Charlotte M. Yonge - "Two Penniless Princesses"

Charles Dudley Warner - "The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4"

Arthur Scott Bailey - "The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug"

George Sumner Weaver - "Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Witch cult in Western Europe

M >> Margaret Alice Murray >> The Witch cult in Western Europe




Guibourg acknowledged that, besides the one just quoted, he celebrated
three masses in this way. At the first he used a conjuration. 'Il dit la
deuxieme messe dans une masure sur les remparts de Saint-Denis, sur la meme
femme, avec les memes ceremonies.... Dit la troisieme a Paris chez la
Voisin sur la meme femme.'[593] The woman mentioned in Guibourg's
confession was Madame de Montespan herself. The following conjuration was
used at the first mass:

'sur le ventre d'une femme': 'Astaroth, Asmodee, princes d'amitie, je
vous conjure d'accepter le sacrifice que je vous presente de cet
enfant pour les choses que je vous demande, qui sont l'amitie du Roi,
de Mgr le Dauphin me soit continuee et etre honoree des princes et
princesses de la cour, que rien ne me soit denie de tout ce que je
demanderai au Roi, tant pour mes parents que serviteurs.'[594]

A very interesting case is that of the Rev. George Burroughs in New England
(1692):

'He was Accused by Eight of the Confessing Witches, as being an Head
Actor at some of their Hellish Randezvouses, and one who had the
promise of being a King in Satan's kingdom, now going to be
Erected.... One _Lacy_ testify'd that she and the prisoner [Martha
Carrier] were once Bodily present at a _Witch-meeting_ in _Salem
Village_; and that she knew the prisoner to be a Witch, and to have
been at a Diabolical sacrament.... Another _Lacy_ testify'd that the
prisoner was at the _Witch-meeting_, in _Salem Village_, where they
had Bread and Wine Administred unto them.... Deliverance Hobbs
affirmed that this [Bridget] _Bishop_ was at a General Meeting of the
Witches, in a Field at _Salem_-Village, and there partook of a
Diabolical Sacrament in Bread and Wine then administred.'[595]

Hutchinson had access to the same records and gives the same evidence,
though even more strongly: 'Richard Carrier affirmed to the jury that he
saw Mr. George Burroughs at the witch meeting at the village and saw him
administer the sacrament. Mary Lacy, sen^r. and her daughter Mary affirmed
that Mr. George Burroughs was at the witch meetings with witch sacrements,
and that she knows Mr. Burroughs to be of the company of witches.'[596]
John Hale has a similar record: 'This D. H. [Deliverance Hobbs] confessed
she was at a Witch Meeting at Salem Village.... And the said G. B. preached
to them, and such a Woman was their Deacon, and there they had a
Sacrament.'[597] Abigail Williams said 'that the Witches had a _Sacrament_
that day at an house in the Village, and that they had _Red Bread_ and _Red
Drink_'.[598] With the evidence before him Mather seems justified in saying
that the witches had 'their Diabolical Sacraments, imitating the _Baptism_
and the _Supper_ of our Lord'.[599]


8. _Sacrifices_

There are four forms of sacrifice: (1) the blood sacrifice, which was
performed by making an offering of the witch's own blood; (2) the sacrifice
of an animal; (3) the sacrifice of a human being, usually a child; (4) the
sacrifice of the god.

1. The _blood-sacrifice_ took place first at the admission of the neophyte.
Originally a sacrifice, it was afterwards joined to the other ceremony of
signing the contract, the blood serving as the writing fluid; it also seems
to be confused in the seventeenth century with the pricking for the Mark,
but the earlier evidence is clear. A writer who generalizes on the
witchcraft religion and who recognizes the sacrificial nature of the act is
Cooper; as he wrote in 1617 his evidence belongs practically to the
sixteenth century. He says:

'In further _token_ of their subiection unto Satan in yeelding vp
themselues wholy vnto his deuotion, behold yet _another ceremony_
heere vsually is performed: namely, _to let themselues bloud_ in some
apparant place of the body, yeelding the same to be _sucked by Satan_,
as a _sacrifice_ vnto him, and testifying thereby the full
_subiection_ of their _liues_ and _soules_ to his deuotion.'[600]

