hes--a "Sabbath," as it was
called--and here were recounted all the evil deeds of the past year,
and here the witches saw and conversed with the devil himself, and
received their instructions from him. It would be almost impossible to
conceive a more grotesque and gruesome picture than some of these
Sabbaths were supposed to be: every impossible and inconceivable thing
that man's mind could invent was apparently attributed to these
meetings. In order to form some faint idea of men's beliefs in those
days, I quote the following, supposedly from a more or less contemporary
account, of what actually transpired at these Sabbaths:

"A witch should be an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred
brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaky voice, a
scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull cap on
her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There
are three classes or divisions of devils--black, grey, and white.
The first are omnipotent for evil, but powerless for good. The
white have power to help, but not to hurt. The grey are efficient
for both good and evil.... The modes of bewitching are: by casting
an evil eye (fascinating); by making representations of a person to
be acted upon in wax or clay, roasting this image before a fire; by
mixing magical ointments, or other compositions or ingredients; or
sometimes merely by uttering an imprecation.... Witches can ride in
sieves on the sea, on brooms, or spits, magically prepared. The
meeting of the witches is held every Friday night--between Friday
and Saturday.... They steal children from the grave, boil them with
lime till all the flesh is loosed from the bones, and is reduced to
one mass. They make of the firm part an ointment, and fill a
bottle with the fluid; and whosoever drinks this with due ceremony
belongs to the league, and is capable of bewitching.... Every year
a grand Sabbath is held or ordered for celebration on the
Blocksberg Mountains, for the night before the 1st of May. Witches
congregate from all parts, and meet at a place where four roads
meet, in a rugged mountain range, or in the neighbourhood of a
secluded lake or some dark forest; these are the spots selected for
the meeting....

"When orders have been issued for the meeting of the Sabbath, all
the wizards and witches who fail