The Witch cult in Western Europe

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THE WITCH-CULT IN WESTERN EUROPE

_A Study in Anthropology_

BY

MARGARET ALICE MURRAY

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1921

Oxford University Press

_London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen
New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town
Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai_

Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

The mass of existing material on this subject is so great that I have not
attempted to make a survey of the whole of European 'Witchcraft', but have
confined myself to an intensive study of the cult in Great Britain. In
order, however, to obtain a clearer understanding of the ritual and beliefs
I have had recourse to French and Flemish sources, as the cult appears to
have been the same throughout Western Europe. The New England records are
unfortunately not published _in extenso_; this is the more unfortunate as
the extracts already given to the public occasionally throw light on some
of the English practices. It is more difficult to trace the English
practices than the Scotch or French, for in England the cult was already in
a decadent condition when the records were made; therefore records in a
purely English colony would probably contain much of interest.

The sources from which the information is taken are the judicial records
and contemporary chroniclers. In the case of the chroniclers I have studied
their facts and not their opinions. I have also had access to some
unpublished trials among the Edinburgh Justiciary Records and also in the
Guernsey Greffe.

The following articles have already appeared in various journals, to whose
editors I am indebted for kind permission to republish: 'Organization of
Witch Societies' and 'Witches and the number Thirteen' in _Folk Lore_; 'The
God of the Witches' in the _Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society_;
'Child Sacrifice', 'Witches' Familiars', 'The Devil's Mark', 'The Devil's
Officers', 'Witches' Fertility Rites', 'Witches Transformations', in
_Man_; and 'The Devil of North Berwick' in the _Scottish Historical
Review_.

My thanks are due to Georgiana Aitken, W. Bonser, and Mary Slater for much
kind help, also to Prof. C. G. Seligman for valuable suggestions and advice
as to lines of research.

M. A. MURRAY.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,
LONDON.

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE 5

INTRODUCTION 9

I. CONTINUITY OF THE RELIGION 19

II. THE GOD 28

1. As God 28

2. As a Human Being 31

3. Identification 47

4. As an Animal 60

III. ADMISSION CEREMONIES 71

1. General 71

2. The Introduction 76

3. The Renunciation and Vows 77

4. The Covenant 79

5. The Baptism 82

6. The Mark 86

IV. THE ASSEMBLIES 97

1. The Sabbath. Method of going.
The site. The date. The hour 97

2. The Esbat. Business.
The site. The time. 112

V. THE RITES 124

1. General 124

2. Homage 126

3. The Dances 130

4. The Music 135

5. The Feast 138

6. Candles 144

7. The Sacrament 148

8. Sacrifices: Of animals.
Of children. Of the God 152

9 Magic Words 162

VI. THE RITES, _continued_ 169

1. General 169

2. Rain-making 172

3. Fertility 173

VII. THE ORGANIZATION 186

1. The Officer 186

2. The Covens 190

3. Duties 194

4. Discipline 197

VIII. THE FAMILIARS AND TRANSFORMATIONS 205

1. The Divining Familiar 205

2. The Domestic Familiar 208

3. Methods of obtaining Familiars 222

4. Transformations into Animals 230

APPENDIX I.

Fairies and Witches 238

APPENDIX II.

Trial of Silvain Nevillon. Taken from De
Lancre's _L'Incredulite et
Mescreance_ 246

APPENDIX III.

A. Covens and Names of Members 249

B. Index of Witches' Names, with Notes 255

APPENDIX IV.

Notes on the Trials of Joan
of Arc and Gilles de Rais 270

APPENDIX V.

