Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/28

 whit the less guilty of sorcery and devil-worship, for this was their hearts’ intention and desire. Nor do I think that the man who personated Satan at their assemblies was so much an unscrupulous and designing knave as himself a demonist, believing intensely in the reality of his own dark powers, wholly and horribly dedicated and doomed to the service of evil.

We have seen that the witches were upon occasion wont to array themselves in skins and ritual masks and there is complete evidence that the hierophant at the Sabbat, when a human being played that rôle, generally wore a corresponsive, if somewhat more elaborate, disguise. Nay more, as regards the British Isles at least—and it seems clear that in other countries the habit was very similar—we possess a pictorial representation of “the Devil” as he appeared to the witches. During the famous Fian trials Agnes Sampson confessed: “The deuell wes cled in ane blak goun with ane blak hat vpon his head. . . . His faice was terrible, his noise lyk the bek of ane egle, greet bournyng eyn; his handis and leggis wer herry, with clawes vpon his handis, and feit lyk the griffon.” In the pamphlet Newes from Scotland, Declaring the Damnable life and death of Doctor Fian we have a rough woodcut, repeated twice, which shows “the Devil” preaching from the North Berwick pulpit to the whole coven of witches, and allowing for the crudity of the draughtsman and a few unimportant differences of detail—the black gown and hat are not portrayed—the demon in the picture is exactly like the description Agnes Sampson gave. It must be remembered, too, that at the Sabbat she was obviously in a state of morbid excitation, in part due to deep cups of heady wine, the time was midnight, the place a haunted old church, the only light a few flickering candles that burned with a ghastly blue flame.

Now “the Devil” as he is shown in the Newes from Scotland illustration is precisely the Devil who appears upon the title-page of Middleton and Rowley’s Masque, The World tost at Tennis, 4to, 1620. This woodcut presents an episode towards the end of the masque, and here the Devil in traditional disguise, a grim black hairy shape with huge beaked nose, monstrous claws, and the cloven hoofs of a griffin, in every particular fits the details so closely observed by Agnes