Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/138

 Forthwith at this, the darkness chill
 * Retreats before the star of morn;

And from their busy schemes of ill
 * The vagrant crews of night return.

Fresh hope, at this, the sailor cheers;
 * The waves their stormy strife allay;

The Church’s Rock at this, in tears,
 * Hastens to wash his guilt away.

Arise ye, then, with one accord!
 * No longer wrapt in slumber lie;

The cock rebukes all who their Lord
 * By sloth neglect, by sin deny.

At his clear cry joy springs afresh;
 * Health courses through the sick man’s veins;

The dagger glides into its sheath;
 * The fallen soul her faith regains.

A witch named Latoma confessed to Nicolas Remy that cocks were most hateful to all sorcerers. That bird is the herald of dawn, he arouses men to the worship of God; and many an odious sin which darkness shrouds will be revealed in the light of the coming day. At the hour of the Nativity, that most blessed time, the cocks crew all night long. A cock crew lustily at the Resurrection. Hence is the cock placed upon the steeple of churches. Pliny and Ælian tell us that a lion fears the cock; so the Devil “leo rugiens” flees at cock-crow.

“Le coq,” says De Lancre, “s’oyt par fois es Sabbats sonnāt la retraicte aux Sorciers.”

The witch resorted to the Sabbat in various manners. If it were a question of attending a local assembly when, at most, a mile or two had to be traversed, the company would go on foot. Very often the distance was even less, for it should be remembered that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed, as a matter of fact, up to a quite recent date, when the wayfarer had gone a few steps outside the gates of a town or beyond the last house in the village he was enfolded in darkness, entirely solitary, remote, eloined. If footmen with flambeaux, at least the humbler linkboy, were essential attendants after nightfall in the streets of the world’s great cities, London, Rome, Paris,