The History of the Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Margaret Murray
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-Pyrénées, 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:
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