The four festivals or Sabbaths can be divided into two pairs; the May-November festivals, and the February-August festivals. This division is suggested by the ceremonies, which seem originally to have been arranged according to the season. It is however clear that either the recorders of the trials did not understand that each Sabbath had its own special ritual, or that in the decadent condition, which the religion had reached, the witches themselves had confused the ceremonies. The ceremonies are noted as having occurred, but from the records it is possible that they may have been practised indiscriminately at any and every Sabbath.
In England the May festival was the most important, in Scotland the autumn festival. The ordinary feature of the May festival amongst the Christians in England was the dance round a pole; in Scotland, at the Hallowmas Sabbath the Aberdeen witches danced round the Fish and Market Crosses,[1] and the Craiglauch witches round a great stone,[2] which possibly takes the place of the English Maypole. In almost every notice of the witches' dance taken down from the mouths of eye-witnesses, mention is made of the music which the devil made. This is almost invariably said to be played on a pipe of so peculiar a kind that the Aberdeen judges speak of it as "his form of instrument."[3] The whole description of the May festival at Penzance in the early 19th century, including the peculiar pipes, bears an extraordinary resemblance to the accounts of some of the witches' Sabbaths. "It is an annual custom, on May-eve, for a number of young men and women to assemble at a public-house, and sit up till the clock strikes twelve, when they go round the town with violins, drums and other instruments, and by sound of music call upon others who had previously settled
