THE GOD OF THE WITCHES - World eBook Library - World Public ...

Alloa coven were accused that "they all together had a meeting at Tullibodie, where they killed a child, another
at Clackmannan where they killed another child". Many accusations against the witches included the charge of
eating the flesh of infants. This does not seem to have been altogether unfounded, though there is no proof that
children were killed for the purpose. Similar forms of cannibalism as a religious rite were practised by the
worshippers of Bacchus in ancient Greece.
There is one form of cannibalism which seems to have arisen after the persecutions had begun. Some of the
witches deliberately ate the flesh of a young infant with the avowed purpose of obtaining the gift of silence, even
under torture, when questioned by the Christian judges. The child does not appear to have been killed for the
purpose, but considering the infant mortality of the period there could have been no difficulty in obtaining the
magical flesh. The reason for the practice was a form of sympathetic magic, by eating the flesh of a child who
had never spoken articulate words the witches' own tongues would be prevented also from articulating. De
Lancre[12] shows this belief very clearly, "In order not to confess the secrets of the school, they make at the
Sabbath a paste of black millet with the powder made from the dried liver of an unbaptised child; it has the
virtue of taciturnity; so that whosoever eats it will never confess." This generalisation is borne out by the
evidence at two Scotch trials. At Forfar in 1661[13] Helen Guthrie stated that she and some others dug up the
body of an unbaptised infant, "and took several parts thereof, as the feet, hands, a part of the head, and a part
of the buttock, and they made a pie thereof, that they might eat of it, that by this means they might never make
confession (as they thought) of their witchcrafts". In 1695 one of the Bargarran witches[14] told the court that
"their Lord (as they called him) gave them a piece of an unchristened Child's liver to eat; telling them, That
though they were Apprehended, they should never Confess, which would prevent an effectual Discovery."
The greatest of all the sacrifices was that of the god himself. This took place at one of the great quarterly
Sabbaths at the end of a term of years, generally seven or nine. Frazer has shown that the Dying God was
originally the ruler of the tribe, in other words the king. When the custom begins to die out in any country, the first
change is the substitution of some person of high rank who suffers in the king's stead; for a few days before his
death the substitute enjoys royal powers and honours as he is for the time being actually the king. The next step
is when a volunteer, tempted by the desire for royal power though only temporary, takes the king's fate upon
himself. Then comes the substitution of a criminal already condemned to die in any case, and the final stage is
the sacrifice of an animal.
When the records of the Old Religion were made the great sacrifice had reached the last stages. In France a
goat was burnt to death at the Sabbaths, the creature being called the Devil. The ashes were collected for the
magical promotion of fertility by strewing them on fields and animals. The gathering up of the ashes in the case
of Joan of Arc should be remembered in this connection. It is perhaps worth remarking that when in the
seventeenth century, the time for the sacrifice had come the god is always said to be in the form of a large goat
or in his "grand array", which means that in the original rite it was the sacrifice of the Horned God himself.
In the primitive forms of the sacrifice elsewhere than in Europe the worshippers ate the dead body of the god, or
at least some part of it. Ceremonial cannibalism is found in many parts of the world, and in all cases it is due to
the desire to obtain the qualities of the dead person, his courage, his wisdom, and so on. When a divine victim
was eaten and the holy flesh thus received into the system, the worshipper became one with the deity. In ancient
Egypt, as in other places, it was more common to eat the animal substitute or a figure of the god made in dough
or other edible substance. The sacrifice of the god in the person of the king or his substitute was known from
very early times, and has continued in some countries until the present century. It remained in Western Europe
as long as the cult of the Horned God lasted, and I have collected in the chapter on the Divine Victim several
examples of the royal gods and their divine substitutes. Besides these historical instances there must have
been many local victims who, being in a humble walk of life, were not recorded.
In modern books on this subject the substitutes are often called Mock Kings, whose rule was usually a kind of
Saturnalia, for the royal powers were largely burlesqued. Klunzinger[15] records examples of the kind in Egypt in
1878, he says that in every village of Upper Egypt a New-Year King was elected, who for three or four days
usurped the power of the Government and ruled despotically. He wore a special dress, and was treated with
extravagant respect, he tried legal cases and passed ridiculous sentences on the offenders. At the end of his
46