'Before they are carried to their meetings, they anoint their Foreheads, and Hand-wrists with an Oyl the Spirit brings them (which smells raw) and then they are carried in a very short time, using these words as they pass, _Thout, tout a tout, tout, throughout and about_. And when they go off from their Meetings, they say, _Rentum, Tormentum_ ... all are carried to their several homes in a short space.' Alice Duke gave the same testimony, noting besides that the oil was greenish in colour. Anne Bishop, the Officer of the Somerset covens, confessed that 'her Forehead being first anointed with a Feather dipt in Oyl, she hath been suddenly carried to the place of their meeting.... After all was ended, the Man in black vanished. The rest were on a sudden conveighed to their homes.'[348] The belief that the witches actually rode in the air seated on some concrete object, such as an animal, a human being, or a stick, is both ancient and universal, and is reflected in the ecclesiastical and civil laws, of which the earliest is the decree of the ninth century, attributed to the Council of Ancyra. 'Certeine wicked women following sathans prouocations, being seduced by the illusion of diuels, beleeve and professe, that in the night times they ride abroad with _Diana_, the goddesse of the _Pagans_, or else with _Herodias_, with an innumerable multitude, vpon certeine beasts ... and doo whatsoeuer those fairies or ladies command.'[349] The laws of Lorraine (1329-46) decree that 'celui qui fera magie, sortilège, billets de sort, pronostic d'oiseau ou se vanteroit d'avoir chevauché la nuit avec Diane ou telle autre vielle qui se dit magicienne, sera banni et payera dix livres tournois'.[350] The witches themselves confirmed the statements about riding on animals to the Sabbath. Rolande du Vernier (1598) confessed 'que lors qu'elle y fut, elle y alla sur vn gros mouton noir, qui la portoit si viste en l'air, qu'elle ne se pouuoit recognoistre'.[351] De Lancre says that the witches 'se font porter iusqu'audit lieu, sur vne beste, qui semble parfois vn cheual, & parfoys vn homme'.[352] Margaret Johnson (1633) 'saith, if they desyre to be in any place upon a sodaine, theire devill or spirit will, upon a rodde, dogge, or any thinge els, presently convey them thither'.[353] One of Madame Bourignon's girls, then aged twelve (1661), declared that 'her said Lover came upon a little Horse, and took her by the Hand, asking her if she would be his Mistress, and she saying Ay, she was catched up into the Air with him and the other Girls, and they flew all together to a great Castle'.[354] The Swedish witches (1669) said: