Passed from mouth to mouth, ignorant, or understanding, they might reach the distant flock so diluted as to…
- Date of account
- Published 1908
- Source
- The book of witches
- Reference
- The book of witches · selected passage 150
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
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
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyPassed 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. You might--if you were an open-minded husbandman--conceive that you had been mistaken in seeing fauns dancing where the sunlight glinted down through tossing leaves, or in hearing the voices of nymphs in the chattering of a brook; but a witch--whom you could see, touch, hear, who had cured your toothache and revenged you on your dishonest neighbour--she took a great deal of explaining away. Wicked she might be, getting her power from unholy compact with the Evil One--burn, slay, persecute her by all means--if it would please Heaven--but to disbelieve in her altogether, that were asking too much of a plain man. How, indeed, could you expect it of him when the very Emperors proved by their edicts the openness of their minds. A Marcus Aurelius not only studied magic, but persecuted Christians--slaying, among others, the venerable Polycarp.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.