[45] _Discoverie_, i. 3, 6.--Old women, however, may be negatively useful. One of the writers on the subject (John Nider) recommends them to young men since '_Vetularum aspectus et colloquia amorem excutiunt_.' Dr. Glanvil, who wrote in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and is bitterly opposed to the 'Witch-Advocate' and his followers, defends the capabilities of hags and the like for serving the demons. He conjectures, 'Peradventure 'tis one of the great designs, as 'tis certainly the interest, of those wicked agents and machinators industriously to hide from us their influences and ways of acting, and to work as near as 'tis possible _incognito_; upon which supposal it is easy to conceive a reason why they most commonly work by and upon the weak and the ignorant, who can make no cunning observations or tell credible tales to detect their artifice.'[46] The act of bewitching is defined to be 'a supernatural work contrived between a corporal old woman and a spiritual devil' ('Discoverie,' vi. 2). The method of initiation is, according to a writer on the subject, as follows: A decrepit, superannuated, old woman is tempted by a man in black to sign a contract to become his, both soul and body. On the conclusion of the agreement (about which there was much cheating and haggling), he gives her a piece of money, and causes her to write her name and make her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. Sometimes on this occasion also the witch uses the ceremony of putting one hand to the sole of her foot and the other to the crown of her head. On departing he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The familiar, in shape of a cat, a mole, miller-fly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day sucks her blood through teats in different parts of her body.[47] If, however, the proper vulgar witch is an old woman, the younger and fairer of the sex were not by any means exempt from the crime. Young and beautiful women, children of tender years, have been committed to the rack and to the stake on the same accusation which condemned the old and the ugly. [46] _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, part i. sect. 8. [47] _Grose's Antiquities_, in Brand's _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_. CHAPTER II. Charlemagne's Severity--Anglo-Saxon Superstition--Norman and Arabic Magic--Influence of Arabic Science--Mohammedan Belief in Magic--Rabbinical Learning--Roger Bacon--The Persecution of the Templars--Alice Kyteler.