The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in AnthropologyMurray, Margaret Alice
Religion
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
Murray, Margaret Alice
Ethnology; Witchcraft -- Great Britain
In the case of the Lancashire witch, Margaret Johnson, in 1633, it is
difficult to say whether the pricking was for the purpose of marking or for
a blood sacrifice; the slight verbal alterations in the two MS. accounts of
her confession suggest a confusion between the two ideas; the one appears
to refer to the mark, the other (quoted here) to the sacrifice: 'Such
witches as have sharp bones given them by the devill to pricke them, have
no pappes or dugges whereon theire devil may sucke; but theire devill
receiveth bloud from the place, pricked with the bone; and they are more
grand witches than any y^t have marks.'[604] In Suffolk in 1645 'one Bush
of Barton widdow confessed that the Deuill appeared to her in the shape of
a young black man ... and asked her for bloud, which he drew out of her
mouth, and it dropped on a paper'.[605] At Auldearne, in 1662, the blood
was drawn for baptizing the witch; Isobel Gowdie said, 'The Divell marked
me in the showlder, and suked owt my blood at that mark, and spowted it in
his hand, and, sprinkling it on my head, said, "I baptise the, Janet, in my
awin name."' Janet Breadheid's evidence is practically the same: 'The
Divell marked me in the shoulder, and suked out my blood with his mowth at
that place; he spowted it in his hand, and sprinkled it on my head. He
baptised me thairvith, in his awin nam, Christian.'[606]
2. The _sacrifice of animals_ was general, and the accounts give a certain
amount of detail, but the ceremony was not as a rule sufficiently dramatic
to be considered worth recording. The actual method of killing the animal
is hardly ever given. The rite was usually performed privately by an
individual; on rare occasions it was celebrated by a whole Coven, but it
does not occur at the Great Assembly, for there the sacrifice was of the
God himself. The animals offered were generally a dog, a cat, or a fowl,
and it is noteworthy that these were forms in which the Devil often
appeared to his worshippers.
The chief authorities all agree as to the fact of animal sacrifices. Cotta
compares it with the sacrifices offered by the heathen:
'Some bring their cursed Sorcery vnto their wished end, by sacrificing
vnto the Diuell some liuing creatures, as _Serres_ likewise
witnesseth, from the confession of Witches in _Henry_ the fourth of
_France_ deprehended, among whom, one confessed to haue offered vnto
his Deuill or Spirit a Beetle. This seemeth not improbable, by the
Diabolicall litations (_sic_) and bloudy sacrifices, not onely of
other creatures, but euen of men, wherewith in ancient time the
heathen pleased their gods, which were no other then Diuels.'[607]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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