The earliest account of the ceremony is at Chelmsford in 1556. Elizabeth
Francis 'learned this arte of witchcraft from her grandmother. When shee
taughte it her, she counseiled her to geue of her bloudde to Sathan (as she
termed it) whyche she delyuered to her in the lykenesse of a whyte spotted
Catte. Euery time that he [the cat] did any thynge for her, she sayde that
he required a drop of bloude, which she gaue him by prycking herselfe.'
Some time after, Elizabeth Francis presented the Satan-cat to Mother
Waterhouse, passing on to her the instructions received from Elizabeth's
grandmother. Mother Waterhouse 'gaue him for his labour a chicken, which he
fyrste required of her and a drop of her blod. And thys she gaue him at all
times when he dyd any thynge for her, by pricking her hand or face and
puttinge the bloud to hys mouth whyche he sucked.'[601] In 1566 John
Walsh, a Dorset witch, confessed that 'at the first time when he had the
Spirite, hys sayd maister did cause him to deliuer one drop of his blud,
whych bloud the Spirite did take away vpon hys paw'.[602] In Belgium in
1603 Claire Goessen, 'apres avoir donne a boire de son sang a Satan, et
avoir bu du sien, a fait avec lui un pacte.[603]

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]

The number of sacrifices in the year is exaggerated by the writers on the
subject, but the witches themselves are often quite definite in their
information when it happens to be recorded. It appears from their
statements that the rite was performed only on certain occasions, either to
obtain help or as a thank-offering. Danaeus, speaking of the newly admitted
witch, says, 'Then this vngracious and new servant of satan, euery day
afterward offreth something of his goods to his patrone, some his dogge,
some his hen, and some his cat.'[608] Scot, who always improves on his
original, states that the witches depart after the Sabbath, 'not forgetting
euery daie afterwards to offer to him, dogs, cats, hens, or bloud of their
owne.'[609]

The earliest witch-trial in the British Isles shows animal sacrifice. In
1324 in Ireland Lady Alice Kyteler 'was charged to haue nightlie conference
with a spirit called Robin Artisson, to whom she sacrificed in the high
waie .ix. red cocks'.[610] In 1566 at Chelmsford Mother Waterhouse 'gaue
him [i.e. the Satan-cat] for his labour a chicken, which he fyrste required
of her, and a drop of her blod.... Another tyme she rewarded hym as before,
wyth a chicken and a droppe of her bloud, which chicken he eate vp cleane
as he didde al the rest, and she cold fynde remaining neyther bones nor
fethers.'[611] Joan Waterhouse, daughter of Mother Waterhouse, a girl of
eighteen, said that the Deuil came in the likeness of a great dog, 'then
asked hee her what she wolde geue hym, and she saide a red kocke.'[612]
John Walsh of Dorset, in 1566, confessed that 'when he would call him [the
Spirit], hee sayth hee must geue hym some lyuing thing, as a Chicken, a
Cat, or a Dog. And further he sayth he must geue hym twoo lyuing thynges
once a yeare.'[613] In Lorraine in 1589 Beatrix Baonensis said, 'Etliche
geben junge Huener, oder wohl alte Huener, wie Desideria Pari iensis, und
Cathelonia Vincentia gethan hatten: Etliche schneiden ihre Haar ab und
lieffern dieselbe dahin, etliche geben Spaeher, etliche Voegel oder sonst
nicht viel besonders, als da sein moechte gemuentzt Geld aus Rindern Ledder,
und wenn sie dergleichen nichts haben, so verschafft es ihnen ihr Geist,
auff dass sie staffirt seyn.'[614] In Aberdeen in 1597 Andro Man gave
evidence that 'the Devill thy maister, whom thow termis Christsunday ... is
rasit be the speking of the word _Benedicite_, and is laid agane be tacking
of a dog vnder thy left oxster in thi richt hand, and casting the same in
his mouth, and speking the word _Maikpeblis_.'[615] At Lang Niddry in 1608
the whole Coven performed a rite, beginning at the 'irne zet of Seatoun',
where they christened a cat by the name of Margaret, 'and thaireftir come
all bak agane to the Deane-fute, quhair first thai convenit, and cuist the
kat to the Devill.'[616] In 1630 Alexander Hamilton had consultations with
the Devil near Edinburgh, 'and afoir the devill his away passing the said
Alexr was in use to cast to him ather ane kat or ane laif or ane dog or any
uther sic beast he come be.'[617] In Bute in 1622 Margaret NcWilliam
'renounced her baptisme and he baptised her and she gave him as a gift a
hen or cock'.[618] In modern France the sacrifice of a fowl to the Devil
still holds good: 'Celui qui veut devenir sorcier doit aller a un _quatre
chemins_ avec une _poule noire_, ou bien encore au _cimetiere_, sur une
_tombe_ et toujours a _minuit_. Il vient alors quelqu'un qui demande: "Que
venez vous faire ici?" "J'ai une poule a vendre," repond-on. Ce quelqu'un
[est] le Mechant.'[619]

