Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/133

 usually held at Zugarramurdi and Berroscoberro in the Basque districts, and that the days were fixed, being the vigils of the “nine principal feasts of the year,” namely, Easter, Epiphany, Ascension Day, the Purification and Nativity of Our Lady, the Assumption, Corpus Christi, All Saints, and the major festival of S. John Baptist (24 June). It is certainly curious to find no mention of Christmas and Pentecost in this list, but throughout the whole of the process not one of the accused—and we have their evidence in fullest detail—named either of these two solemnities as being chosen for the infernal rendezvous.

Satan is, as Boguet aptly says, “Singe de Dieu en tout,” and it became common to hold a General Sabbat about the time of the high Christian festivals in evil mockery of these holy solemnities, and he precisely asserts that the Sabbat “se tient encor aux festes les plus solemnelles de l’année.” (Is still held on the greatest festivals of the year.) So he records the confession of Antide Colas (1598), who “auoit esté au Sabbat à vn chacun bon iour de l’an, comme à Noel, à Pasques, à la feste de Dieu.” The Lancashire witches met on Good Friday; and in the second instance (1633) on All Saints’ Day; the witches of Kinross (1662) held an assembly on the feast of Scotland’s Patron, S. Andrew, 30 November, termed “S. Andrew’s Day at Yule,” to distinguish it from the secondary Feast of the Translation of S. Andrew, 9 May. The New England witches were wont to celebrate their chief Sabbat at Christmas. In many parts of Europe where the Feast of S. George is solemnized with high honour and holiday the vigil (22 April) is the Great Sabbat of the year. The Huzulo of the Carpathians believe that then every evil thing has power and witches are most dangerous. Not a Bulgarian or Roumanian farmer but closes up each door and fastens close each window at night-fall, putting sharp thorn-bushes and brambles on the lintels, new turf on the sills, so that no demon nor hag may find entry there.

The Grand Sabbats were naturally held in a great variety of places, whilst the lesser Sabbats could be easily assembled in an even larger number of spots, which might be convenient to the coven of that district, a field near a village, a wood, a tor, a valley, an open waste beneath some blasted oak, a