The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology. Margaret Alice Murray
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Hunt, vol. i
[4] Bede, Bk. II, ch. xv.
[5] Strabo, Geography, Bk. IV, c. iv, 6.
[6] Dionysius, Periegetes, ll. 1120–5.
[7] Thorpe, ii, pp. 32–4.
[8] Thorpe, i, p. 41.
[9] Id., ii, p. 157 seq.
[10] Id., ii, pp. 299, 303.
[11] Scot, p. 66.—Lea, iii, p. 493.
[12] Thorpe, i, p. 169.
[13] Id., i, p. 203.
[14] Id., ii, p. 249.
[15] Frith = brushwood, splot = plot of ground; sometimes used for 'splotch, splash'.
[16] Thorpe, i, pp. 311, 323, 351.
[17] Id., i, p. 379.
[18] Chronicles of Lanercost, p. 109, ed. Stevenson.
[19] Rymer, ii, 934.
[20] Bournon, p. 23.
[21] De Lancre, Tableau, pp. 124, 125, 126, 135, 208, 458.
[22] Bodin, Fléau, p. 373.
[23] Bourignon, Parole, p. 87.—Hale, p. 27.
[24] Full Tryals of Notorious Witches, p. 8.
[25] Records of the Justiciary Court of Edinburgh, ii, p. 14.—Arnot, p. 359.
[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 com̃aundeth them that they shall acknowledge him for their god, cal vpõ 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 adoré'.[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