It is possible that the custom of burying a live animal to cure disease
among farm animals, as well as the charm of casting a live cat into the sea
to raise a storm, are forms of the animal sacrifice.

3. _Child Sacrifice._--The child-victim was usually a young infant, either
a witch's child or unbaptized; in other words, it did not belong to the
Christian community. This last is an important point, and was the reason
why unbaptized children were considered to be in greater danger from
witches than the baptized. 'If there be anie children vnbaptised, or not
garded with the signe of the crosse, or orizons; then the witches may or
doo catch them from their mothers sides in the night, or out of their
cradles, or otherwise kill them with their ceremonies.'[620] The same
author quotes from the French authorities the crimes laid to the charge of
witches, among which are the following: 'They sacrifice their owne children
to the diuell before baptisme, holding them vp in the aire vnto him, and
then thrust a needle into their braines'; and 'they burne their children
when they haue sacrificed them'.[621] Boguet says, 'Les Matrones, & sages
femmes sont accoustume d'offrir a Satan les petits enfans qu'elles
recoiuent, & puis les faire mourir auant qu'ils soient baptizez, par le
moy[~e] d'vne grosse espingle qu'elles leur enfoncent dans le
cerueau.'[622] Boguet's words imply that this was done at every birth at
which a witch officiated; but it is impossible that this should be the
case; the sacrifice was probably made for some special purpose, for which a
new-born child was the appropriate victim.

The most detailed account of such sacrifices is given in the trial of the
Paris witches (1679-81), whom Madame de Montespan consulted. The whole
ceremony was performed to the end that the love of Louis XIV should return
to Madame de Montespan, at that time his discarded mistress; it seems to be
a kind of fertility rite, hence its use on this occasion. The Abbe Guibourg
was the sacrificing priest, and from this and other indications he appears
to have been the Chief or Grand-master who, before a less educated
tribunal, would have been called the Devil. Both he and the girl Montvoisin
were practically agreed as to the rite; though from the girl's words it
would appear that the child was already dead, while Guibourg's evidence
implies that it was alive. Both witnesses gave their evidence soberly and
gravely and without torture. Montvoisin, who was eighteen years old, stated
that she had presented 'a la messe de Madame de Montespan, par l'ordre de
sa mere, un enfant paraissant ne avant terme, le mit dans un bassin,
Guibourg l'egorgea, versa dans le calice, et consacra le sang avec hostie'.
Guibourg's evidence shows that the sacrifice was so far from being uncommon
that the assistants were well used to the work, and did all that was
required with the utmost celerity:

'Il avait achete un ecu l'enfant qui fut sacrifie a cette messe qui
lui fut presente par une grande fille et ayant tire du sang de
l'enfant qu'il piqua a la gorge avec un canif, il en versa dans le
calice, apres quoi l'enfant fut retire et emporte dans un autre lieu,
dont ensuite on lui rapporta le c[oe]ur et les entrailles pour en
faire une deuxieme [oblation].'[623]

In Scotland it was firmly believed that sacrifices of children took place
in all classes of society: 'The justices of the peace were seen familiarly
conversing with the foul fiend, to whom one in Dumfries-shire actually
offered up his firstborn child immediately after birth, stepping out with
it in his arms to the staircase, where the devil stood ready, as it was
suspected, to receive the innocent victim.'[624] In the later witch-trials
the sacrifice of the child seems to have been made after its burying, as in
the case of the Witch of Calder in 1720, who confessed that she had given
the Devil 'the body of a dead child of her own to make a roast of'.[625]

