BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT.
A witch was regarded by our fathers as a person who had made an actual,
deliberate, and formal contract with Satan, by which contract it was
agreed that the party should become his faithful subject, and do
whatever should be required in promoting his cause. And in
consideration of this allegiance and service, he, on his part, agreed
to exercise his supernatural powers in the person's behalf. It was
considered as a transfer of allegiance from God to the devil. The
agreement being concluded, Satan bestows some trifling sum of money to
bind the bargain; then, cutting or pricking a finger causes the
individual to sign his or her name, or make the mark of a cross, with
their own blood, on a piece of parchment. In addition to this
signature, in some places, the devil made the witches put one hand to
the crown of their head, and the other to the sole of the foot,
signifying they were entirely his. Before the devil quits his new
subject, he delivers to her or him an imp or familiar, and sometimes
two or three. They are of different shapes and forms, some resembling a
cat, others a mole, a miller fly, spider, or some other insect or
animal. These are to come at bidding, to do such mischief as the witch
may command, and, at stated times of the day, suck the blood of the
witch, through teats, on different parts of the body. Feeding,
suckling, or rewarding these imps was, by law, declared _felony_.
Sometimes a witch, in company with others of the fraternity, is carried
through the air on brooms or spits, to distant meetings or Sabbaths of
witches. But for this they must anoint themselves with a certain
magical ointment given them by the devil. Lord Bacon, in his
philosophical works, gives a recipe for the manufacture of an ointment
that enabled witches to fly in the air. It was composed of the fat of
children, digged out of their graves, and of the juices of smaltage,
cinquefoil, and wolfsbane, mixed with meal of fine wheat. After
greasing themselves with this preparation, the witches flew up chimney,
and repaired to the spot in some graveyard or dismal forest, where they
were to hold their meetings with the evil one. At these meetings they
have feasting and dancing, the devil himself sometimes condescending to
play on the great fiddle, pipe, or harp. When the meeting breaks up,
they all have the honor of kissing his majesty, who for that ceremony
usually assumes the form of a he goat.
Witches showed their spite by causing the object of it to waste away in
a long and painful disease, with a sensation of thorns stuck in the
flesh. Sometimes they caused their victims to swallow pins, old nails,
dirt, and trash of all sorts, invisibly conveyed to them by their imps.
Frequently they showed their hate by drying up the milk of cows, or by
killing oxen. For slight offences they would prevent butter from coming
in the churn, or beer from working. Grace Greenwood says, that, on a
visit to Salem in the fall of 1850, she "was shown a vial of the
veritable bewitched pins with which divers persons were sorely pricked
by the wicked spite of certain witches and wizards."
It was believed that Satan affixed his mark or seal to the bodies of
those in allegiance with him, and that the spot where this mark was
made became callous and dead. In examining a witch upon trial, they
would pierce the body with pins, and if any spot was found insensible
to the torture, it was looked upon as ocular demonstration of guilt.
Another method to detect a witch, was to weigh her against the church
Bible. If she was guilty, the Bible would preponderate. Another was by
making her say the Lord's prayer, which no one actually possessed could
do correctly. A witch could not weep but three tears, and that only out
of the left eye; and this was considered by many an decisive proof of
guilt. But swimming was the most infallible ordeal. They were stripped
naked, and bound the right thumb to the left toe, and the left thumb to
the right toe. Being thus prepared, they were thrown into a pond or
river. If guilty, they could not sink; for having, by their compact
with the devil, renounced the water of baptism, that element renounces
them, and refuses to receive them into its bosom.
In 1664, a man by the name of Matthew Hopkins, in England, was
permitted to explore the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Huntingdon,
with a commission to discover witches, receiving twenty shillings from
each town he visited. Many persons were pitched upon, and through his
means convicted. At length, some gentlemen, out of indignation at his
barbarity, tied him in the same manner he had bound others, thumbs and
toes together, in which state, putting him in the water, he swam!
Standing condemned on his own principles, the country was rescued from
the power of his malicious imposition.
The subsequent illustration of the condition of religion less than two
hundred years ago will excite a few humbling thoughts. In the parish
register of Glammis, Scotland, June, 1676, is recorded--"Nae preaching
here this Lord's day, the minister being at Gortachy, burning a witch."
Forty thousand persons, it is said, were put to death for witchcraft in
England during the seventeenth century, and a much greater number in
Scotland, in proportion to its population.
In 1692, the whole population of Salem and vicinity were under the
influence of a terrible delusion concerning witchcraft. By yielding to
the sway of their credulous fancies, allowing their passions to be
worked up to a tremendous pitch of excitement, and running into
excesses of folly and violence, they have left a dark stain upon their
memory, that will awaken a sense of shame, pity, and amazement in the
minds of their latest posterity. The principal causes that led to their
delusion, and to the proceedings connected with it, were, a proneness
to superstition, owing in a great degree to an ignorance of natural
science, too great a dependence upon the imagination, and the power of
sympathy. In contemplating the errors and sufferings which ignorance of
philosophy and science brought upon our fathers, we should be led to
appreciate more gratefully, and to improve with more faithfulness, our
own opportunities to acquire wisdom and knowledge. But we would not be
understood as saying, that mere intellectual cultivation is sufficient
to banish every superstition. No. For who were ever better educated
than the ancient Greeks and Romans? And yet, who were ever more
influenced by a belief in signs, omens, spectres, and witches? We
believe that, when the gospel, in its purity and simplicity, shall shed
its divine light abroad, and pervade the hearts of men, superstition,
in all its dark and hideous forms, will recede, and vanish from the
world.
In concluding our remarks under this head, we would add that, in a
dictionary before us, a witch is designated as a woman, and _wizard_ as
a man, that pretends to some power whereby he or she can foretell
future events, cure diseases, call up or drive away spirits. The art
itself is called _witchcraft_. If this is a correct definition, witches
and wizards are quite a numerous class of people in society at the
present day; for there are many among us who presume to practise these
things.