The Witch cult in Western Europe

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

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FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, 1894, p. 160. The italics are
in the original.]

[Footnote 2: See James Crossley's Introduction to Potts's _Discoverie of
Witchcraft_, Chetham Society, pp. v-xii.]

I. CONTINUITY OF THE RELIGION

Of the ancient religion of pre-Christian Britain there are few written
records, but it is contrary to all experience that a cult should die out
and leave no trace immediately on the introduction of a new religion. The
so-called conversion of Britain meant the conversion of the rulers only;
the mass of the people continued to follow their ancient customs and
beliefs with a veneer of Christian rites. The centuries brought a deepening
of Christianity which, introduced from above, gradually penetrated
downwards through one class after another. During this process the laws
against the practice of certain heathen rites became more strict as
Christianity grew in power, the Church tried her strength against 'witches'
in high places and was victorious, and in the fifteenth century open war
was declared against the last remains of heathenism in the famous Bull of
Innocent VIII.

This heathenism was practised only in certain places and among certain
classes of the community. In other places the ancient ritual was either
adopted into, or tolerated by, the Church; and the Maypole dances and other
rustic festivities remained as survivals of the rites of the early cult.

Whether the religion which survived as the witch cult was the same as the
religion of the Druids, or whether it belonged to a still earlier stratum,
is not clear. Though the descriptions of classical authors are rather too
vague and scanty to settle such a point, sufficient remains to show that a
fertility cult did once exist in these islands, akin to similar cults in
the ancient world. Such rites would not be suppressed by the tribes who
entered Great Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans; a continuance of
the cult may therefore be expected among the people whom the Christian
missionaries laboured to convert.

As the early historical records of these islands were made by Christian
ecclesiastics, allowance must be made for the religious bias of the
writers, which caused them to make Christianity appear as the only religion
existing at the time. But though the historical records are silent on the
subject the laws and enactments of the different communities, whether lay
or ecclesiastical, retain very definite evidence of the continuance of the
ancient cults.

In this connexion the dates of the conversion of England are instructive.
The following table gives the principal dates:

597-604. Augustine's mission. London still heathen.
Conversion of AEthelbert, King of Kent. After AEthelbert's
death Christianity suffered a reverse.

604. Conversion of the King of the East Saxons, whose
successor lapsed.

627. Conversion of the King of Northumbria.

628. Conversion of the King of East Anglia.

631-651. Aidan's missions.

635. Conversion of the King of Wessex.

653. Conversion of the King of Mercia.

654. Re-conversion of the King of the East Saxons.

681. Conversion of the King of the South Saxons.

An influx of heathenism occurred on two later occasions: in the ninth
century there was an invasion by the heathen Danes under Guthrum; and in
the eleventh century the heathen king Cnut led his hordes to victory. As in
the case of the Saxon kings of the seventh century, Guthrum and Cnut were
converted and the tribes followed their leaders' example, professed
Christianity, and were baptized.

But it cannot be imagined that these wholesale conversions were more than
nominal in most cases, though the king's religion was outwardly the tribe's
religion. If, as happened among the East Saxons, the king forsook his old
gods, returned to them again, and finally forsook them altogether, the
tribe followed his lead, and, in public at least, worshipped Christ, Odin,
or any other deity whom the king favoured for the moment; but there can be
hardly any doubt that in private the mass of the people adhered to the old
religion to which they were accustomed. This tribal conversion is clearly
marked when a heathen king married a Christian queen, or vice versa; and it
must also be noted that a king never changed his religion without careful
consultation with his chief men.[3] An example of the two religions
existing side by side is found in the account of Redwald, King of the East
Saxons, who 'in the same temple had an altar to sacrifice to Christ, and
another small one to offer victims to devils'.[4]

The continuity of the ancient religion is proved by the references to it in
the classical authors, the ecclesiastical laws, and other legal and
historical records.

1st cent. Strabo, 63 B.C.-A.D. 23.