It is possible that the killing of children by poison was one method of
sacrifice when the cult was decadent and victims difficult to obtain.
Reginald Scot's words, written in 1584, suggest that this was the case:
'This must be an infallible rule, that euerie fortnight, or at the least
euerie moneth, each witch must kill one child at the least for hir
part.'[626] Sinistrari d'Ameno, writing about a century later, says the
same: 'They promise the Devil sacrifices and offerings at stated times:
once a fortnight or at least each month, the murder of some child, or an
homicidal act of sorcery.'[627] It is impossible to believe in any great
frequency of this sacrifice, but there is considerable foundation in fact
for the statement that children were killed, and it accounts as nothing
else can for the cold-blooded murders of children of which the witches were
sometimes accused. The accusations seem to have been substantiated on
several occasions, the method of sacrifice being by poison.[628]

The sacrifice of a child was often performed as a means of procuring
certain magical materials or powers, which were obtained by preparing the
sacrificed bodies in several ways. Scot says that the flesh of the child
was boiled and consumed by the witches for two purposes. Of the thicker
part of the concoction 'they make ointments, whereby they ride in the aire;
but the thinner potion they put into flaggons, whereof whosoeuer drinketh,
obseruing certeine ceremonies, immediatelie becommeth a maister or rather a
mistresse in that practise and facultie.'[629] The Paris Coven confessed
that they 'distilled' the entrails of the sacrificed child after Guibourg
had celebrated the mass for Madame de Montespan, the method being probably
the same as that described by Scot. A variant occurs in both France and
Scotland, and is interesting as throwing light on the reasons for some of
the savage rites of the witches: 'Pour ne confesser iamais le secret de
l'escole, on faict au sabbat vne paste de millet noir, auec de la poudre du
foye de quelque enfant non baptise qu'on faict secher, puis meslant cette
poudre avec ladicte paste, elle a cette vertu de taciturnite: si bien que
qui en mange ne confesse iamais.'[630] At Forfar, in 1661, Helen Guthrie
and four others exhumed the body of an unbaptized infant, which was buried
in the churchyard near the south-east door of the church, 'and took
severall peices therof, as the feet, hands, a pairt of the head, and a
pairt of the buttock, and they made a py therof, that they might eat of it,
that by this meanes they might never make a confession (as they thought) of
their witchcraftis.'[631] Here the idea of sympathetic magic is very clear;
by eating the flesh of a child who had never spoken articulate words, the
witches' own tongues would be unable to articulate.

4. _Sacrifice of the God._--The sacrifice of the witch-god was a decadent
custom when the records were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The accounts of the actual rite come from France and Belgium,
where a goat was substituted for the human victim. The sacrifice was by
fire in both those countries, and there are indications that it was the
same in Great Britain. It is uncertain whether the interval of time between
the sacrifices was one, seven, or nine years.

Bodin and Boguet, each writing from his own knowledge of the subject, give
very similar accounts, Bodin's being the more detailed. In describing a
trial which took place in Poictiers in 1574, he says: 'La se trouuoit vn
grand bouc noir, qui parloit comme vne personne aux assistans, & dansoyent
a l'entour du bouc: puis vn chacun luy baisoit le derriere, auec vne
chandelle ardente: & cela faict, le bouc se consommoit en feu, & de la
c[~e]dre chacun en prenoit pour faire mourir le b[oe]uf [etc.]. Et en fin
le Diable leur disoit d'vne voix terrible des mots, Vengez vous ou vous
mourrez.'[632] Boguet says that in the Lyons district in 1598 the Devil
celebrated mass, and 'apres auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc, se consume en
feu, & reduit en cendre, laquelle les Sorciers recueillent, & cachent pour
s'en seruir a l'execution de leurs desseins pernicieux & abominables'.[633]
In 1603, a Belgian witch, Claire Goessen, was present at such a sacrifice,
and her account is therefore that of an eyewitness. 'Elle s'est laissee
transporter a l'assemblee nocturne de Lembeke, ou, apres la danse, elle a,
comme tous les assistans, baise un bouc a l'endroit de sa queue, lequel
bouc fut ensuite brule et ses cendres distribuees et emportees par les
convives.'[634] Jeanne de Belloc in 1609 'a veu le Grand maistre de
l'assemblee se ietter dans les flammes au sabbat, se faire brusler iusques
a ce qu'il estoit reduit en poudre, & les grandes & insignes sorcieres
prendre les dictes poudres pour ensorceler les petits enfants & les mener
au sabbat, & en prenoient aussi dans la bouche pour ne reueler
iamais'.[635] A French witch in 1652 declared that at the Sabbath 'le
diable s'y at mis en feu et en donne des cendres lesquelles tous faisaient
voller en l'air pour faire mancquer les fruits de la terre'.[636] At Lille
in 1661 the girls in Madame Bourignon's orphanage stated that 'on y adoroit
une bete; & qu'on faisoit avec elle des infamies; & puis sur la fin on la
bruloit, & chacun en prenoit des cendres, avec lesquelles on faisoit
languir ou mourir des personnes, ou autres animaux'.[637]

