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
Armstrong stated that at the meeting at the 'rideing house in the close on
the common' she saw ten men and women whom she knew and 'thre more, whose
names she knowes not'. At another meeting 'at Rideing Millne bridg-end she
see the said Anne Forster, Anne Dryden, and Luce Thompson, and tenne more
unknowne to her.—Att the house of John Newton off the Riding, the said
Lucy wished that a boyl'd capon with silver scrues might come down to her
and the rest, which were five coveys consisting of thirteen person in every
covey.' At a large meeting at Allensford, where a great many witches were
present, 'every thirteen of them had a divell with them in sundry shapes.'
It is also noticeable that Ann Armstrong mentions twenty-six persons by
name as having been at various meetings to her knowledge.[775] At Paisley
(1692) thirteen persons of high position brought an action for libel
against six others for saying that they, the thirteen, had drunk the
Devil's health in the house of one of them; the libellers were punished,
but the number of persons libelled suggests that the accusation might have
been true.[776]
3. _Duties_
An important part of the organization was the system of reporting to the
Grand Master everything which had happened since the previous Great
Assembly. The chief work of the Covens was the performance of magical
rites, either publicly at the Esbats or privately in the houses of the
witches and their neighbours. As these rites, especially when performed
privately, were more or less in the nature of experiments, the results were
reported and when successful were recorded in writing for future use. The
book in which the records were made remained in the hands of the Devil, who
in this way had always a store of well-tried magical spells and recipes to
kill or cure, from which he could instruct his followers as occasion
demanded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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