Page:Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921).djvu/29

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THE GOD
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did all the Inquisitors, the actual words of the witches; when they presented a young child, they fell on their knees and said, 'Grand Seigneur, lequel i'adore', and when the child was old enough to join the society she made her vow in these words: 'Ie me remets de tout poinct en ton pouuoir & entre tes mains, ne recognois autre Dieu: si bien que tu es mon Dieu'.[1] Silvain Nevillon, tried at Orleans in 1614, said, 'On dit au Diable nous vous recognoissons pour nostre maistre, nostre Dieu, nostre Createur'.[2] The Lancashire witch, Margaret Johnson, 1633, said: 'There appeared vnto her a spirit or divell in the similitude and proportion of a man. And the said divell or spirit bidd her call him by the name of Mamillion. And saith, that in all her talke and conferense shee calleth her said Divell Mamillion, my god.'[3] According to Madame Bourignon, 1661, 'Persons who were thus engaged to the Devil by a precise Contract, will allow no other God but him'.[4] Isobel Gowdie confessed that 'he maid vs beliew that ther wes no God besyd him.—We get all this power from the Divell, and when ve seik it from him, ve call him "owr Lord".—At each tyme, quhan ve wold meitt with him, we behoowit to ryse and mak our curtesie; and we wold say, "Ye ar welcom, owr Lord," and "How doe ye, my Lord."'[5] The Yorkshire witch, Alice Huson, 1664, stated that the Devil 'appeared like a Black Man upon a Black Horse, with Cloven Feet; and then I fell down, and did Worship him upon my Knees'.[6] Ann Armstrong in Northumberland, 1673, gave a good deal of information about her fellow witches: 'The said Ann Baites hath severall times danced with the divell att the places aforesaid, calling him, sometimes, her protector, and, other sometimes, her blessed saviour.— She saw Forster, Dryden, and Thompson, and the rest, and theire protector, which they call'd their god, sitting at the head of the table.— When this informer used meanes to avoyd theire company, they threatned her, if she would not

  1. De Lancre, Tableau, pp. 398, 399.
  2. Id., L'Incredulité, p. 801.
  3. Baines, i, p. 607 note. For the name Mamillion see Layamon's Brut, p. 155, Everyman Library.
  4. Bourignon, Vie, p. 222.—Hale, p. 37.
  5. Pitcairn, iii, pp. 605, 607, 613.
  6. Hale, p. 58.