worse than trafficking with the Devil, so the death penalty had to take the most hideous form imaginable, affording the mob - whose hysteria effectively blanked out the uniquely abominable stench of roasting flesh - the ultimate delight of witnessing the living hell of another human being. Some witches were disembowelled before being tied to the stake, and, incredibly, even then they sometimes survived long enough to suffer an hour or so of the flames.
Many children died in the fires, being `imps of Satan', and one woman was burnt because she had given birth to the Devil's child. A French woman gave birth while writhing in the flames, and somehow managed to throw the living baby clear of the inferno. The crowd threw it back.
As the madness swallowed whole swathes of Europe (before being transplanted across the Atlantic to the New World), the accusations became more surreal. A cockerel was immolated for crowing at an inappropriate time (although in fact cocks do crow at all hours of the day, as the accusers must have known full well) - obviously a tool of Satan - and a horse met a fiery end for having been taught how to count by pawing the ground, which was clearly sorcery. But it was on the whole stinking human fat that coated the walls of dwellings in many a village.
In England the preferred method of despatching witches was hanging, in itself something of a craze as the over-zealous Protestant `Witchfinder General' Matthew Hopkins took command in the seventeenth century. In Scotland, though, witches were usually burnt, the last one to meet such an end being in 1727, although unofficially there were later examples. Even the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, declared `The giving up of [belief in] witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible.'-`-
Wesley would be pleased - a belief in witchcraft is still alive and well, especially among fundamentalists who view liberals, freethinkers, most other religions and, of course, all pagans as no better than outright Satanists. Legally, however, the situation has changed, although the end of the mass persecution of witches was signalled by the execution of Alice Molland at Exeter in 1684, and the conviction of Jane Walhern in Herefordshire in 1712. However, an interesting potential postscript was suggested by a letter in the Daily Mail of 9 December 2004 in response to a reader's query about the meaning of an inscription on a tombstone in the old churchyard at Pitsea Mount, near Basildon in Essex, which reads: `Ann Freeman, died 20th March 1879. Here lies a weak and sinful worm, the vilest of her race, saved through God's electing love, his free and sovereign grace.' Essex man Neil Fisher responded: `.. . local legend has it that the damning inscription ... reflects the fact that Ann Freeman was the last witch to be tried and put to death in England ...' He adds: `For such poignant and powerful words to be put upon a person's place of rest must have been testimony to some alleged evil commitment.' Perhaps the key is the simple word `alleged'. In any case, she seems to have repented and been `saved', presumably at the last moment, which is doubtless why she is buried in holy ground. But this poses the question: how many more `last witches' were there, recorded or unrecorded? How many more are still to suffer? If the firebombing of a pagan bookshop - which also stocked works on Christian mysticism - in the north of England by fundamentalists in the 1980s had resulted in deaths, would they have been the last witches to be `executed' in Britain?
In fact, the last woman to be arrested under the 1735 Witchcraft Act in Britain was Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan in 1944. Summers spoke for many churchmen (even in the twentyfirst century) when he declared: `Camouflage it how you will, Spiritualism and its kindred superstition ... [is not a] 'new religion' . . . but the old Witchcraft' .117 The case of Mrs Duncan, which is complicated by evidence of the involvement of British Intelligence, unfortunately lies outside this investigation 1`8 but suffice it to say that Summers' righteous fulmination about the `superstition' and `charlatanism' of Spiritualism sits uncomfortably with one who accepts without question the authenticity of religious relics and the miracles of the saints.
Having examined the Church's genocide of the Cathars, and its three-century gender-genocide of the witches, it is time to turn to the men who are believed to have made a pact with the Devil, to have sold their souls for material gain and power. But, like the vast majority of the witches, are these also merely misunderstood and maligned?
CHAPTER FIVE
Pacts, Possession and Seance Rooms
While on the whole it was poor uneducated women rather than rich learned men who fell foul of the witch hunters, history abounds with tales - many of them near-apocryphal - about scholarly male sorcerers who sought to traffic with the Devil. But like the illiterate women, many of these men were caught up in a hysteria that engulfed the guilty and innocent alike, and with a dire inevitability they paid the ultimate price.
