Howat was presented to the Devil, he said, 'What shall I do with such a
little bairn as she?'[686] It is, however, rare to find child-witches in
Great Britain, therefore the rules concerning them are difficult to
discover.
Another rule appears to have been that there was no sexual connexion with a
pregnant woman. In the case of Isobel Elliot, the Devil 'offered to lie
with her, but forbore because she was with child; that after she was
_kirked_ the Devil often met her, and had _carnal copulation_ with
her'.[687]
Since the days of Reginald Scot it has been the fashion of all those
writers who disbelieved in the magical powers of witches to point to the
details of the sexual intercourse between the Devil and the witches as
proof positive of hysteria and hallucination. This is not the attitude of
mind of the recorders who heard the evidence at the trials. 'Les
confessions des Sorciers, que i'ay eu en main, me font croire qu'il en est
quelque chose: dautant qu'ils out tous recogneu, qu'ils auoient este
couplez auec le Diable, et que la semence qu'il iettoit estoit fort froide;
Ce qui est conforme a ce qu'en rapporte Paul Grilland, et les Inquisiteurs
de la foy.'[688] 'It pleaseth their new Maister oftentimes to offer
himselfe familiarly vnto them, to dally and lye with them, in token of
their more neere coniunction, and as it were marriage vnto him.'[689]
'_Witches_ confessing, so frequently as they do, that the Devil _lies with
them_, and withal complaining of his tedious and offensive _coldness_, it
is a shrewd presumption that he doth lie with them _indeed_, and that it is
not a meer _Dream_.'[690]
It is this statement of the physical coldness of the Devil which modern
writers adduce to prove their contention that the witches suffered from
hallucination. I have shown above (pp. 61 seq.) that the Devil was often
masked and his whole person covered with a disguise, which accounts for
part of the evidence but not for all, and certainly not for the most
important item. For in trial after trial, in places far removed from one
another and at periods more than a century apart, the same fact is vouched
for with just the small variation of detail which shows the actuality of
the event. This is that, when the woman admitted having had sexual
intercourse with the Devil, in a large proportion of cases she added, 'The
Devil was cold and his seed likewise.' These were women of every class and
every age, from just above puberty to old women of over seventy, unmarried,
married, and widows. It is unscientific to disbelieve everything, as Scot
does, and it is equally unscientific to label all the phenomena as the
imagination of hysterical women. By the nature of things the whole of this
evidence rests only on the word of the women, but I have shown above (pp.
63-5) that there were cases in which the men found the Devil cold, and
cases in which the women found other parts of the Devil's person to be cold
also. Such a mass of evidence cannot be ignored, and in any other subject
would obtain credence at once. But the hallucination-theory, being the
easiest, appears to have obsessed the minds of many writers, to the
exclusion of any attempt at explanation from an unbiassed point of view.
Students of comparative and primitive religion have explained the custom of
sacred marriages as an attempt to influence the course of nature by magic,
the people who practise the rite believing that thereby all crops and herds
as well as the women were rendered fertile, and that barrenness was
averted. This accounts very well for the occurrence of 'obscene rites'
among the witches, but fails when it touches the question of the Devil's
coldness. I offer here an explanation which I believe to be the true one,
for it accounts for all the facts; those facts which the women confessed
voluntarily and without torture or fear of punishment, like Isobel Gowdie,
or adhered to as the truth even at the stake amid the flames, like Jane
Bosdeau.
In ancient times the Sacred Marriage took place usually once a year; but
besides this ceremony there were other sexual rites which were not
celebrated at a fixed season, but might be performed in the precincts of
the temple of a god or goddess at any time, the males being often the
priests or temple officials. These are established facts, and it is not
too much to suppose that the witches' ceremonies were similar. But if the
women believed that sexual intercourse with the priests would increase
fertility, how much more would they believe in the efficacy of such
intercourse with the incarnate God of fertility himself. They would insist
upon it as their right, and it probably became compulsory at certain
seasons, such as the breeding periods of the herds or the sowing and
reaping periods of the crops. Yet as the population and therefore the
number of worshippers in each 'congregation' increased, it would become
increasingly difficult and finally impossible for one man to comply with
the requirements of so many women.[691] The problem then was that on the
one hand there were a number of women demanding what was in their eyes a
thing essential for themselves and their families, and on the other a man
physically unable to satisfy all the calls upon him. The obvious solution
of the problem is that the intercourse between the Chief and the women was
by artificial means, and the evidence in the trials points clearly to this
solution.