'In an island close to Britain, Demeter and Persephone are venerated
with rites similar to the orgies of Samothrace.'[5]

4th cent. Dionysius says that in islands near Jersey and Guernsey the rites
of Bacchus were performed by the women, crowned with leaves; they danced
and made an even greater shouting than the Thracians.[6]

7th cent. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 668-690.

The _Liber Poenitentialis_[7] of Theodore contains the earliest
ecclesiastical laws of England. It consists of a list of offences and the
penance due for each offence; one whole section is occupied with details of
the ancient religion and of its rites. Such are:

Sacrifice to devils.

Eating and drinking in a heathen temple, (_a_) in ignorance, (_b_) after
being told by the [Christian] priest that it is sacrilege and the table of
devils, (_c_) as a cult of idols and in honour of idols.

'Not only celebrating feasts in the abominable places of the heathen
and offering food there, but also consuming it. Serving this hidden
idolatry, having relinquished Christ. If anyone at the kalends of
January goes about as a stag or a bull; that is, making himself into a
wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on
the heads of beasts; those who in such wise transform themselves into
the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this
is devilish.'

_The Laws of Wihtraed_, King of Kent,[8] 690.

Fines inflicted on those who offer to devils.

8th cent. _The Confessionale and Poenitentiale of Ecgberht_, first
Archbishop of York,[9] 734-766.

Prohibition of offerings to devils; of witchcraft; of auguries according to
the methods of the heathen; of vows paid, loosed, or confirmed at wells,
stones, or trees; of the gathering of herbs with any incantation except
Christian prayers.

_The Law of the Northumbrian priests._[10]

'If then anyone be found that shall henceforth practise any
heathenship, either by sacrifice or by "fyrt", or in any way love
witchcraft, or worship idols, if he be a king's thane, let him pay X
half-marks; half to Christ, half to the king. We are all to love and
worship one God, and strictly hold one Christianity, and totally
renounce all heathenship.'

9th cent. _Decree attributed to a General Council of Ancyra._[11]

'Certain wicked women, reverting to Satan, and seduced by the
illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess that they ride
at night with Diana on certain beasts, with an innumerable multitude
of women, passing over immense distances, obeying her commands as
their mistress, and evoked by her on certain nights.'

10th cent. _Laws of Edward and Guthrum._[12] After 901.

'If anyone violate christianity, or reverence heathenism, by word or
by work, let him pay as well _wer_, as _wite_ or _lah-slit_, according
as the deed may be.'

_Laws of King Athelstan_,[13] 924-940.

'We have ordained respecting witchcrafts, and _lyblacs_, and
_morthdaeds_: if anyone should be thereby killed, and he could not
deny it, that he be liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at
the threefold ordeal shall be guilty; that he be cxx days in prison.'

_Ecclesiastical canons of King Edgar_,[14] 959.

'We enjoin, that every priest zealously promote Christianity, and
totally extinguish every heathenism; and forbid well worshipings, and
necromancies, and divinations, and enchantments, and man worshipings,
and the vain practices which are carried on with various spells, and
with "frithsplots",[15] and with elders, and also with various other
trees, and with stones, and with many various delusions, with which
men do much of what they should not.--And we enjoin, that every
Christian man zealously accustom his children to Christianity, and
teach them the Paternoster and the Creed. And we enjoin, that on feast
days heathen songs and devil's games be abstained from.'

_Laws of King Ethelred_,[16] 978-1016.

'Let every Christian man do as is needful to him; let him strictly
keep his Christianity.... Let us zealously venerate right
Christianity, and totally despise every heathenism.'

11th cent. _Laws of King Cnut_,[17] 1017-1035.

'We earnestly forbid every heathenism: heathenism is, that men worship
idols; that is, that they worship heathen gods, and the sun or the
moon, fire or rivers, water-wells or stones, or forest trees of any
kind; or love witchcraft, or promote _morth-work_ in any wise.'