Some Notes on 'Flying' Ointments.
By Prof. A. J. Clark 279

BIBLIOGRAPHY 281

GENERAL INDEX 286

INTRODUCTION

The subject of Witches and Witchcraft has always suffered from the biassed
opinions of the commentators, both contemporary and of later date. On the
one hand are the writers who, having heard the evidence at first hand,
believe implicitly in the facts and place upon them the unwarranted
construction that those facts were due to supernatural power; on the other
hand are the writers who, taking the evidence on hearsay and disbelieving
the conclusions drawn by their opponents, deny the facts _in toto_. Both
parties believed with equal firmness in a personal Devil, and both
supported their arguments with quotations from the Bible. But as the
believers were able to bring forward more texts than the unbelievers and
had in their hands an unanswerable argument in the Witch of Endor, the
unbelievers, who dared not contradict the Word of God, were forced to fall
back on the theory that the witches suffered from hallucination, hysteria,
and, to use the modern word, 'auto-suggestion'. These two classes still
persist, the sceptic predominating. Between the believer who believed
everything and the unbeliever who disbelieved everything there has been no
critical examination of the evidence, which presents a new and untouched
field of research to the student of comparative religion.

Among the believers in witchcraft everything which could not be explained
by the knowledge at their disposal was laid to the credit of supernatural
powers; and as everything incomprehensible is usually supposed to emanate
from evil, the witches were believed to be possessed of devilish arts. As
also every non-Christian God was, in the eyes of the Christian, the
opponent of the Christian God, the witches were considered to worship the
Enemy of Salvation, in other words, the Devil. The greater number of these
writers, however, obtained the evidence at first hand, and it must
therefore be accepted although the statements do not bear the construction
put upon them. It is only by a careful comparison with the evidence of
anthropology that the facts fall into their proper places and an organized
religion stands revealed.

The common beliefs as to the powers of the witches are largely due to the
credulous contemporary commentators, who misunderstood the evidence and
then exaggerated some of the facts to suit their preconceived ideas of the
supernatural powers of the witches; thereby laying themselves open to the
ridicule of all their opponents, past and present. Yet the ridicule is not
fully deserved, for the facts are there, though the explanation is wrong;
for even the two points, which are usually considered the ultimate proof of
the absurdity and incredibility of the whole system--the flying on a
broomstick through the window or up the chimney, and the transformation
into animals--are capable of explanation. The first can be accounted for
when the form of early mound-dwellings is taken into consideration, and
when it is remembered that among savage tribes there are often taboos
connected with the door, the two-faced god being essentially a deity of the
door. Besides this the fertility rites connected with the broom should be
taken into account. The second should be compared with similar accounts of
transformation into animals among the cults of other nations. Mr. A. B.
Cook's comment on the Greek ritual applies quite as well to Western as to
Eastern Europe: 'We may venture on the general statement that within the
bounds of Hellenic mythology _animal-metamorphosis commonly points to a
preceding animal cult_.'[1]

It is interesting to note the class of mind among those contemporary
writers who believed in the reality of the facts confessed at the trials as
compared with those who disbelieved. It will be seen that the most
brilliant minds, the keenest intellects, the greatest investigators, were
among the believers: Bodin, Lord Bacon, Raleigh, Boyle, Cudworth, Selden,
Henry More, Sir Thomas Browne, Matthew Hale, Sir George Mackenzie, and many
others, most of whom had heard the evidence at first hand. The sceptics
were Weyer, pupil of the occultist Cornelius Agrippa; Reginald Scot, a
Kentish country squire; Filmer, whose name was a byword for political
bigotry; Wagstaffe, who went mad from drink; and Webster, a fanatical
preacher.[2] The sceptics, with the exception of Weyer, appear to have had
little or no first-hand evidence; their only weapon was an appeal to common
sense and sentiment combined; their only method was a flat denial of every
statement which appeared to point to supernatural powers. They could not
disprove the statements; they could not explain them without opposing the
accepted religious beliefs of their time, and so weakening their cause by
exposing themselves to the serious charge of atheism; therefore they denied
evidence which in the case of any other accusation would have been accepted
as proof.

The evidence which I now bring forward is taken entirely from contemporary
sources, i.e. the legal records of the trials, pamphlets giving accounts of
individual witches, and the works of Inquisitors and other writers. I have
omitted the opinions of the authors, and have examined only the recorded
facts, without however including the stories of ghosts and other 'occult'
phenomena with which all the commentators confuse the subject. I have also,
for the reason given below, omitted all reference to charms and spells when
performed by one witch alone, and have confined myself to those statements
only which show the beliefs, organization, and ritual of a hitherto
unrecognized cult.

