Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/131

 regularized and more or less loosely ran upon traditional lines. The name Sabbat may be held to cover every kind of gathering, although it must continually be borne in mind that a Sabbat ranges from comparative simplicity, the secret rendezvous of some half a dozen wretches devoted to the fiend, to a large and crowded congregation presided over by incarnate evil intelligences, a mob outvying the very demons in malice, blasphemy, and revolt, the true face of pandemonium on earth.

The derivation of the word Sabbat does not seem to be exactly established. It is perhaps superfluous to point out that it has nothing to do with the number seven, and is wholly unconnected with the Jewish festival. Sainte-Croix and Alfred Maury are agreed to derive it from the debased Bacchanalia. Sabazius (Σαβάζιος) was a Phrygian deity, sometimes identified with Zeus, sometimes with Dionysus, but who was generally regarded as the patron of licentiousness and worshipped with frantic debaucheries. He is a patron of the ribald old Syrian eunuch in Apuleius: “omnipotens et omniparens Dea Syria et sanctus Sabadius et Bellona et Mater Idaea (ac) cum suo Adone Venus domina” are the deities whom Philebus invokes to avenge him of the mocking crier. Σαβάζεῖν is found in the Scholiast on Aristophane (Birds, 874), and σαβαῖ, a Bacchic yell, occurs in a fragment of the Baptæ of Eupolis; the fuller phrase εὐοῖ Σαβι being reported by Strabo the geographer. The modern Greeks still call a madman ζαβός. But Littré entirely rejects any such facile etymology. “Attempts have been made to trace the etymology of the Sabbat, the witches’ assembly, from Sabazies; but the formation of the word does not allow it; besides, in the Middle Ages, what did they know about Sabazies?”

Even the seasons of the principal Assemblies of the year differ in various countries. Throughout the greater part of Western Europe one of the chief of these was the Eve of May Day, 30 April; in Germany famous as Die Walpurgis-Nacht. S. Walburga (Walpurgis; Waltpurde; at Perche Gauburge; in other parts of France Vaubourg or Falbourg) was born in Devonshire circa 710. She was the daughter of S. Richard, one of the under-kings of the West Saxons, who married a sister of S. Boniface. In 748 Walburga, who was