13th cent. Witchcraft made into a sect and heresy by the Church. The priest
of Inverkeithing presented before the bishop in 1282 for leading a
fertility dance at Easter round the phallic figure of a god; he was allowed
to retain his benefice.[18]

14th cent. In 1303 the Bishop of Coventry was accused before the Pope for
doing homage to the Devil.[19]

_Trial of Dame Alice Kyteler_, 1324.

Tried for both operative and ritual witchcraft, and found guilty.

_Nider's Formicarius_, 1337.

A detailed account of witches and their proceedings in Berne, which had
been infested by them for more than sixty years.

15th cent. Joan of Arc burnt as a witch, 1431. Gilles de Rais executed as a
witch, 1440.

_Bernardo di Bosco_, 1457.

Sent by Pope Calixtus III to suppress the witches in Brescia and its
neighbourhood.

_Bull of Pope Innocent VIII_, 1484.

'It has come to our ears that numbers of both sexes do not avoid to
have intercourse with demons, Incubi and Succubi; and that by their
sorceries, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurations, they
suffocate, extinguish, and cause to perish the births of women, the
increase of animals, the corn of the ground, the grapes of the
vineyard and the fruit of the trees, as well as men, women, flocks,
herds, and other various kinds of animals, vines and apple trees,
grass, corn and other fruits of the earth; making and procuring that
men and women, flocks and herds and other animals shall suffer and be
tormented both from within and without, so that men beget not, nor
women conceive; and they impede the conjugal action of men and women.'

It will be seen by the foregoing that so far from the Bull of Pope Innocent
VIII being the beginning of the 'outbreak of witchcraft', as so many modern
writers consider, it is only one of many ordinances against the practices
of an earlier cult. It takes no account of the effect of these practices on
the morals of the people who believed in them, but lays stress only on
their power over fertility; the fertility of human beings, animals, and
crops. In short it is exactly the pronouncement which one would expect from
a Christian against a heathen form of religion in which the worship of a
god of fertility was the central idea. It shows therefore that the witches
were considered to deal with fertility only.

Looked upon in the light of a fertility cult, the ritual of the witches
becomes comprehensible. Originally for the promotion of fertility, it
became gradually degraded into a method for blasting fertility, and thus
the witches who had been once the means of bringing prosperity to the
people and the land by driving out all evil influences, in process of time
were looked upon as being themselves the evil influences, and were held in
horror accordingly.

The actual feelings of the witches towards their religion have been
recorded in very few cases, but they can be inferred from the few records
which remain. The earliest example is from Lorraine in 1408, 'lequel mefait
les susdites dames disoient et confessoient avoir endure a leur
contentement et saoulement de plaisir que n'avoient eu onc de leur vie en
tel pourchas'.[20] De Lancre took a certain amount of trouble to obtain the
opinions of the witches, whereby he was obviously scandalized.

