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53,266 published records with substantive text · Page 979 of 1,110
Years thus passed, Jinney using her foul tongue against everyone, and the rabble in return baiting her as if she were a wild beast
Read record →Wapping, nowadays, is a sufficiently prosaic spot
Read record →The earliest English witch to attain any individual immortality was she of Berkeley, who differed from most of her successors by being extremely well off
Read record →A famous witch was Margery Jourdemain, better known as the Witch of Eye, who gains a reflected halo of respectability in that she was burnt at Smithfield in 1441 as an accomplice of Eleanor of Gloucester, elsewhere referred to
Read record →Elizabeth Sawyer, the Witch of Edmonton, though during her life gaining only local fame, yet achieved the posthumous glory of providing Ford and Dekker with the material for a play
Read record →Bodin, or Pierre de Lancre might have found it difficult to put forward satisfactory proof for the cause in which they were briefed had it not been for the fortunate existence of one quite unimpeachable witness--the direct command in the book of Exodus, "Thou
Read record →It is, of course, as true as it was natural that Christian writers on witchcraft seized eagerly upon definite Biblical authority for the sin they were condemning
Read record →The Christians, in adopting to their own uses certain pagan rites and beliefs, and regarding all the rest as witchcraft and an abominable sin, were but following the example of their predecessors, the Jews
Read record →The Jews had no national system of magic or witchcraft
Read record →Side by side with the regular magicians was a vast host of sorcerers practising without elaborate ritual, amongst whom witches were greatly in the ascendant
Read record →stitions amid which their great forefather had been brought up, it was scarcely surprising that the monotheistic ideal peculiar to the Jews should have suffered occasional eclipses
Read record →Isis, another prominent protector of witchcraft, was, in fact, more witch than goddess
Read record →They recognised two varieties of evil spirits--the fallen angels and those who were but semi-supernatural
Read record →On the other hand, they had dealings with familiar spirits, and, as was natural in a nation distinguished by its genius for prophecy, they excelled in divination
Read record →Despite the wide sway of the evil and the severity of the laws against it, spasmodically enforced by several of the kings, as Saul and Hezekiah, there are no definite records of witch-persecutions comparable to those of mediæval Christianity until the reign of
Read record →It is, at first sight, surprising that the Chaldean, Egyptian, or Jewish witch should have conformed so closely to the type familiarised by the witch-mania of the Middle Ages
Read record →Gradually she grew into the spectral originator of all those horrors with which darkness affects the imagination
Read record →Hecate, who became the mother of Scylla, and, according to some accounts also of Medea and of Circe, was arch-mistress of the knowledge of herbs and simples, more especially of poisons
Read record →Nor were such grisly exploits confined to Thessaly, for in Syria, as Marcassus tells us, troops of witches haunted the battle-field during the night, devouring the bodies of the slain
Read record →The Persian wars brought new influences to bear upon Greek religion in general and witchcraft in particular
Read record →That the Greek witch of the older school should be powerfully influenced by such innovators was natural enough, the more so that in Chaldea women took a foremost part in practising the more evil kinds of magic
Read record →nder the influence of Grecian culture, and in return providing her with new cults and crazes, one more fantastic than the other, but all seized upon with equal avidity by the hungry Hellenic intellect, craving always for some new thing
Read record →At the same time, laws existed against it, subsequently to find an echo in Roman legislation
Read record →Of Greek magic he would have learned enough--and to spare--in the long ten years' warring on the plains of Ilium
Read record →As in Greece, so in Rome, the personal character of the witch was identical in some respects with that of the goddess, so as to be frequently indistinguishable
Read record →Like the pythoness of Greece, the Roman sibyl was priestess as well as witch
Read record →Roman morality being enforced upon social rather than religious grounds, witchcraft was forbidden only in so far as it was considered a pernicious influence within the State
Read record →Already in the early days of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, Greek influence on Roman witchcraft was noticeable--it increased in proportion as Greek thought extended its sway over the Roman mind
Read record →To which Pliny adds that it must be used in conjunction with split reeds, a prudent suggestion enough
Read record →The Emperors held widely divergent views on the matter of witchcraft
Read record →The history of the Roman witch is thus prophetic of that of her Christian successor
Read record →Roman witchcraft--continually reinforced from the Orient--grew in importance as faith in the greater gods decreased
Read record →Passed from mouth to mouth, ignorant, or understanding, they might reach the distant flock so diluted as to have opportunity for compromise with time-honoured precedent--and what more so than witchcraft
Read record →s married a barbarian princess and before the close of the third century A.D
Read record →Whereas the pagan had chastised the witch with rods for injuring man, the Christian set about her with scorpions as an enemy of God
Read record →As the Church increased in power, many such practices--as, for example, the dancing of women round sacred trees and wells, with torches or candles in their hands, the common meal, the choral song and sacrifice--were roundly forbidden as witchcraft, the uprooti
Read record →Considering the vast and ever-increasing population of witches and demons, it seemed an almost hopeless task to exterminate them altogether
Read record →It is noteworthy, and a fact that vouches strongly for the sincerity of the early Church, that although she thus practised what was nothing less than sanctified witchcraft, she never attempted one of the most frequent and popular of witch-practices--the forete
Read record →Familiarity in some measure breeding contempt, the public in these early days thus regarded neither witch nor dæmon with the dread and hatred so manifest in the fifteenth century and onwards
Read record →Although in 696 the Council of Berkhampstead decreed that any person sacrificing to the Devil should be punished--a clear enough reference to witches--it was not until some centuries later that the conception of the witch definitely crystallised into its moder
Read record →Whether or no the sins of witch and sorcerer be definitely codified, it is the duty of the law-giver to provide for all contingencies; and just as Justinian devoted part of his code to dealing with witchcraft, so Charlemagne, two centuries and a half later, en
Read record →Small wonder that they sought for something which, instead of the hopeless contemplation of inherent sin, should provide some ray of present comfort
Read record →Though the anathemas of the Church might for a time stem the increasing tide of witch-popularity, they were fundamentally only incentives towards a cult which did not include anathemas or persecution--except, indeed, those within the control of the humblest in
Read record →Among the forbidden institutions upon which the Crusader found reason to reconsider his ideas, witchcraft took a prominent place
Read record →By this time Satan had assumed a definite form and personality in the public mind, and the idea that the witch obtained her powers through a compact with him, long sedulously inculcated, had taken root
Read record →The practice of medicine by women, however beneficial, grew more and more into disfavour, and year by year the attributes of the witch grew more infernal as the material Devil became more and more familiar in men's minds
Read record →The convenience, from the Church point of view, of catching witch and heretic in the same net was too obvious to be disregarded
Read record →These and other diseases, constant wars, bad harvests, and other troubles brought about a series of class-wars, the Jacquerie in France, and Wat Tyler's insurrection in England, for example; the Devil and the witch between them shared the blame in the eyes of
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