QUOTES AND QUIPS BY MONTAGUE SUMMERS
As introduction to the
Malleus Malificarum
:
Possibly what will be seem even more amazing to the modern
readers is the misogynic trend of various passages, and these not
of the briefest nor least pointed. However, exaggerated as these
may be, I am not altogether certain that they will not prove a
wholesome and needful antidote in this feministic age, when the
sexes seem confounded, and it appears to be the chief object of
many females to ape the man, an indecorum by which they not only
divest themselves of such charm as they might boast, but lay
themselves open to the sternest reprobation in the name of sanity
and common-sense.
In The History of Witchcraft
p.91, quoting St. Augustine:
"Seeing it is so general a report, and so many aver it either
from their own experience or from others, that are of indubitable
honesty and credit, that the sylvans and fawns, commonly called
incubi, have often injured women, desiring and acting carnally
with them: and that certain devils whom the Gauls call Duses, do
continually practise this uncleanness, and tempt others to it,
which is affirmed by such persons, and with such confidence that
it were impudence to deny it."
p.92-93,
Jean-Baptiste Bouvier (1783-1854) the famous bishop of Le Mans
in his Dissertatio in Sextum Decalogi Proeceptum (p. 78) writes:
"All theologians speak of ... evil spirits who appear in the
shape of a man, a woman, or even some animal. "
p. 96:
This explanation[that the incubus is a mixture of material
substance and ectoplasmic emanation] is further rendered the more
probable by the recorded fact that the incubus can assume the
shape of some person whose embraces the witch may desire. (a
sentence, which, in light of the following story, i don't
understand.) Brignoli, in his Alexicacon, relates that wen he
was at Bergamo in 1650, a young man, wenty-two years of age,
sought him out and made a long and ample confession. This youth
was avowed that some months before, when he was in bed, the
chamber door opened and a maiden, Teresa, whom he loved,
stealthily entered the room. [...]Before dawn, however, the
visitant revealed the true nature of the deceit, and the young
man realized he had lain with a succubus. [...] "This monstrous
connexion lasted several months; but at last God delivered him by
my humble means, and he was truly penitent for his sins."
p. 98:
In 1645 the widow Bash, a Suffolk witch, of Barton, said that the
Devil who appeared to her as a dark swarthy youth "was colder
than man." Isobel Goudie and Janet Bredheid, of the Auldearne
coven, in 1662, both asserted that the Devil was "a meikle, blak,
rock man, werie cold; and I fand his nature als cold, a spring-
well-water." Isabel, who had been rebaptized at a Sabbat held
one midnight in Auldearne parish church, and to whom was assigned
a familiar named the Red Riever, albeit he was always clad in
black, gave further details of the Devil's person: "He is abler
for ws that way than any man can be, onlie he ves heavie lyk a
malt-sek; a hudg nature, uerie cold, as yce."
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joan@ucmb.ulb.ac.be