the Marais de Dol,
the monolith that lies between Seny and Ellemelle (Candroz), even the
market-crosses of sleepy old towns and English villages, were among the
favourite rendezvous of the pythons and warlocks of a whole countryside.
On one occasion, which seems exceptional, a Sabbat was held in the
very heart of the city of Bordeaux. Throughout Germany the Blocksburg
or the Brocken, the highest peak of the Hartz Mountains, was the great
meeting-place of the witches, some of whom, it was said, came from
distant Lapland and Norway to forgather there. But local Blocksburgs
existed, or rather hills so called, especially in Pomerania, which
boasted two or three such crags. The sorcerers of Corrières held their
Sabbat at a deserted spot, turning off the highway near Combes; the
witches of la Mouille in a tumbledown house, which had once belonged to
religious; the Gandillons and their coven, who were brought to justice
in June, 1598, met at Fontenelles, a forsaken and haunted spot near
the village of Nezar. Dr. Fian and his associates (1591) “upon the
night of Allhollen-Even” assembled at “the kirke of North-Berrick in
Lowthian.” Silvain Nevillon, who was executed at Orleans, 4 February,
1615, confessed “que le Sabbat se tenoit dans vne maison,” and the full
details he gave shows this to have been a large château, no doubt the
home of some wealthy local magnate, where above two hundred persons could
assemble. Isobel Young, Christian Grinton, and two or three other witches
entertained the Devil in Young’s house in 1629. Alexander Hamilton,
a “known warlock” executed at Edinburgh in 1630, confessed that “the
pannel took him one night to a den betwixt Niddrie and Edmiston, where
the devill had trysted hir.” Helen Guthrie, a Forfar witch, and her
coven frequented a churchyard, where they met a demon, and on another
occasion they “went to Mary Rynd’s house, and sat doune together at the
table ... and made them selfes mirrie, and the divell made much of them
all” (1661). The Lancashire witches often held their local Sabbat at
Malking Tower. From the confession of the Swedish witches (1670) at Mohra
and Elfdale they assembled at a spot called _Blockula_ “scituated in a
delicate large Meadow.... The place or house they met at, had before it
a Gate painted with divers colours; ... In a huge large Room of this
House, they said, there stood a very long Table, at which the Witches did
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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