Artificial phalli are well known in the remains of ancient civilizations.
In ancient Egypt it was not uncommon to have statues of which the phallus
was of a different material from the figure, and so made that it could be
removed from its place and carried in procession. The earliest of such
statues are the colossal limestone figures of the fertility-god Min found
at Koptos, dating to the first dynasty, perhaps B.C. 5500.[692] But similar
figures are found at every period of Egyptian history, and a legend was
current at the time of Plutarch to account for this usage as well as for
the festival of the Phallephoria.[693] Unless the phallus itself were the
object of adoration there would be no reason to carry it in procession as a
religious ceremony, and it is easily understandable that such a cult would
commend itself chiefly to women.[694]
The phallus of a divine statue was not always merely for adoration and
carrying in procession; the Roman bride sacrificed her virginity to the god
Priapus as a sacred rite. This is probably the remains of a still more
ancient custom when the god was personated by a man and not by an image.
The same custom remained in other parts of the world as the _jus primae
noctis_, which was held as an inalienable right by certain kings and other
divine personages. As might be expected, this custom obtained also among
the witches.
'Le Diable faict des mariages au Sabbat entre les Sorciers &
Sorcieres, & leur joignant les mains, il leur dict hautement
Esta es buena parati
Esta parati lo toma.
Mais auant qu'ils couchent ensemble, il s'accouple auec elles, oste la
virginite des filles.'--Ieannette d'Abadie, aged sixteen, 's'accusoit
elle mesme d'auoir este depucellee par Satan.'[695]
The occasional descriptions of the Devil's phallus show without question
its artificial character:
In 1598 in Lorraine 'es sagte die Alexia Dragaea, ihre Bulschafft
haette einen [Glied] so starcken etc. allezeit gehabt, wenn ihm
gestanden, und so gross als ein Ofengabel-Stiel, dessgleichen sie
zugegen zeigte, denn ohngefehr eine Gabel zugegen war, sagte auch wie
sie kein Geleuth weder Hoden noch Beutel daran gemerckt hat'.[696]
'Iaquema Paget adioustoit, qu'elle auoit empoigne plusieurs fois auec
la main le membre du Demon, qui la cognoissoit, et que le membre
estoit froid comme glace, long d'vn bon doigt, & moindre en grosseur
que celuy d'vn homme. Tieuenne Paget et Antoine Tornier adioustoient
aussi, que le membre de leurs Demons estoit long et gros, comme l'vn
de leurs doigts.'[697] 'Il a au deuant son membre tire et pendant, &
le monstre tousiours long d'vn coudee.--Le membre du Demon est faict a
escailles comme vn poisson.--Le membre du Diable s'il estoit estendu
est long enuiron d'vne aulne, mais il le tient entortille et sinueux
en forme de serpent.--Le Diable, soit qu'il ayt la forme d'homme, ou
qu'il soit en forme de Bouc, a tousiours vn membre de mulet, ayant
choisy en imitation celuy de cet animal comme le mieux pourueu. Il l'a
long et gros comme le bras.--Le membre du Diable est long enuiron la
moitie d'vne aulne, de mediocre grosseur, rouge, obscur, & tortu, fort
rude & comme piquant.--Ce mauuais Demon ait son membre myparty, moitie
de fer, moitie de chair tout de son long, & de mesme les genitoires.