Undoubtedly, however, there were also serious seekers after all knowledge - most of it being forbidden by the authorities - whose craving for information took them into the murkiest of spiritual byways. These were often solitary men with a reputation for magic who were not above summoning the Devil himself in order to sign a pact in their own blood, one of the more colourful aspects of witchcraft and sorcery.
The pedigree of the pact is perhaps not as old as one might imagine, dating back to two stories that circulated among Christendom as late as the fifth and sixth centuries. The hugely influential Church Father, Saint Jerome, was responsible for the first, the story of Saint Basil, retold by Hincmar of Reims in the ninth century,' which goes like this: a man lusting after an attractive girl visits a sorcerer who arranges for him to make a pact with Satan - basically, the girl is his if he sells his soul. Emissaries of the Evil One duly appear and take him into the Presence. Satan asks in a blasphemous parody of the Christian baptism: `Do you believe in me?' Raging testosterone clearly obliterating common sense, the man responds eagerly: `Yes, I do believe.' He is then asked: `Do you renounce Christ?' He acquiesces: `I do renounce him'. But the Devil refuses to be duped, saying: `You Christians always come to me when you need help but then try to repent later, presuming on the mercy of Christ. I want you to sign up in writing.'
The deal is done and the girl falls helplessly for the newly fledged Satanist, seeking permission to marry him from her father. Unfortunately, as he has ambitions for her to enter a convent, he refuses. Before they embark upon a sinful liaison the young man comes to his senses and the story of the pact leaks out. In the nick of time, Saint Basil intervenes and the girl's honour remains unsullied.
The other influential pact story - which reached a huge audience across Europe over the course of 1,000 years, `fathering the Faust legend and indirectly influencing the Renaissance witch craze' - was that of Theophilus, a priest from Asia Minor who refused a bishopric only to suffer demotion at the hands of the incoming bishop. Furious at this unfair twist of fate, he consulted a Jewish sorcerer, who took him to a remote spot to meet the Devil. Theophilus agreed to enter Satan's service in return for his former position in the Church, signing a pact and kissing him as a token of his obeisance. Theophilus duly became rich and powerful, but ...
As everyone but the pact-signers themselves always seem to know, the deal can only ever end in the bitterest of tears. As agreed, demons turned up on the dot to claim the man's soul, although they were trounced. His terrified prayers had produced none other than the Virgin Mary, who fearlessly marched into Hell itself to retrieve the contract and return it to the sinner to be destroyed. The Virgin begged God for forgiveness for Theophilus, which was granted, and once again the Devil came out of the deal empty-handed.
However, while we would all no doubt congratulate the sinner on his lucky escape, the thought still occurs that it was the man, and not Satan, who proved himself a slippery customer - pact, what pact? Also, if the Devil is so cunning, why is he so often outsmarted by unremarkable mortals? It seems the trick is to sign the pact, enjoy all the advantages and then at the last moment appeal to the Virgin for help. And if Satan is so desperate for human souls, one would imagine he would at least create the illusion of a fabulously enticing end to the pact-signers' lives, instead of having the newcomers to Hell being seized by foul imps from the Pit.
As the tale of Theophilus spread, as Jeffrey Burton Russell notes, `it promoted anti-Semitism and the cult of Mary. More significant, it initiated the idea of the pact.'3 Similar legends did the rounds: such as the story of a student at St Andrews in Scotland who met a `minister' who assisted him in his academic work in return for a deal signed in blood. Even Sir Francis Drake was said to have used similar means with which to defeat the Spanish Armada. In discussing the farcical element in many of these tales, Russell tells the story of a knight
who promised to give the Devil his soul if ever he came to a town called Mouffle. The knight, confident that no such town existed, felt perfectly secure. The knight turned to the religious life, became a monk, and finally rose
