Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/519

 KILLING AND RESUSCITATION. 503 One very peculiar power ascribed to witches was that of ban- queting in the Sabbat on infants and cattle, and then restoring them to life. We have seen the belief in early times, and among races far apart, that sorceresses could gnaw and eat men inter- nally, which probably arose from painful gastric maladies ascribed to sorcery. In the genesis of the Sabbat this took the shape, as described by Bishop Burchard in the eleventh century, that in the nocturnal meetings under the guidance of Holda men would be slain without weapons, their flesh cooked and eaten, and then they would be brought to life again, with straw or a piece of wood sub- stituted for their hearts. The Church was not as yet ready to accept these marvels, and Burchard penances belief in them with fasting on bread and water for seven Lents. In the next century John of Salisbury ascribes to the illusion of dreams the popular superstition that lamiae tore children to pieces, devoured them, and returned them to their cradles; and about 1240 Guillaume d' Auvergne speaks of the superstition spread by old women of the " ladies of the night " or " good women " who appear to tear chil- dren to pieces, or to cook them on the fire. Of course this formed part of the perfected stories of the Sabbat. In some witch-trials in the Tyrol, in 1506, there are frequent allusions to children and domestic animals carried to the feast and devoured, and though they remained alive, they were doomed to die soon afterwards. The witches of the Canavese confessed that their practice was to select fat cattle from a neighboring farmer, slaughter and eat them, and then, collecting the bones and hides, resuscitate them with the simple formula "Sorge, RanzolaP In one case a farmer of Levone, named Perino Pasquale, killed a sick ox and skinned it, and, naturally enough, himself died within a week, as well as his dog, which lapped some of the blood ; and the occurrence, ac- cording to custom, was subsequently explained by a witch on trial, who confessed that the ox was one which had thus been eaten and Lib. ii. c. 7, 9. — Ulric. Molitor. de Python. Mulierib. — Ripoll III. 193. — Pico clella Mirandola, La Strega, pp. 84-5. — Bernardi Comens. de Strigiis c. 7. It is the universal testimony of the demon ologists that vastly more women than men were thus involved in the toils of the Devil. To explain this, Sprenger indulges in a most bitter tirade against women, and piously thanks God for pre- serving the male sex from such wickedness (Mall. Malef. P. i. Q. vii.).