Page:Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921).djvu/279

 Joan owed allegiance, the' God ' who sent her. Giac, the King's favourite, was executed as a witch, and Joan's beau duc, the Duke d'Alençon, was also of the fraternity.

three formulae for the 'flying' ointment used by witches are as follows:

1. Du persil, de l'eau de l'Aconite, des feuilles de Peuple, et de la suye.

2. De la Berle, de l'Acorum vulgaire, de la Quintefeuille, du sang de chauuesouris, de la Morelle endormante, et de l'huyle.

3. De graisse d'enfant, de suc d'Ache, d'Aconite, de Quintefeuille, de Morelle, et de suye.

These formulae may be translated as follows:

1. Parsley, water of aconite, poplar leaves, and soot.

2. Water parsnip, sweet flag, cinquefoil, bat's blood, deadly nightshade, and oil.

3. Baby's fat, juice of water parsnip, aconite, cinquefoil, deadly nightshade, and soot.

These prescriptions show that the society of witches had a very creditable knowledge of the art of poisoning: aconite and deadly nightshade or belladonna are two of the three most poisonous plants growing freely in Europe, the third is hemlock, and in all probability 'persil' refers to hemlock and not to the harmless parsley, which it resembles closely.

The other ingredients have no marked toxic action, unless 'berle' and 'ache' refer not to the harmless water parsnip but to the poisonous water hemlock or cowbane. The baby's fat and bat's blood would of course have no action.

Aconite was one of the best-known poisons in ancient times; indeed it was so extensively used by professional poisoners in Rome during the Empire that a law was passed making its cultivation a capital offence. Aconite root contains about 0.4 per cent. of alkaloid and one-fifteenth of a grain of the alkaloid is a lethal dose. The drug has little effect upon the consciousness, but produces slowing, irregularity, and finally arrest of the heart.

The use of belladonna as a poison was also known in classical