In order to clear the ground I make a sharp distinction between Operative
Witchcraft and Ritual Witchcraft. Under Operative Witchcraft I class all
charms and spells, whether used by a professed witch or by a professed
Christian, whether intended for good or for evil, for killing or for
curing. Such charms and spells are common to every nation and country, and
are practised by the priests and people of every religion. They are part of
the common heritage of the human race and are therefore of no practical
value in the study of any one particular cult.

Ritual Witchcraft--or, as I propose to call it, the Dianic cult--embraces
the religious beliefs and ritual of the people known in late mediaeval
times as 'Witches'. The evidence proves that underlying the Christian
religion was a cult practised by many classes of the community, chiefly,
however, by the more ignorant or those in the less thickly inhabited parts
of the country. It can be traced back to pre-Christian times, and appears
to be the ancient religion of Western Europe. The god, anthropomorphic or
theriomorphic, was worshipped in well-defined rites; the organization was
highly developed; and the ritual is analogous to many other ancient
rituals. The dates of the chief festivals suggest that the religion
belonged to a race which had not reached the agricultural stage; and the
evidence shows that various modifications were introduced, probably by
invading peoples who brought in their own beliefs. I have not attempted to
disentangle the various cults; I am content merely to point out that it was
a definite religion with beliefs, ritual, and organization as highly
developed as that of any other cult in the world.

The deity of this cult was incarnate in a man, a woman, or an animal; the
animal form being apparently earlier than the human, for the god was often
spoken of as wearing the skin or attributes of an animal. At the same time,
however, there was another form of the god in the shape of a man with two
faces. Such a god is found in Italy (where he was called Janus or Dianus),
in Southern France (see pp. 62, 129), and in the English Midlands. The
feminine form of the name, Diana, is found throughout Western Europe as the
name of the female deity or leader of the so-called Witches, and it is for
this reason that I have called this ancient religion the Dianic cult. The
geographical distribution of the two-faced god suggests that the race or
races, who carried the cult, either did not remain in every country which
they entered, or that in many places they and their religion were
overwhelmed by subsequent invaders.

The dates of the two chief festivals, May Eve and November Eve, indicate
the use of a calendar which is generally acknowledged to be
pre-agricultural and earlier than the solstitial division of the year. The
fertility rites of the cult bear out this indication, as they were for
promoting the increase of animals and only rarely for the benefit of the
crops. The cross-quarter-days, February 2 and August 1, which were also
kept as festivals, were probably of later date, as, though classed among
the great festivals, they were not of so high an importance as the May and
November Eves. To February 2, Candlemas Day, probably belongs the sun-charm
of the burning wheel, formed by the whirling dancers, each carrying a
blazing torch; but no special ceremony seems to be assigned to August 1,
Lammas Day, a fact suggestive of a later introduction of this festival.

The organization of the hierarchy was the same throughout Western Europe,
with the slight local differences which always occur in any organization.
The same organization, when carried to America, caused Cotton Mather to
say, 'The witches are organized like Congregational Churches.' This gives
the clue at once. In each Congregational Church there is a body of elders
who manage the affairs of the Church, and the minister who conducts the
religious services and is the chief person in religious matters; and there
may also be a specially appointed person to conduct the services in the
minister's absence; each Church is an independent entity and not
necessarily connected with any other. In the same way there was among the
witches a body of elders--the Coven--which managed the local affairs of the
cult, and a man who, like the minister, held the chief place, though as God
that place was infinitely higher in the eyes of the congregation than any
held by a mere human being. In some of the larger congregations there was a
person, inferior to the Chief, who took charge in the Chief's absence. In
Southern France, however, there seems to have been a Grand Master who was
supreme over several districts.

The position of the chief woman in the cult is still somewhat obscure.
Professor Pearson sees in her the Mother-Goddess worshipped chiefly by
women. This is very probable, but at the time when the cult is recorded the
worship of the male deity appears to have superseded that of the female,
and it is only on rare occasions that the God appears in female form to
receive the homage of the worshippers. As a general rule the woman's
position, when divine, is that of the familiar or substitute for the male
god. There remains, however, the curious fact that the chief woman was
often identified with the Queen of Faerie, or the Elfin Queen as she is
sometimes called.

