CHAPTER X

Whether Witches Can by their Art Create any Living Thing.
Argument.
| es is the opinion of S. Augustine (De Trinitate, III, 7), supported by all other Theologians, particularly S. Thomas and S. Bonaventura, that witches can in a moment produce im- perfect animals, such as flies, worms, frogs and such insectsand otheranimals which are generated by putrefaction ; not by creating them, but by applying active to passive principles. Itis usually the demon who, in accordance with his pact with the witch, produces such animals by the application of active to passive forces : for the witches them- selves for the most part do not know how they are produced, and are ignor- ant of the causes: as when the devil gives a witch a little dust which she throws into the air, and there are born various kinds of locusts and grass- hoppers and mice and caterpillars and suchlike animals. The devil could also, having produced such things,
the Colosseum and far up the Esquiline. It would be difficult—and it is perhaps not neces- sary—to identify the Convent of which Guazzo speaks.
BK. I. CH. IX.
tend them and nourish them and give them breath in remote places where they appear to be generated; as among rocks, where imperfect animals are often born, such as flies and mice and similar things. And I believe that this is what happened in the case of those dogs mentioned by William of Newburgh (Hist. Anglorum, I, 28) as follows. A huge stone was being split open in a certain quarry, when there appeared two dogs equal in size to that stone; and from no perceptible hole there sprang these same dogs, which were of the kind called harriers, but fierce-looking, strongly smelling and very shaggy; and one of them, it is said, quickly disappeared. But the other, which is said to have been ex- traordinarily voracious, was kept in luxury for several days by Henry, Bishop of Winchester. These dogs could not, I think, have been gener- ated except from prolific semen; but the devil was able to take them from their mother’s womb and hide them in that place. Demons can also bring forth strange monsters, like that in Brazil which is seventeen palms high, has a lizard’s skin, very swollen paps, the forelegs of a lion, deadly eyes and a flaming tongue: or like those mon- sters in the forests of Saxony, of half human appearance, which were cap- tured in 1240 (Anania, De Natura Daemonum, IV). Unless perhaps such were the issue of an abominable coition of menand beasts, whichisundoubtedly the cause of most monsters. For in this way in the Marsic war Alcippe gave birth to an elephant. And Alexander ab Alexandro,* II, tells us that in the year 1278 in Switzerland a woman gave birth to a lion. So in 1471 at Pavia one produced a cat, and another at Brixen a dog. So in 1531 a woman of Augsburg brought forth at one
* “Alexander ab Alexandro.” Alessandro Alessandri, a famous Neapolitan jurisconsult and archaeologist, born 1461; died c. 1523. The reference is to his ‘“‘Genialium Dierum,” an encyclopaedic work, often reprinted.
BK. I. CH. X.
birth first a human head covered in a caul, then a two-legged serpent, and thirdly a complete pig. We read of many such births in more recent times; but the most astounding of all is that recorded in the Chronicles of Portugal.
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Examples.
A woman was deported for some crime to a desert island and there left, and was at once surrounded by a chattering crowd of apes, of which there were many in that place. Then one larger than the rest, for whom they all made way, came and took her gently by the hand and led her into a big cave, where he and some other apes brought her a plentiful variety of fruit and nuts and roots, and signed to her to eat. Finally she was forced into foul sin with the ape, and so con- tinued for many days until she gave birth to two children by the animal. The wretched woman lived in this way for some years, until God took pity up- on her and sent a ship there from Portugal, from which some sailors came ashore to fetch water from a spring which was near her cave. It happened that the ape was not at hand; so the woman ran up to the men, whose like she had not seen for so long, and throwing herself at their feet implored them to set her free from her criminal and disastrous servitude. They consented, having pity on her misfortune, and she embarked upon the ship with them. But behold, the ape then appeared calling with extra- vagant gestures and groans to his wife, who was not his wife ; and when he saw the sails set for departure, he quickly ran and held out one of her children to the mother, threatening to drown it in the sea if she did not come back. And he was not slow to carry out his threat. Then he ran back to the cave and as quickly came again to the shore with the other child, which he like- wise threatened and drowned. After
MALEFICARUM
29 this, in his fury, he swam after the ship until he was overcome by the waves. This story became the talk of all Portugal; and the woman was con- demned by the King of Lisbon to be burned : but certain men petitioned for her, and her sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. Does this surprise you, reader? Hear what Saxo Grammaticus and two great Bishops of Upsala say. They say that the Gothic Kings sprang from a bear and a nobly born virgin ; and Joao de Barros * says that the Pegusian and Sianite Indians originated from the physical union of a dog and a woman.
Yet I am sceptical in this matter, for man must be generated by man. And if there is any truth in what we have just told, I shall say that an Incubus devil injected the warm semen of those animals into the women: and as for the report concerning the Gothic Kings, I think this is to be said; that the devil in the form of those beasts tumbled the women. And that he can do this is shown by the next example, and the following chapter.
There was a lewd fellow in Belgium who had to do with a cow, and the cow soon became pregnant and after some months gave birth to a male foetus, whichwas not a calf but human. There were many present who saw it come from its mother’s womb, and they picked it up from the ground and gave it to a nurse. The boy grew up and was baptised and instructed in the Christian life, and applied himself seriously to piety and works of pen- ance for his father; and so came to manhood. But he felt in himself cer- tain bovine propensities, as that of eating grass and chewing the cud. What must be thought of this? Was he not a man? Certainly I believe he
* *°4oq0 de Barros.” 1496-1570. His classical work ‘‘Asia,” giving an account of explorations and conquest, is highly esteemed as a masterpiece of Portuguese literature. See De Feria, ‘‘Vida de Joao de Barros,’ Lisbon,
1778.
30 was; but I deny that his mother was a cow. What then? The devil was aware of his father’s sin, and at his pleasure made the cow appear to be pregnant: he then secretly brought an infant from elsewhere, and so placed it by the labouring cow (which was big only with wind) that it seemed to be born from the cow.
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