Part 19

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 lubricité, c'est pourquoy le Demon se met aussi en femme ou Succube.... Ce qu'il fait principalement au Sabbat, selon que l'ont rapporté Pierre Gandillon, & George Gandillon, pere & fils, & les autres, lesquels disent tout vnanimement, qu'en leurs assemblées 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-Pyrénées. 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'Incredulité_, 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, _Fléau_, 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-Pyrénées, where the male attendants on the King and Queen of the dance are still called Satans. Moret, _Mystères Égyptiens_, 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._]

[Footnote 733: Horneck, pt. ii, p. 323.]

[Footnote 734: Davies, p. 183. Cp. also the birth of Merlin. Giraldus Cambrensis, _Itinerary_, Bk. I, xii, 91b.]

VII. THE ORGANIZATION

The cult was organized in as careful a manner as any other religious community; each district however was independent, and therefore Mather is justified in saying that the witches 'form themselves after the manner of Congregational Churches'.[735]

1. _The Officer_

The Chief or supreme Head of each district was known to the recorders as the 'Devil'. Below him in each district, one or more officers--according to the size of the district--were appointed by the chief. The officers might be either men or women; their duties were to arrange for meetings, to send out notices, to keep the record of work done, to transact the business of the community, and to present new members. Evidently these persons also noted any likely convert, and either themselves entered into negotiations or reported to the Chief, who then took action as opportunity served. At the Esbats the officer appears to have taken command in the absence of the Grand Master; at the Sabbaths the officers were merely heads of their own Covens, and were known as Devils or Spirits, though recognized as greatly inferior to the Chief. The principal officer acted as clerk at the Sabbath and entered the witches' reports in his book; if he were a priest or ordained minister, he often performed part of the religious service; but the Devil himself always celebrated the mass or sacrament. In the absence of all direct information on the subject, it seems likely that the man who acted as principal officer became Grand Master on the death of the previous Chief. Occasionally the Devil appointed a personal attendant for himself, who waited upon him on all solemn occasions, but does not appear to have held any official position in the community.

Estebene de Cambrue (1567) said that 'elle a veu au Sabbat vn Notaire qu'elle nomme, lequel a accoustumé de leuer les defauts de celles qui ont manqué de se trouuer au Sabbat.'[736] At the North Berwick meetings (1590), there were several officers, of whom Fian was the chief.

'Robert Griersoun being namit, they all ran hirdie-girdie and wer angrie: for it wes promisit he sould be callit "Ro^t the Comptroller, alias Rob the Rowar," for expreming of his name.--Johnne Fiene wes ewer nerrest to the Devill, att his left elbok; Gray Meill kepit the dur.--The accusation of the saide Geillis Duncane aforesaide, who confessed he [Fian] was their Regester, and that there was not one man suffered to come to the Divels readinges but onelie hee.--[Fian's confession] That at the generall meetinges of those witches, he was always present; that he was clarke to all those that were in subiection to the Divels service, bearing the name of witches; that alway hee did take their oathes for their true service to the Divell; and that he wrote for them such matters as the Divell still pleased to commaund him.'[737]

Elizabeth Southerns, otherwise known as old Mother Demdike (1613), 'was generall agent for the Deuill in all these partes'.[738] The 'eminent warlok' Robert Grieve of Lauder (1649) 'was brought to a Confession of his being the _Devils Officer_ in that Countrey for warning all Satans Vassals to come to the Meetings, where, and whensoever the Devil required.... The Devil gave him that charge, to be his Officer to warn all to the meetings; (as was said before,) in which charge he continued for the space of eighteen years and more.'[739] The evidence concerning Isobel Shyrie at Forfar (1661) is too long to quote, but it is clear that she acted as the officer.[740] Isobel Gowdie (1662) says definitely, 'Johne Young, in Mebestowne, is Officer to owr Coeven', and remarks in another part of her confession that 'Johne Yownge in Mebestowne, owr Officer, did drywe the plewghe'.[741] The only indication of a change of personnel is given by Janet Breadheid, of the same Coven as Isobel Gowdie.