'Vne sorciere entre autres fort insigne nous dict qu'elle auoit
tousiours creu, que la sorcelerie estoit la meilleure
religion.--Ieanne Dibasson aagee de vingt neuf ans nous dict que le
sabbat estoit le vray Paradis, ou il y a beaucoup plus de plaisir
qu'on ne peut exprimer. Que ceux qui y vont trouuent le temps si court
a force de plaisir & de contentem[~e]t, qu'ils n'en peuuent sortir
sans vn merveilleux regret, de maniere qu'il leur tarde infiniment
qu'ils n'y reuiennent.--Marie de la Ralde, aagee de vingt huict ans,
tres belle femme, depose qu'elle auoit vn singulier plaisir d'aller au
sabbat, si bien que quand on la venoit semondre d'y aller elle y
alloit comme a nopces: non pas tant pour la liberte & licence qu'on a
de s'accointer ensemble (ce que par modestie elle dict n'auoir iamais
faict ny veu faire) mais parce que le Diable tenoit tellement lies
leurs coeurs & leurs volontez qu'a peine y laissoit il entrer nul
autre desir.... Au reste elle dict qu'elle ne croyoit faire aucun mal
d'aller au sabbat, & qu'elle y auoit beaucoup plus de plaisir &
contentement que d'aller a la Messe, parce que le Diable leur faisoit
a croire qu'il estoit le vray Dieu, & que la ioye que les sorciers
prenoyent au sabbat n'estoit qu'vn commencement d'vne beaucoup plus
grande gloire.--Elles disoyent franchement, qu'elles y alloyent &
voyoient toutes ces execrations auec vne volupte admirable, & vn desir
enrager d'y aller & d'y estre, trouuat les iours trop reculez de la
nuict pour faire le voyage si desire, & le poinct ou les heures pour y
aller trop lentes, & y estant, trop courtes pour vn si agreable seiour
& delicieux amusement.--En fin il a le faux martyre: & se trouue des
Sorciers si acharnez a son seruice endiable, qu'il n'y a torture ny
supplice qui les estonne, & diriez qu'ils vont au vray martyre & a la
mort pour l'amour de luy, aussi gayement que s'ils alloient a vn
festin de plaisir & reioueyssance publique.--Quand elles sont preuenues
de la Iustice, elles ne pleurent & ne iettent vne seule larme, voire
leur faux martyre soit de la torture, soit du gibet leur est si
plaisant, qu'il tarde a plusieurs qu'elles ne soi[~e]t executees a
mort, & souffr[~e]t fort ioyeusement qu'on leur face le procez, tant
il leur tarde qu'elles ne soient auec le Diable. Et ne s'impatientent
de rien tant en leur prison, que de ce qu'elles ne lui peuuent
tesmoigner c[=o]bi[~e] elles souffrent & desirent souffrir pour
luy.'[21]

Bodin says, 'Il y en a d'autres, ausquelles Satan promet qu'elles seront
bien heureuses apres cette vie, qui empesche qu'elles ne se repentent, &
meurent obstinees en leur mechancete'.[22]

Madame de Bourignon's girls at Lille (1661) 'had not the least design of
changing, to quit these abominable Pleasures, as one of them of Twenty-two
Years old one day told me. _No_, said she, _I will not be other than I am;
I find too much content in my Condition_.'[23] Though the English and
Scotch witches' opinions are not reported, it is clear from the evidence
that they were the same as those of the Basses-Pyrenees, for not only did
they join of their own free will but in many cases there seems to have been
no need of persuasion. In a great number of trials, when the witches
acknowledged that they had been asked to become members of the society,
there follows an expression of this sort, 'ye freely and willingly accepted
and granted thereto'. And that they held to their god as firmly as those de
Lancre put to death is equally evident in view of the North Berwick
witches, of Rebecca West and Rose Hallybread, who 'dyed very Stuburn, and
Refractory without any Remorss, or seeming Terror of Conscience for their
abominable Witch-craft';[24] Major Weir, who perished as a witch,
renouncing all hope of heaven;[25] and the Northampton witches, Agnes
Browne and her daughter, who 'were never heard to pray, or to call vppon
God, never asking pardon for their offences either of God or the world in
this their dangerous, and desperate Resolution, dyed'; Elinor Shaw and Mary
Phillips, at their execution 'being desired to say their Prayers, they both
set up a very loud Laughter, calling for the Devil to come and help them
in such a Blasphemous manner, as is not fit to Mention; so that the Sherif
seeing their presumptious Impenitence, caused them to be Executed with all
the Expedition possible; even while they were Cursing and raving, and as
they liv'd the Devils true Factors, so they resolutely Dyed in his
Service': the rest of the Coven also died 'without any confession or
contrition'.[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Hunt, vol. i]

[Footnote 4: Bede, Bk. II, ch. xv.]

[Footnote 5: Strabo, _Geography_, Bk. IV, c. iv, 6.]

[Footnote 6: Dionysius, _Periegetes_, ll. 1120-5.]

[Footnote 7: Thorpe, ii, pp. 32-4.]

