degree reconciles one to the fate of the fourteen canons, four gentlemen of the choir, two young men of rank, a fat old lady of rank, the wife of a burgomaster, a counsellor, the fattest burgess of Wartzburg, together with his wife, the handsomest woman in the city, and a midwife of the name of Schiekelte, with whom (according to an N.B. in the original report) the whole mischief originated. To amateurs of executions in those days the fatness of the victim was evidently a point of consideration, as is shown by the specifications of that quality in some of the victims in the above list. Were men devils then? By no means; there existed then as now upon earth, worth, honour, truth, benevolence, gentleness. But there were other ingredients, too, from which the times are not yet purged. A century ago people did not know—do they now?—that vindictive punishment is a crime; that the only allowable purpose of punishment is to prevent the recurrence of the offence; and that restraint, isolation, employment, instruction, are the extreme and only means towards that end which reason and humanity justify. Alas, for human nature! Some centuries hence, the first half of the nineteenth century will be charged with having manifested no admission of principle in advance of a period, the judicial crimes of which make the heart shudder. The old lady witches had, of course, much livelier ideas than the innocent children, on the subject of their intercourse with the devils.
At Mora, in Sweden, in 1669, of many who were put to the torture and executed, seventy-two women agreed in the following avowal, that they were in the habit of meeting at a place called Blocula. That on their calling out "Come forth!" the Devil used to appear to them in a gray coat, red breeches, gray stockings, with a red beard, and a peaked hat with party-coloured feathers on his head. He then enforced upon them, not without blows, that they must bring him, at nights, their own and other peoples' children, stolen for the purpose. They travel through the air to Blocula either on beasts or on spits, or broomsticks. When they have many children with them, they rig on an additional spar to lengthen the back of the goat or their broom-stick that the children may have room to sit. At Blocula they sign their name in blood and are baptized. The Devil is a humorous, pleasant gentleman; but his table is coarse enough, which makes the children often sick on their way home, the product being the so-called witch-butter found in the fields. When the Devil is larky, he solicits the witches to dance round him on their brooms, which he suddenly pulls from under them, and uses to beat them with till they are black and blue. He laughs at this joke till his sides shake again. Sometimes he is in a more gracious mood, and plays to them lovely airs upon the harp; and occasionally sons and daughters are born to the Devil, which take up their residence at Blocula.
I will add an outline of the history, furnished or corroborated by her voluntary confession, of a lady witch, nearly the last executed for this crime. She was, at the time of her death, seventy years of age, and had been many years sub-prioress of the convent of Unterzell, near Wartzburg.
Maria Renata took the veil at nineteen years of age, against her inclination, having previously been initiated in the mysteries of witchcraft, which she continued to practise for fifty years under the cloak of punctual attendance to discipline and pretended piety. She was long in the station of sub-prioress, and would, for her capacity, have been promoted to the rank of prioress, had she not betrayed a certain discontent with the ecclesiastic life, a certain contrariety to her superiors, something half expressed only of inward dissatisfaction. Renata had not ventured to let any one about the convent into her confidence, and she remained free from suspicion, notwithstanding that, from time to time, some of the nuns, either from the herbs she mixed with their food, or through sympathy, had strange seizures, of which some died. Renata became at length extravagant and unguarded in her witch propensities, partly from long security, partly from desire of stronger excitement; made noises in the dormitory, and uttered shrieks in the garden; went at nights into the cells of the nuns to pinch and torment them, to assist her in which she kept a considerable supply of cats. The removal of the keys of the cells counteracted this annoyance; but a still more efficient means was a determined blow on the part of a nun, struck at the aggressor with the penitential scourge one night, on the morning following which Renata was observed to have a black eye and cut face. This event awakened suspicion against Renata. Then, one of the nuns, who was much esteemed, declared, believing herself upon her death-bed, that, "as she shortly expected to stand before her Maker, Renata was uncanny, that she had often at nights been visibly tormented by her, and that she warned her to desist from this course." General alarm arose, and apprehension of Renata's arts; and one of the nuns, who previously had had fits, now became possessed, and in the paroxysms told the wildest tales against Renata. It is only wonderful how the sub-prioress contrived to keep her ground many years against these suspicions and incriminations. She adroitly put aside the insinuations of the nun as imaginary or of calumnious intention, and treated witchcraft and possession of the Devil as things which enlightened people no longer believed in. As, however, five more of the nuns, either taking the infection from the first, or influenced by the arts of Renata, became possessed of devils, and unanimously attacked Renata, the superiors could no longer avoid making a serious investigation of the charges. Renata was confined in a cell alone, whereupon the six devils screeched in chorus at being deprived of their friend. She had begged to be allowed to take her papers with her; but this being refused, and thinking herself detected, she at once avowed to her confessor and the superiors, that she was a witch, had learned witchcraft out of the convent, and had bewitched the six nuns. They determined to keep the matter secret, and to attempt the conversion of Renata. And as the nuns still continued possessed, they despatched her to a remote convent. Here, under a show of outward piety, she still went on with her attempts to realise witchcraft, and the nuns remained possessed. It was decided at length to give Renata over to the civil power. She was accordingly condemned to be burned alive; but in mitigation of punishment her head was first struck off. Four of the possessed nuns gradually recovered with clerical assistance; the other two remained deranged. Renata was executed on the 21st January 1749.
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