by the
confessions of the witches themselves the consent was often not merely
freely but actually willingly given. Isobel Crawford of the Irvine Coven in
1618 was accused that the devil 'come to hir awin dur in similitud of ane
blak man, and prommeist, gif sche wold be his servand, sche sould have geir
aneuch, and sould not want. Quhairunto sche was ever reddy to accord.'[251]
Little Jonet Howat said that the Devil 'bade her renounce her God, and she
answered, Marry, shall I'.[252] In the dittay against Christian Grieve, it
is stated that 'Sathan desired you to be his servant whilk ye willingly
granted to be.... And sicklike the minister posing you upon the foresaid
particulars especially anent the renunciation of your Baptism, ye answered
that Sathan speired at you if ye would do it and ye answered "I warrand did
I."'[253] Bessie Henderson and Janet Brugh, of the same Coven, acknowledged
the same. To the former 'the Devil appeared and asked you gif you would be
his servant whilk ye freely and instantly accepted and granted
thereto'.[254] Janet Brugh was rather more emphatic: 'Sathan desired you to
be his servant whilk ye willingly promised to be and likeways desired you
to renounce your baptism whilk ye willingly did.'[255]

The written contract appealed very strongly to the legal minds of the
judges and magistrates, and it is therefore often mentioned, but in Great
Britain there is no record of the actual wording of any individual
covenant; the Devil seems to have kept the parchment, paper, or book in his
own custody. In France, however, such contracts occasionally fell into the
hands of the authorities; the earliest case being in 1453, when Guillaume
Edeline, Prior of St. Germain-en-Laye, signed a compact with the Devil,
which compact was afterwards found upon his person.[256] The witch
Stevenote de Audebert, who was burnt in January 1619, showed de Lancre 'le
pacte & conuention qu'elle auoit faict auec le Diable, escrite en sang de
menstrues, & si horrible qu'on auoit horreur de la regarder'.[257]

The contract was said to be signed always in the blood of the witch, and
here we come to a confusion between the mark made _on_ the person and the
mark made _by_ the person. It seems clear that part of the ceremony of
initiation was the cutting of the skin of the candidate to the effusion of
blood. This is the early rite, and it seems probable that when the written
contract came into vogue the blood was found to be a conv