[Footnote 8: Thorpe, i, p. 41.]

[Footnote 9: Id., ii, p. 157 seq.]

[Footnote 10: Id., ii, pp. 299, 303.]

[Footnote 11: Scot, p. 66.--Lea, iii, p. 493.]

[Footnote 12: Thorpe, i, p. 169.]

[Footnote 13: Id., i, p. 203.]

[Footnote 14: Id., ii, p. 249.]

[Footnote 15: Frith = brushwood, splot = plot of ground; sometimes used for
'splotch, splash'.]

[Footnote 16: Thorpe, i, pp. 311, 323, 351.]

[Footnote 17: Id., i, p. 379.]

[Footnote 18: _Chronicles of Lanercost_, p. 109, ed. Stevenson.]

[Footnote 19: Rymer, ii, 934.]

[Footnote 20: Bournon, p. 23.]

[Footnote 21: De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 124, 125, 126, 135, 208, 458.]

[Footnote 22: Bodin, _Fleau_, p. 373.]

[Footnote 23: Bourignon, _Parole_, p. 87.--Hale, p. 27.]

[Footnote 24: _Full Tryals of Notorious Witches_, p. 8.]

[Footnote 25: _Records of the Justiciary Court of Edinburgh_, ii, p.
14.--Arnot, p. 359.]

[Footnote 26: _Witches of Northamptonshire_, p. 8.]

II. THE GOD

1. _As God_

It is impossible to understand the witch-cult without first understanding
the position of the chief personage of that cult. He was known to the
contemporary Christian judges and recorders as the Devil, and was called by
them Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Foul Fiend, the Enemy of Salvation, and
similar names appropriate to the Principle of Evil, the Devil of the
Scriptures, with whom they identified him.

This was far from the view of the witches themselves. To them this
so-called Devil was God, manifest and incarnate; they adored him on their
knees, they addressed their prayers to him, they offered thanks to him as
the giver of food and the necessities of life, they dedicated their
children to him, and there are indications that, like many another god, he
was sacrificed for the good of his people.

The contemporary writers state in so many words that the witches believed
in the divinity of their Master. Danaeus, writing in 1575, says, 'The
Diuell co[~m]aundeth them that they shall acknowledge him for their god,
cal vp[~o] him, pray to him, and trust in him.--Then doe they all repeate
the othe which they haue geuen vnto him; in acknowledging him to be their
God.'[27] Gaule, in 1646, nearly a century later, says that the witches vow
'to take him [the Devil] for their God, worship, invoke, obey him'.[28]