Il tient tousiours son membre dehors.--Le Diable a le membre faict de
corne, ou pour le moins il en a l'apparence: c'est pourquoy il faict
tant crier les femmes.--Jeannette d'Abadie dit qu'elle n'a iamais
senty, qu'il eust aucune semence, sauf quand il la depucella qu'elle
la sentit froide, mais que celle des autres hommes qui l'ont cognue,
est naturelle.'[698]
Sylvine de la Plaine, 1616, confessed 'qu'il a le membre faict comme vn
cheual, en entrant est froid comme glace, iette la semence fort froide, &
en sortant la brusle comme si c'estoit du feu'.[699] In 1662 Isobel Gowdie
said, 'His memberis ar exceiding great and long; no man's memberis ar so
long & bigg as they ar.'[700]
The artificial phallus will account as nothing else can for the pain
suffered by many of the women; and that they suffered voluntarily, and even
gladly, can only be understood by realizing that they endured it for
motives other than physical satisfaction and pleasure. 'There appeared a
great _Black Goat_ with a _Candle_ between his Horns.... He had carnal
knowledge of her which was with great pain.'[701] 'Presque toutes les
Sorcieres rapportent que cet accouplement leur est le plus souuent
des-agreable, tant pour la laideur & deformite de Satan, que pour ce
qu'elles y ont vne extreme douleur.[702] 'Elle fuyoit l'accouplement du
Diable, a cause qu'ayant son membre faict en escailles il fait souffrir vne
extresme douleur.'[703] At the Sabbath in the Basses-Pyrenees, the Devil
took the women behind some sort of screen, and the children 'les oyent
crier comme personnes qui souffrent vne grande douleur, et ils les voyent
aussi tost reuenir au Sabbat toutes sanglantes'.[704] As regards brides,
'En cet accouplement il leur faict perdre vne infinite de sang, et leur
faict souffrir mille douleurs.'[705] Widow Bush of Barton said that the
Devil, who came to her as a young black man, 'was colder than man, and
heavier, and could not performe nature as man.'[706]
The physical coldness of the Devil is vouched for in all parts of
Europe.[707]
'Toutes les Sorcieres s'accordent en cela, que la semence, qu'elles
recoiuent du Diable, est froide comme glace: Spranger & les
Inquisiteurs, qui en ont veu vne infinite, l'escriuent ainsi. Remy,
qui a fait le procez a plus de deux milles Sorciers, en porte vn
tesmoignage irrefragable. Ie puis asseurer au semblable, que celles,
qui me sont passees par les mains, en ont confesse tout autant. Que si
la semence est ainsi froide, il s'ensuit qu'elle est destituee de ses
esprits vitaux, & ainsi qu'elle ne peut estre cause d'aucune
generation.'[708]
Isobel Gowdie and Janet Breadheid of Auldearne both said that the Devil was
'a meikle, blak, roch man, werie cold; and I fand his nature als cold
within me as spring-well-water'. Isobel continues, 'He is abler for ws that
way than any man can be, onlie he ves heavie lyk a malt-sek; a hudg nature,
verie cold, as yce.'[709]
Another point which goes to prove that the intercourse was by artificial
means was that pregnancy did not follow, except by special consent of the
woman. Jeannette d'Abadie, aged sixteen, said, 'Elle fuyoit l'accouplement
du Diable, a cause qu'ayant son membre faict en escailles il fait souffrir
vne extresme douleur; outre que la semence est extresmement froide, si bien
qu'elle n'engrosse iamais, ni celle des autres hommes au sabbat, bien
qu'elle soit naturelle.'[710] Boguet remarks, 'Il me souuient,
qu'Antoinette Tornier, & Antoinette Gandillon, estans interroguees, si
elles craignoient point de deuenir enceintes des [oe]uures du Diable; l'vne
respondit qu'elle estoit trop vieille; l'autre que Dieu ne le vouloit pas
permettre.'[711] According to Jeanne Hervillier, the Devil 'coucha auec
elle charnellement, en la mesme sorte & maniere que font les hommes auec
les femmes, horsmis que la semence estoit froide. Cele dit elle continua
tous les huict ou quinze iours.... Et vn iour le diable luy demanda, si
elle vouloit estre enceinte de luy, ce qu'elle ne voulut pas.'[712] But
when the witch was willing to have a child, it is noticeable that there is
