nights, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.”16 Boguet says that the day of the Sabbat varied, but usually a Thursday night was preferred.17 In England it was stated that the “Solemn appointments, and meetings … are ordinarily on Tuesday or Wednesday night.”18 Saturday was, however, particularly avoided as being the day sacred to the immaculate Mother of God.
It is true that the hysterical and obscene ravings of Maria de Sains, a witness concerned in the trial of Louis Gaufridi and who was examined on 17–19 May, 1614, assert that the Sabbat used to be held on every day of the week. Wednesday and Friday were the Sabbats of blasphemy and the black ass. To the other days the most hideous abominations of which humanity is capable were allotted. The woman was obviously sexually deranged, affected with mania blasphematoria and coprolalia.
Night was almost invariably the time for the Sabbat, although, as Delrio says, there is no actual reason why these evil rites should not be performed at noon, for the Psalmist speaks of “the terror of the night,” the “business that walketh about in the dark,” and of “the noonday devil.”19 (“Non timebis a timore nocturno … a negotio perambulante in tenebris; ab incursu et dæmonio meridiano.”) And so Delrio very aptly writes: “Their assemblies generally are held at dead of night when the Powers of Darkness reign; or, sometimes, at high noon, even as the Psalmist saith, when he speaks of ‘the noonday devil.’ The nights they prefer are Monday and Thursday.”20
The time at which these Sabbats began was generally upon the stroke of midnight. “Les Sorciers,” says Boguet, “vont enuiron la minuiet au Sabbat.”21 It may be remembered that in the Metamorphoseon of Apuleius, I, xi, the hags attack Socrates at night “circa tertiam ferme uigiliam.” Agnes Sampson, “a famous witch”—as Hume of Godscroft in his Account of Archibald, ninth Earl of Angus, calls her—commonly known as the wise wife of Keith, who made a prominent figure22 in the Fian trials, 1590, confessed that the Devil met her, “being alone, and commanded her to be at North-Berwick Kirk the next night,” and accordingly she made her way there as she was bid “and lighted at the Kirk-yard, or a little before she came to it, about eleven hours at even.”23 In this case, however, the Sabbat was preceded