This connexion of the witches and fairies opens up a very wide field; at
present it is little more than speculation that the two are identical, but
there is promise that the theory may be proved at some later date when the
subject is more fully worked out. It is now a commonplace of anthropology
that the tales of fairies and elves preserve the tradition of a dwarf race
which once inhabited Northern and Western Europe. Successive invasions
drove them to the less fertile parts of each country which they inhabited,
some betook themselves to the inhospitable north or the equally
inhospitable mountains; some, however, remained in the open heaths and
moors, living as mound-dwellers, venturing out chiefly at night and coming
in contact with the ruling races only on rare occasions. As the conqueror
always regards the religion of the conquered as superior to his own in the
arts of evil magic, the dwarf race obtained the reputation of wizards and
magicians, and their god was identified by the conquerors with the
Principle of Evil. The identification of the witches with the dwarf or
fairy race would give us a clear insight into much of the civilization of
the early European peoples, especially as regards their religious ideas.

The religious rites varied according to circumstances and the requirements
of the people. The greater number of the ceremonies appear to have been
practised for the purpose of securing fertility. Of these the sexual ritual
has been given an overwhelming and quite unwarranted importance in the
trials, for it became an obsession with the Christian judges and recorders
to investigate the smallest and most minute details of the rite. Though in
late examples the ceremony had possibly degenerated into a Bacchanalian
orgy, there is evidence to prove that, like the same rite in other
countries, it was originally a ceremonial magic to ensure fertility. There
is at present nothing to show how much of the Witches' Mass (in which the
bread, the wine, and the candles were black) derived from the Christian
ritual and how much belonged to the Dianic cult; it is, however, possible
that the witches' service was the earlier form and influenced the
Christian. The admission ceremonies were often elaborate, and it is here
that the changes in the religion are most clearly marked; certain
ceremonies must have been introduced when another cult was superimposed and
became paramount, such as the specific renunciation of a previous religion
which was obligatory on all new candidates, and the payment to the member
who brought a new recruit into the fold. The other rites--the feasts and
dances--show that it was a joyous religion; and as such it must have been
quite incomprehensible to the gloomy Inquisitors and Reformers who
suppressed it.

Much stress has always been laid by the sceptical writers on the undoubted
fact that in many cases the witch confused dreams with reality and believed
that she had visited the Sabbath when credible witnesses could prove that
she had slept in her bed all the time. Yet such visions are known in other
religions; Christians have met their Lord in dreams of the night and have
been accounted saints for that very reason; Mahomed, though not released
from the body, had interviews with Allah; Moses talked with God; the
Egyptian Pharaohs record similar experiences. To the devotee of a certain
temperament such visions occur, and it is only to be expected that in every
case the vision should take the form required by the religion of the
worshipper. Hence the Christian sees Christ and enters heaven; Mahomed was
caught up to the Paradise of the true believers; the anthropomorphic
Jehovah permitted only a back view to His votary; the Egyptian Pharaohs
beheld their gods alive and moving on the earth. The witch also met her god
at the actual Sabbath and again in her dreams, for that earthly Sabbath was
to her the true Paradise, where there was more pleasure than she could
express, and she believed also that the joy which she took in it was but
the prelude to a much greater glory, for her god so held her heart that no
other desire could enter in. Thus the witches often went to the gibbet and
the stake, glorifying their god and committing their souls into his
keeping, with a firm belief that death was but the entrance to an eternal
life in which they would never be parted from him. Fanatics and
visionaries as many of them were, they resemble those Christian martyrs
whom the witch-persecutors often held in the highest honour.

Another objection is that, as the evidence of the witches at the trials is
more or less uniform in character, it must be attributed to the publication
by the Inquisitors of a questionary for the use of all judges concerned in
such trials; in short, that the evidence is valueless, as it was given in
answer to leading questions. No explanation is offered by the objectors as
to how the Inquisitors arrived at the form of questionary, nor is any
regard given to the injunction to all Inquisitors to acquaint themselves
with all the details of any heresy which they were commissioned to root
out; they were to obtain the information from those who would recant and
use it against the accused; and to instruct other judges in the belief and
ritual of the heresy, so that they also might recognize it and act
accordingly. The objectors also overlook the fact that the believers in any
given religion, when tried for their faith, exhibit a sameness in their
accounts of the cult, usually with slight local differences. Had the
testimony of the witches as to their beliefs varied widely, it would be
_prima facie_ evidence that there was no well-defined religion underlying
their ritual; but the very uniformity of their confessions points to the
reality of the occurrence.