then no complaint of the Devil's coldness. At Maidstone in 1652 'Anne
Ashby, Anne Martyn, and one other of their Associates, pleaded that they
were with child pregnant, but confessed it was not by any man, but by the
Divell.... Anne Ashby and Anne Martyn confessed that the Divell had known
them carnally, and that they had no hurt by it.'[713]
The Devil appears to have donned or doffed his disguise in the presence of
his worshippers, and this was often the case at the time of the sexual
rites, whether public or private:
'Il cognoist les Sorcieres tantost en forme d'homme tout noir, &
tantost en forme de beste, comme d'vn chien, d'vn chat, d'vn bouc,
d'vn mouton. Il cognoissoit Thieuenne Paget, & Antoine Tornier en
forme d'vn homme noir: Et lors qu'il accouploit auec Iaquema Paget, &
Antoine Gandillon, il prenoit la figure d'vn mouton noir, portant des
cornes. Francoise Secretain a dit que son Demon se mettoit tantost en
chien, tantost en chat, et tantost en poule, quand il la vouloit
cognoistre charnellement. Or tout cecy me fait de tant mieux asseurer
l'accouplement reel du Sorcier, & de la Sorciere auec le Demon.'[714]
In the Basses-Pyrenees Marie d'Aspilcouette 'disoit le mesme, pour ce qui
est du membre en escailles, mais elle deposoit, que lors qu'il les vouloit
cognoistre, il quitoit la forme de Bouc, & prenoit celle d'homme.'[715] 'Il
entra dans sa chambre en forme d'ung chat et se changea en la posture d'un
home vestu de rouge.'[716] At an attempt to wreck a ship in a great storm
'the devil was there present with them all, in the shape of a great
horse.... They returned all in the same likeness as of before, except that
the devil was in the shape of a man.'[717] 'The Deivill apeired vnto her,
in the liknes of ane prettie boy in grein clothes.... And at that tyme the
Deivil gaive hir his markis; and went away from her in the liknes of ane
blak doug.'[718] 'He wold haw carnall dealling with ws in the shap of a
deir, or in any vther shap, now and then. Somtym he vold be lyk a stirk, a
bull, a deir, a rae, or a dowg, etc., and haw dealling with ws.'[719] 'Yow
the said Margaret Hamilton, relict of James Pullwart ... had carnall
cowpulatiown with the devil in the lyknes of ane man, bot he removed from
yow in the lyknes of ane black dowg.'[720] The most important instance is
in Boguet's description of the religious ceremony at the Sabbath:
'Finalement Satan apres auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc, se consume en feu,
& reduit en cendre.'[721]
The witches' habit of speaking of every person of the other sex with whom
they had sexual intercourse at the Sabbath as a 'devil' has led to much
confusion in the accounts. The confusion has been accentuated by the fact
that both male and female witches often used a disguise, or were at least
veiled. 'Et pource que les hommes ne cedent guieres aux femmes en
lubricite, c'est pourquoy le Demon se met aussi en femme ou Succube.... Ce
qu'il fait principalement au Sabbat, selon que l'ont rapporte Pierre
Gandillon, & George Gandillon, pere & fils, & les autres, lesquels disent
tout vnanimement, qu'en leurs assemblees il y a plusieurs Demons, & que les
vns exercent le mestier de l'homme pour les femmes, & les autres le mestier
des femmes pour les hommes.'[722] 'The Incubus's in the shapes of proper
men satisfy the desires of the Witches, and the Succubus's serve for Whores
to the Wizards.'[723] Margaret Johnson said the same: 'Their spirittes
vsuallie have knowledge of theire bodies.... Shee also saith, that men
Witches usualie have woemen spirittes and woemen witches men
spirittes.'[724] The girls under Madame Bourignon's charge 'declared that
they had daily carnal Cohabitation with the Devil; that they went to the
Sabbaths or Meetings, where they Eat, Drank, Danc'd, and committed other
Whoredom and Sensualities. Every one had her Devil in form of a Man; and
the Men had their Devils in the form of a Woman.... They 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; I am always
Caressed._'[725] One girl of twelve said definitely that she knew the Devil
