Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/132

 then a nun of Wimbourne, went over to Germany to found claustral life in that country. After a life of surpassing holiness she died at Heidenheim, 25 February, 777. Her cultus began immediately, and about 870 her relics were translated to Eichstadt, where the Benedictine convent which has charge of the sacred shrine still happily flourishes. S. Walburga was formerly one of the most popular Saints in England, as well as in Germany and the Low Countries. She is patroness of Eichstadt, Oudenarde, Furnes, Groningen, Weilburg, Zutphen, and Antwerp, where until the Roman office was adopted they celebrated her feast four times a year. In the Roman martyrology she is commemorated on 1 May, but in the Monastic Kalendar on 25 February. The first of May was the ancient festival of the Druids, when they offered sacrifices upon their sacred mountains and kindled their May-fires. These magic observances were appropriately continued by the witches of a later date. There was not a hill-top in Finland, so the peasant believed, which at mid-night on the last day of April was not thronged by demons and sorcerers.

The second witches’ festival was the Eve of S. John Baptist, 23 June. Then were the S. John’s fires lit, a custom in certain regions still prevailing. In olden times the Feast was distinguished like Christmas with three Masses; the first at midnight recalled his mission as Precursor, the second at dawn commemorated the baptism he confessed, the third honoured his sanctity.

Other Grand Sabbat days, particularly in Belgium and Germany, were S. Thomas’ Day (21 December) and a date, which seems to have been movable, shortly after Christmas. In Britain we also find Candlemas (2 February), Allhallowe’en (31 October), and Lammas (1 August), mentioned in the trials. Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic (I. p. 141), further specifies S. Bartholomew’s Eve, but although a Sabbat may have been held on this day, it would seem to be an exceptional or purely local use.

During a famous trial held in the winter of 1610 at Logrono, a town of Old Castille, by the Apostolic Inquisitor, Alonso Becerra Holguin, an Alcantarine friar, with his two assessors Juen Valle Alvarado and Alonso de Salasar y Frias, a number of Navarrese witches confessed that the chief Sabbats were