'Johne Taylor, my husband, was then Officer, bot Johne Young in Mebestoune, is now Officer to my Coeven. Quhan I cam first ther, the Divell called tham all be thair names, on the book; and my husband, than called thame at the door.... Whan we haid Great Meittingis, Walter Ledy, in Penick, my husband, and Alexander Elder, nixt to the Divell, wer Ruleris; and quhan ther wold be but fewar, I my self, the deceassit Jean Suthirland, Bessie Hay, Bessie Wilsone, and Janet Burnet wold rule thaim.'[742]

In Somerset (1664) Anne Bishop appears to have been the chief personage under the Devil, in other words the Officer.[743] At Paisley (1678) Bessie Weir 'was Officer to their several meetings.--Bessie Weir did intimate to him [John Stewart], that there was a meeting to be at his house the next day: And that the Devil under the shape of a black man, Margaret Jackson, Margery Craige, and the said Bessie Weir, were to be present. And that the said Bessie Weir required the Declarant to be there, which he promised.'[744] In New England (1692) it appears that both Bridget Bishop and Martha Carrier held high rank, and were probably Officers.

One duty seems to have been delegated to a particular individual, who might perhaps hold no other office, or who might, on the other hand, be the chief official; this was the manager, often the leader, of the dance. As pace seems to have been an essential in the dance, the leader was necessarily

## active and generally young. At North Berwick (1590) 'John Fein mussiled led

the ring'.[745] In Aberdeen (1596) Thomas Leyis was the chief person in the dance; 'thow the said Thomas was formest and led the ring, and dang the said Kathren Mitchell, becaus scho spillet your dans, and ran nocht so fast about as the rest.'[746] Isobel Cockie of the same Coven was next in importance; 'in the quhilk danse, thow was the ring leader nixt Thomas Leyis.'[747] Mr. Gideon Penman (1678), who had once been minister at Crighton, went to the Sabbaths, where the Devil spoke of him as 'Mr. Gideon, my chaplain'.[748] The witches said that 'ordinarily Mr. Gideon was in the rear in all their dances, and beat up those that were slow'. This Mr. Gideon seems to be the same person as the 'warlock who formerly had been admitted to the ministrie in the Presbyterian times, and now he turnes a preacher under the devill.--This villan was assisting to Satan in this action' [giving the sacrament] 'and in preaching.'[749]

The personal attendant of the Devil is rare. At Aberdeen (1596) Issobell Richie was accused that 'at that tyme thow ressauit thy honours fra the Dewyll, thy maister, and wer appoynted be him in all tymes thairefter, his speciall domestick servand and furriour'.[750] John McWilliam Sclater (1656) was appointed cloak-bearer to the Devil.[751]

The Devil's piper was also an official appointment in Scotland, but does not occur elsewhere. John Douglas of Tranent (1659) was the Devil's piper,[752] and so also was a man mentioned by Sinclair: 'A reverend Minister told me, that one who was the Devils Piper, a wizzard confest to him, that at a Ball of dancing, the Foul Spirit taught him a Baudy song to sing and play.'[753]

The Queen of the Sabbath may perhaps be considered as an official during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though in early times she was probably the chief personage in the cult, as Pearson has pointed out.[754] It is not unlikely that she was originally the same as the Queen of Elfhame; in Scotland, however, in the seventeenth century, there is a Maiden of the Coven, which was an important position in the Esbat but entirely distinct from the Queen of Faery, while in other places a woman, not the Queen, is often the officer and holds the highest place after the Grand Master.

Elizabeth Stile of Windsor (1579) said that 'mother Seidre dwelling in the Almeshouse, was the maistres Witche of all the reste'.[755] Marion Grant of Aberdeen (1597) confessed that 'the Devill thy maister causit the dans sindrie tymes with him and with Our Ladye, quha, as thow sayes, was a fine woman, cled in a quhyte walicot'.[756] In France (1609) the custom seems to have been universal, 'en chasque village trouuer vne Royne du Sabbat', who sat at the Devil's left hand during the celebration of the mass and received the offerings of the faithful.[757] The witches called her both the Grande Maîtresse and the Reine du Sabbat.[758] Isobel Gowdie's confession (1662) shows that the Queen of Elthame was not the same as the chief woman of the Coven, for she saw the Queen only on going into the fairy-howe, while the Maiden of the Coven was at each meeting. 'We doe no great mater without owr Maiden.--Quhan we ar at meat, or in any vther place quhateuir, the Maiden of each Coven sittis abow the rest, nixt the Divell.'[759] In New England (1692) Deliverance Hobbs confessed that 'the said G. B. preached to them, and such a woman was their Deacon'.[760]

2. _The Covens_

The word _coven_ is a derivative of 'convene', and is variously spelt _coven_, _coeven_, _covine_, _cuwing_, and even _covey_. The special meaning of the word among the witches is a 'band' or 'company', who were set apart for the practice of the rites of the religion and for the performance of magical ceremonies; in short, a kind of priesthood.