The collection and use of the ashes by the worshippers point to the fact
that we have here a sacrifice of the god of fertility. Originally the
sprinkling of the ashes on fields or animals or in running water was a
fertility charm; but when Christianity became sufficiently powerful to
attempt the suppression of the ancient religion, such practices were
represented as evil, and were therefore said to be 'pour faire mancquer les
fruits de la terre'.

The animal-substitute for the divine victim is usually the latest form of
the sacrifice; the intervening stages were first the volunteer, then the
criminal, both of whom were accorded the power and rank of the divine being
whom they personated. The period of time during which the substitute acted
as the god varied in different places; so also did the interval between the
sacrifices. Frazer has pointed out that the human victim, whether the god
himself or his human substitute, did not content himself by merely not
attempting to escape his destiny, but in many cases actually rushed on his
fate, and died by his own hand or by voluntary submission to the
sacrificer.

The witch-cult being a survival of an ancient religion, many of the beliefs
and rites of these early religions are to be found in it. Of these the
principal are: the voluntary substitute, the temporary transference of
power to the substitute, and the self-devotion to death. As times changed
and the ceremonies could no longer be performed openly, the sacrifices took
on other forms. I have already suggested that the child-murders, of which
the witches were often convicted, were in many cases probably offerings
made to the God. In the same way, when the time came for the God or his
substitute to be sacrificed, recourse was had to methods which hid the real
meaning of the ceremony; and the sacrifice of the incarnate deity, though
taking place in public, was consummated at the hands of the public
executioner. This explanation accounts for the fact that the bodies of
witches, male or female, were always burnt and the ashes scattered; for the
strong prejudice which existed, as late as the eighteenth century, against
any other mode of disposing of their bodies; and for some of the otherwise
inexplicable occurrences in connexion with the deaths of certain of the
victims.

Read in the light of this theory much of the mystery which surrounds the
fate of Joan of Arc is explained. She was put to death as a witch, and the
conduct of her associates during her military career, as well as the
evidence at her trial, bear out the fact that she belonged to the ancient
religion, not to the Christian. Nine years after her death in the flames
her commander, Gilles de Rais, was tried on the same charge and condemned
to the same fate. The sentence was not carried out completely in his case;
he was executed by hanging, and the body was snatched from the fire and
buried in Christian ground. Like Joan herself, Gilles received a
semi-canonization after death, and his shrine was visited by nursing
mothers. Two centuries later Major Weir offered himself up and was executed
as a witch in Edinburgh, refusing to the end all attempts to convert him to
the Christian point of view.

The belief that the witch must be burnt and the ashes scattered was so
ingrained in the popular mind that, when the severity of the laws began to
relax, remonstrances were made by or to the authorities. In 1649 the Scotch
General Assembly has a record: 'Concerning the matter of the buriall of
the Lady Pittadro, who, being vnder a great scandall of witchcraft, and
being incarcerat in the Tolbuith of this burgh during her triall before the
Justice, died in prison, The Comission of the Generall Assembly, having
considered the report of the Comittee appointed for that purpose, Doe give
their advyse to the Presbyterie of Dumfermling to show their dislike of
that fact of the buriall of the Lady Pittadro, in respect of the maner and
place, and that the said Presbyterie may labour to make the persons who hes
buried her sensible of their offence in so doeing; and some of the persons
who buried hir, being personallie present, are desired by the Comission to
shew themselvis to the Presbyterie sensible of their miscarriage
therein.'[638]

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