very well, 'that he was a Boy a little bigger than her self; and that he
was her Love, and lay with her every Night'; and another girl named Bellot,
aged fifteen, 'said her Mother had taken her with her [to the Sabbath] when
she was very Young, and that being a little Wench, this Man-Devil was then
a little Boy too, and grew up as she did, having been always her Love, and
Caressed her Day and Night.'[726] Such connexions sometimes resulted in
marriage. Gaule mentions this fact in his general account: 'Oft times he
marries them ere they part, either to himselfe, or their Familiar, or to
one another; and that by the Book of Common Prayer (as a pretender to
witchfinding lately told me in the Audience of many).'[727] This statement
is borne out in the trials: 'Agnes Theobalda sagte, sie sey selbst zugegen
auff der Hochzeit gewesen, da Cathalina und Engel von Hudlingen, ihren
Beelzebub zur Ehe genommen haben.'[728] The Devil of Isobel Ramsay's Coven
was clearly her husband,[729] but there is nothing to show whether the
marriage took place before she became a witch, as in the case of Janet
Breadheid of Auldearne, whose husband 'enticed her into that craft'.[730] I
have quoted above (p. 179) the ceremony at the marriage of witches in the
Basses-Pyrenees. Rebecca Weste, daughter of a witch, married the Devil by
what may be a primitive rite; he came to her 'as shee was going to bed, and
told her, he would marry her, and that shee could not deny him; shee said
he kissed her, but was as cold as clay, and married her that night, in this
manner; he tooke her by the hand and lead her about the chamber, and
promised to be her loving husband till death, and to avenge her of her
enemies; and that then shee promised him to be his obedient wife till
death, and to deny God, and Christ Jesus.'[731] At Edinburgh in 1658 a
young woman called Anderson was tried: 'her confessioun was, that scho did
marry the devill.'[732] The Swedish witches in 1670 confessed that at
Blockula 'the Devil had Sons and Daughters which he did marry
together'.[733] Giraldus Cambrensis gives an account of a 'spirit' in the
form of a red-haired young man, called Simon, who 'was begotten upon the
wife of a rustic in that parish, by a demon, in the shape of her husband,
naming the man, and his father-in-law, then dead, and his mother, still
alive; the truth of which the woman upon examination openly avowed'.[734]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 664: Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 206; Glanvil, pt. ii, p. 301.]
[Footnote 665: Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 207.]
[Footnote 666: J. G. Campbell, pp. 293-4. The book was in manuscript, and
when last heard of was in the possession of the now-extinct Stewarts of
Invernahyle.]
[Footnote 667: _Spalding Club Misc._, i, p. 143.]
[Footnote 668: Pitcairn, iii, p. 603. 'Toads did draw the plough as oxen,
couch-grass was the harness and trace-chains, a gelded animal's horn was
the coulter, and a piece of a gelded animal's horn was the sock.']
[Footnote 669: Ravaisson, 1679-81, p. 336.]
[Footnote 670: Burns Begg, p. 224.]
[Footnote 671: Reg. Scot, Bk. III, p. 60.]
[Footnote 672: Id., Bk. III, p. 60.]
[Footnote 673: More, p. 168.]
[Footnote 674: _Spalding Club Misc._, i, p. 93.]
[Footnote 675: Boguet, p. 211.]
[Footnote 676: R. Scot, p. 77.]
[Footnote 677: Bodin, pp. 125-7.]
[Footnote 678: Bourignon, _Vie_, pp. 222-3; Hale, pp. 37-8.]
[Footnote 679: Glanvil, pt. ii, p. 301.]
[Footnote 680: Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 206.]
[Footnote 681: Bodin, p. 465.]
[Footnote 682: Id., p. 465. The trial was in 1545, Magdalene being then
forty-two. See also _Pleasant Treatise_, p. 6.]
[Footnote 683: Id., p. 227.]
[Footnote 684: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 183.]
[Footnote 685: De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 145, 398.]
[Footnote 686: Kinloch, p. 124.]
[Footnote 687: Arnot, p. 360.]
[Footnote 688: Boguet, p. 68.]
[Footnote 689: Cooper, p. 92.]
[Footnote 690: More, p. 241.]