The Coven was composed of men and women, belonging to one district, though not necessarily all from one village, and was ruled by an officer under the command of the Grand Master. The members of the Coven were apparently bound to attend the weekly Esbat; and it was they who were instructed in and practised magical arts, and who performed all the rites and ceremonies of the cult. The rest of the villagers attended the Esbats when they could or when they felt so inclined, but did not necessarily work magic, and they attended the Sabbaths as a matter of course. This view of the organization of the religion is borne out by the common belief in modern France:

'Il est de croyance générale qu'il _faut un nombre fixe de sorciers et de sorcières dans chaque canton_. Le nouvel initié reprend les _vieux papiers_ de l'ancien.--Les mauvaises gens forment une confrérie qui est dirigée par une sorcière. Celle-ci a la _jarretière_ comme marque de sa dignité. Elles se la transmettent successivement par rang d'ancienneté. Il n'existe que cette différence de rang entre les sorciers et les sorcières. Ceux-là se recrutent aussi bien parmi les gens _mariés_ que chez les _célibataires_.'[761]

The 'fixed number' among the witches of Great Britain seems to have been thirteen: twelve witches and their officer. The actual numbers can be obtained, as a rule, only when the full record of the trial is available; for when several witches in one district are brought to trial at the same time they will always be found to be members of a Coven, and usually the other members of the Coven are implicated or at least mentioned.

The earliest account of a Coven is in the trial of Bessie Dunlop (1567); when Thom Reid was trying to induce her to join the society, he took her 'to the kill-end, quhair he forbaid her to speik or feir for onye thing sche hard or saw; and quhene thai had gane ane lytle pece fordwerd, sche saw twelf persounes, aucht wemene and four men: The men wer cled in gentilmennis clething, and the wemene had all plaiddis round about thame and wer verrie semelie lyke to se; and Thom was with thame.'[762] Clearly this was a Coven with Thom as the Officer, and he had brought Bessie to see and be seen. The witches tried at St. Osyth in Essex in 1582 were thirteen in number.[763] At the meeting of the North Berwick witches (1590) to consult on the means to compass the king's death, nine witches stood 'in ane cumpany', and the rest 'to the nowmer of threttie persons in ane vthir cumpany'; in other words, there were thirty-nine persons, or three Covens, present.[764] At Aberdeen (1596-7) sixty-four names of witches occur in the trials; of these, seven were merely mentioned as being known to the accused, though not as taking part in the ceremonies, and five were acquitted; thus leaving fifty-two persons, or four Covens. Out of these fifty-two, one was condemned and executed at the assize in 1596 and twelve in 1597, making in all thirteen persons, or one Coven, who were put to death.[765] The great trial of the Lancashire witches in 1613 gives a grand total of fifty-two witches, or four Covens, whose names occur in the record. This includes the three Salmesbury witches mentioned by Grace Sowerbuts, whose evidence was discredited as being the outcome of a 'Popish plot' to destroy the three women as converts to the Reformed Church; but as the record shows that the other accused witches were tried on similar charges and condemned, it may be concluded that other causes occasioned the acquittal. Taking together, however, only those witches who are mentioned, in these trials, as having actually taken part in the ceremonies and practices of witchcraft in the neighbourhood of Pendle, it will be found that there were thirty-nine persons, or three Covens.[766] In Guernsey in 1617 Isabel Becquet confessed that--

'at the Sabbath the Devil used to summon the Wizards and Witches in regular order (she remembered very well having heard him call the old woman _Collette_ the first, in these terms: _Madame the Old Woman Becquette_): then the woman _Fallaise_; and afterwards the woman _Hardie_. Item, he also called _Marie_, wife of _Massy_, and daughter of the said _Collette_. Said that after them she herself was called by the Devil: in these terms: _The Little Becquette_: she also heard him call there _Collas Becquet_, son of the said old woman (who [Collas] held her by the hand in dancing, and some one [a woman] whom she did not know, held her by the other hand): there were about six others there she did not know.[767]

At Queensferry in 1644 thirteen women were tried and seven executed for witchcraft.[768]