The witches are even more explicit, and their evidence proves the belief
that their Master was to them their God. The accusation against Elisabeth
Vlamyncx of Alost, 1595, was that 'vous n'avez pas eu honte de vous
agenouiller devant votre Belzebuth, que vous avez adore'.[29] The same
accusation was made against Marion Grant of Aberdeen, 1596, that 'the
Deuill quhome thow callis thy god ... causit the worship him on thy kneis
as thy lord'.[30] De Lancre (1609) records, as did all the Inquisitors,
the actual words of the witches; when they presented a young child, they
fell on their knees and said, 'Grand Seigneur, lequel i'adore', and when
the child was old enough to join the society she made her vow in these
words: 'Ie me remets de tout poinct en ton pouuoir & entre tes mains, ne
recognois autre Dieu: si bien que tu es mon Dieu'.[31] Silvain Nevillon,
tried at Orleans in 1614, said, 'On dit au Diable nous vous recognoissons
pour nostre maistre, nostre Dieu, nostre Createur'.[32] The Lancashire
witch, Margaret Johnson, 1633, said: 'There appeared vnto her a spirit or
divell in the similitude and proportion of a man. And the said divell or
spirit bidd her call him by the name of Mamillion. And saith, that in all
her talke and conferense shee calleth her said Divell Mamillion, my
god.'[33] According to Madame Bourignon, 1661, 'Persons who were thus
engaged to the Devil by a precise Contract, will allow no other God but
him'.[34] Isobel Gowdie confessed that 'he maid vs beliew that ther wes no
God besyd him.--We get all this power from the Divell, and when ve seik it
from him, ve call him "owr Lord".--At each tyme, quhan ve wold meitt with
him, we behoowit to ryse and mak our curtesie; and we wold say, "Ye ar
welcom, owr Lord," and "How doe ye, my Lord."'[35] The Yorkshire witch,
Alice Huson, 1664, stated that the Devil 'appeared like a _Black Man_ upon
a Black Horse, with Cloven Feet; and then I fell down, and did Worship him
upon my Knees'.[36] Ann Armstrong in Northumberland, 1673, gave a good deal
of information about her fellow witches: 'The said Ann Baites hath severall
times danced with the divell att the places aforesaid, calling him,
sometimes, her protector, and, other sometimes, her blessed saviour.--She
saw Forster, Dryden, and Thompson, and the rest, and theire protector,
which they call'd their god, sitting at the head of the table.--When this
informer used meanes to avoyd theire company, they threatned her, if she
would not turne to theire god, the last shift should be the worst.'[37] At
Crighton, 1678, the Devil himself preached to the witches, 'and most
blasphemously mocked them, if they offered to trust in God who left them
miserable in the world, and neither he nor his Son Jesus Christ ever
appeared to them when they called on them, as he had, who would not cheat
them'.[38] Even in America, 1692, Mary Osgood, the wife of Capt. Osgood,
declared that 'the devil told her he was her God, and that she should serve
and worship him'.[39]

Prayers were addressed to the Master by his followers, and in some
instances the prayer was taught by him. Alice Gooderidge of Stapenhill in
Derbyshire, 1597, herself a witch and the daughter of a witch, was charged
by Sir Humphrey Ferrers 'with witchcraft about one Michael's Cow: which Cow
when shee brake all thinges that they tied her in, ranne to this Alice
Gooderige her house, scraping at the walls and windowes to haue come in:
her olde mother Elizabeth Wright, tooke vpon her to help; vpon condition
that she might haue a peny to bestow vpon her god, and so she came to the
mans house kneeled downe before the Cow, crossed her with a sticke in the
forehead, and prayed to her god, since which time the Cow continued
wel'.[40] Antide Colas, 1598, confessed that 'Satan luy commada de le prier
soir & matin, auant qu'elle s'addonnat a faire autre oeuure'.[41] Elizabeth
Sawyer, the witch of Edmonton, 1621, was taught by the Devil; 'He asked of
me to whom I prayed, and I answered him to Iesus Christ, and he charged me
then to pray no more to Iesus Christ, but to him the Diuell, and he the
Diuell taught me this prayer, _Sanctibecetur nomen tuum_, Amen'.[42] Part
of the dittay against Jonet Rendall, an Orkney witch, 1629, was that 'the
devill appeirit to you, Quhom ye called Walliman.--Indyttit and accusit for
y^t of your awne confessioune efter ye met your Walliman upoun the hill ye
cam to Williame Rendalls hous quha haid ane seik hors and promeised to
haill him if he could geve yow tua penneys for everie foot, And haveing
gottin the silver ye hailled the hors be praying to your Walliman, Lykeas
ye have confest that thair is nather man nor beast sick that is not tane
away be the hand of God bot for almis ye ar able to cur it be praying to
your Walliman, and yt thair is nane yt geves yow almis bot they will thryve
ather be sea or land it ye pray to yor Walliman'.[43] The witches of East
Anglia, 1645, also prayed; '_Ellen_ the wife of _Nicholas Greenleife_ of
_Barton_ in _Suffolke_, confessed, that when she prayed she prayed to the
Devill and not to God.--_Rebecca West_ confessed that her mother prayed
constantly (and, as the world thought, very seriously), but she said it was
to the devil, using these words, _Oh my God, my God_, meaning him and not
the LORD.'[44]

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