ptio
visus_, and was supposed to be a special attribute of the race of
Gipsies.

[Footnote 15: Eyrbiggia Saga, in "Northern Antiquities."]

Neither are those prophetesses to be forgotten, so much honoured among
the German tribes, that, as we are assured by Tacitus, they rose to the
highest rank in their councils, by their supposed supernatural
knowledge, and even obtained a share in the direction of their armies.
This peculiarity in the habits of the North was so general, that it was
no unusual thing to see females, from respect to their supposed views
into futurity, and the degree of divine inspiration which was vouchsafed
to them, arise to the degree of HAXA, or chief priestess, from which
comes the word _Hexe_, now universally used for a witch; a circumstance
which plainly shows that the mythological system of the ancient natives
of the North had given to the modern language an appropriate word for
distinguishing those females who had intercourse with the spiritual
world.[16]

[Footnote 16: It may be worth while to notice that the word Haxa is
still used in Scotland in its sense of a druidess, or chief priestess,
to distinguish the places where such females exercised their ritual.
There is a species of small intrenchment on the western descent of the
Eildon hills, which Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose,
drawn up about eighty years ago, says, was denominated _Bourjo_, a word
of unknown derivation, by which the place is still known. Here an
universal and subsisting tradition bore that human sacrifices were of
yore offered, while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from
the elevation of the glacis which slopes inward. With this place of
sacrifice communicated a path, still discernible, called the
_Haxell-gate_, leading to a small glen or narrow valley called the
_Haxellcleuch_--both which words are probably derived from the Haxa or
chief priestess of the pagans.]

It is undeniable that these Pythonesses were held in high respect while
the pagan religion lasted; but for that very reason they became odious
so soon as the tribe was converted to Christianity. They were, of
course, if they pretended to retain their influence, either despised as
impostors or feared as sorceresses; and the more that, in particular
instances, they became dreaded for their power, the more they were
detested, under the conviction that they derived it from the enemy of
man. The deities of the northern heathens und