[Footnote 691: 'The Deuill your maister, beand in liknes of ane beist, haid
carnall [deal] with ilk ane of you.'--_Spalding Club Misc._, i, p. 149.]
[Footnote 692: Petrie, pp. 7-9; Capart, p. 223.]
[Footnote 693: Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, xviii, 5.]
[Footnote 694: On the other hand, the female generative organs were also
adored, and presumably by men. This suggestion is borne out by the figures
of women with the pudenda exposed and often exaggerated in size. Such
figures are found in Egypt, where they were called Baubo, and a legend was
invented to account for the attitude; and similar figures were actually
known in ancient Christian churches (Payne Knight, _Discourse on the
Worship of Priapus_).]
[Footnote 695: De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 132, 404.]
[Footnote 696: Remigius, pt. i, p. 19.]
[Footnote 697: Boguet, pp. 68-9.]
[Footnote 698: De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 68, 224-6.]
[Footnote 699: Id., _L'Incredulite_, p. 808.]
[Footnote 700: Pitcairn, iii, p. 610.]
[Footnote 701: F. Hutchinson, _Historical Essays_, p. 42.]
[Footnote 702: Boguet, p. 69.]
[Footnote 703: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 132.]
[Footnote 704: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 219.]
[Footnote 705: Id. ib., p. 404.]
[Footnote 706: Stearne, p. 29.]
[Footnote 707: The following references are in chronological order, and are
only a few out of the many trials in which this coldness of the Devil is
noted: 1565, Cannaert, p. 54; 1567, De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 132; 1578,
Bodin, _Fleau_, p. 227; 1590, Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 219; 1598, Boguet,
_op. cit._, pp. 8, 412; 1645, Stearne, p. 29; 1649, Pitcairn, iii, p. 599;
1652, Van Elven, _La Tradition_, 1891, v, p. 215; 1661, Kinloch and Baxter,
p. 132; 1662, Pitcairn, iii, pp. 603, 611, 617; 1662, Burns Begg, x, pp.
222, 224, 231-2, 234; 1678, Fountainhall, i, p. 14; 1682, Howell, viii.
1032; 1705, _Trials of Elinor Shaw_, p. 6.]
[Footnote 708: Boguet, p. 92.]
[Footnote 709: Pitcairn, iii, pp. 603, 611, 617.]
[Footnote 710: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 132.]
[Footnote 711: Boguet, p. 78.]
[Footnote 712: Bodin, p. 227.]
[Footnote 713: _A Prodigious and Tragicall Historie_, pp. 4, 5.]
[Footnote 714: Boguet, p. 70.]
[Footnote 715: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 225.]
[Footnote 716: H. G. van Elven, _La Tradition_, 1891, v, p. 215. Place and
names not given.]
[Footnote 717: Kinloch, pp. 122, 123.]
[Footnote 718: Pitcairn, iii, p. 601.]
[Footnote 719: Id., iii, pp. 611, 613.]
[Footnote 720: _Scots Magazine_, 1817, p. 201.]
[Footnote 721: Boguet, p. 141.]
[Footnote 722: Id., p. 65.]
[Footnote 723: _Pleasant Treatise of Witches_, p. 6. The remembrance of the
numerous male devils at the Sabbath survives in the Samalsain dance in the
Basses-Pyrenees, where the male attendants on the King and Queen of the
dance are still called Satans. Moret, _Mysteres Egyptiens_, p. 247.]
[Footnote 724: Baines, i, pp. 607-8, note.]
[Footnote 725: Bourignon, _Parole_, pp. 86, 87; Hale, pp. 26, 27.]
[Footnote 726: Id., _Vie_, p. 211, 214; Hale, pp. 29, 31.]
[Footnote 727: Gaule, p. 63.]
[Footnote 728: Remigius, p. 131.]
[Footnote 729: Record of Trial in the Edinburgh Justiciary Court.]
[Footnote 730: Pitcairn, iii, p. 616.]
[Footnote 731: Howell, iv, 842.]
[Footnote 732: Nicoll's Diary, p. 212. _Bannatyne Club._]