Still another objection is that the evidence was always given under
torture, and that the wretched victims consequently made reckless
assertions and accusations. In most of the English and many of the Scotch
trials legal torture was not applied; and it was only in the seventeenth
century that pricking for the mark, starvation, and prevention of sleep
were used. Even then there were many voluntary confessions given by those
who, like the early Christian martyrs, rushed headlong on their fate,
determined to die for their faith and their god.

Yet even if some of the evidence were given under torture and in answer to
leading questions, there still remains a mass of details which cannot be
explained away. Among others there are the close connexions of the witches
with the fairies, the persistence of the number thirteen in the Covens,
the narrow geographical range of the domestic familiar, the avoidance of
certain forms in the animal transformations, the limited number of personal
names among the women-witches, and the survival of the names of some of the
early gods.

In England the legal method of executing a witch was by hanging; after
death the body was burnt and the ashes scattered. In Scotland, as a rule,
the witch was strangled at the stake and the body burned, but there are
several records of the culprit being sentenced to burning alive. In France
burning alive was the invariable punishment.

In cases where popular fury, unrestrained by the law, worked its own
vengeance on individuals, horrible scenes occurred; but these were the
exception, and, examining only the legal aspect of the subject, it will be
found that witches had a fair trial according to the methods of the period,
and that their punishment was according to the law. There was, however, one
popular method of dealing with a person accused of witchcraft which is
interesting as showing the survival of a legal process, obsolete as regards
the law itself, but remaining in full force among the people. This is the
ordeal by water. In the Laws of Athelstan the full detail of this ordeal is
given: after the person who was to undergo the ordeal had been prepared by
prayer and fasting, he was tied, the right thumb to the right big toe, the
left thumb to the left big toe, and was then cast into the water with
suitable prayers to the Almighty to declare the right; if he sank he was
considered innocent, if he floated he was guilty. The witch was 'tried' in
the same way, except that she was tied 'crossways', i.e. the right thumb to
the left big toe, and the left thumb to the right big toe. So great was the
belief in this test that many women accused of witchcraft insisted on
undergoing this ordeal, which was often conducted with solemnity and
decency under the auspices of the minister of the parish and other grave
persons. Unless there was strong feeling against the woman for other
reasons, the mere fact of her floating did not rouse the populace against
her, and she merely returned home; Widow Coman, for instance, was 'ducked'
on three separate occasions at her own request.

The theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were greatly
exercised by the conclusive evidence which proved that people known to be
devout and professing Christians had been present at the Sabbath, joined in
the ceremonies, and worshipped the witches' god. The Inquisitors recognized
the fact, and devote many pages of their books to the discussion of the
course to be followed in the case of Christian priests, coming finally to
the conclusion that if a priest merely went to the Sabbath but was not in
any way in an official position there his sacred character preserved him
from evil. The theologians of the Reformed Churches, who could not accept
the sanctity of the priesthood with the same ease and were also desirous of
finding some means of accounting for the presence of the devout laity,
boldly evolved the theory that the Devil could for his own purposes assume
the shape of good Christians in order to mislead the witches. By this plea
the accused often succeeded in escaping when the examiners were religious
ministers, but it was of no value to them when the trial was in a court of
law, and the fact of their presence at an illegal assembly was proved. Lord
Coke's definition of a witch summed up the law on the subject: 'A witch is
a person who hath conference with the Devil, to consult with him or to do
some act', and any person proved to have had such conference was thus
convicted of a capital offence and sentenced accordingly. This accounts for
the fact, commented on by all students of witch-trials, that a witch was
often condemned even though she had invariably used her skill for good and
not for evil; for healing the sick, not for casting sickness. If it were
proved that she had obtained her knowledge from the 'Devil' she had broken
the law and must die.

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