De Diuinatione Daemonum, written 406–11. Migne, Patres Latini, XL, pp. 581–92. ↩
Saturday, however, was always particularly avoided as being the day sacred to the Immaculate Mother of God. See my History of Witchcraft, c. IV, pp. 115–16. ↩
Doctor of the Church, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, born at Ravenna 1007; died at Faenza, 21 February, 1072. His works, which have been more than once collected, may be conveniently found in Migne, Patres Latini, CXLIV–CXLV. ↩
Daniel 14:32–38:
32. Now there was in Judea a prophet called Habacuc, and he had boiled pottage, and had broken bread in a bowl: and was going into the field, to carry it to the reapers.
33. And the angel of the Lord said to Habacuc: Carry the dinner which thou hast into Babylon to Daniel, who is in the lions’ den.
34. And Habacuc said: Lord, I never saw Babylon, nor do I know the den.
35. And the angel of the Lord took him by the top of his head, and carried him by the hair on his head, and set him in Babylon over the den in the force of his spirit.
36. And Habacuc cried, saying: O Daniel, thou servant of God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee.
37. And Daniel said: Thou hast remembered me, O God, and thou hast not forsaken them that love thee.
38. And Daniel arose and ate. And the angel of the Lord presently set Habacuc again in his own place. ↩
Henry Boguet, Discours des Sorciers, Lyons, 1590, XVI, 4, points out that this flying ointment is of itself useless. The actual formulae for its confection have been preserved and the employment thereof is to be considered, say most demonologists, as a piece of vain and empty ceremony of Satan, yet more to delude his votaries. ↩
Bishop of Auxerre, born circa 380; died at Ravenna, 31 July, 448. His body was brought back to Auxerre, and later there arose the celebrated Benedictine Abbey known as St. Germain’s. ↩
Exodus 20:5; 34:7. ↩
These Pagan practices are sternly reprobated in the Liber Poenitentialis of S. Theodore, seventh Archbishop of Canterbury. In Book XXXVII is written: “If anyone at the Kalends of January goeth about as a stag or a bull-calf, that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing in the skins of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beast; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, let them do penance for three years, because this is devilish.” See my Geography of Witchcraft, Chap. II, pp. 65–73. The Council of Auxerre in 578 (or 585) forbade anyone “to masquerade as a bull-calf or a stag on the first of January or to distribute devilish charms.” ↩
It is not unusual for Satanists to go to Holy Communion in various churches of a town, and instead of consuming the Host they spit God’s Body from their mouths into a handkerchief or cloth and take it away to abuse in their horrid worship. In the notorious case of the Lancashire witches, at the first trial, 1612, James Device confessed “that upon Sheare Thursday was two yeares, his Grandmother Elizabeth Southernes alias Demdike, did bid him this Examinate goe to the Church to receive the Communion (they next day after being Good Friday), and then not to eate the Bread the Minister gave him, but to bring it and deliver it to such a thing as should meet him in his way homewards; Notwithstanding her perswasions this Examinate did eate the Bread: and so in his comming homeward some fortie roodes off the said Church, there met him a thing in the shape of a Hare, who spoke unto this Examinate, and asked him whether he had brought the Bread.”
The toad constantly appears as a familiar. In 1579 at Windsor “one Mother Dutton dwellyng in Cleworthe Parishe keepeth a Spirite or Feende in the likenesses of a Toade, and fedeth the same Feende liying in a border of greene Hearbes, within her garden, with blood whiche she causeth to issue from her owne flancke.” Ursley Kemp, a S. Osyth witch (1582), had a familiar, Pygine, “black like a Toad.” Ales Hunt of the same coven nourished two familiars, “the which she kept in a little lowe earthen pot.” Margerie Sammon, another S. Osyth’s witch, “hath also two spirites like Toades, the one called ‘Tom,’ and the other ‘Robbyn.’ ” When Ursley Kemp peeped through Mother Hunt’s window she “espied a spirite to looke out of a porcharde from under a clothe, the nose thereof being brown like unto a Ferret.” ↩
These practices still survive. ↩
Formicarius, c. III. ↩
De Consolatione Philosophiae, Liber I, Prosa II. “Atqui talia contuleramus arma, quae nisi prius abiecisses, inuicta te firmitate tuerentur.” ↩
Daniel 4:30: “The same hour the word was fulfilled
