CHAPTER II

Witches use Human Corpses for the Murder of Men.
Argument.
N our days it is the custom of
witches to dig up human corpses to use them for the murderous slaugh- ter of men, especially the bodies of those who have been punished by death or hanged. For not only from such horrid material do they renew their evil spells, but also from the actual appliances used at executions, such as the rope, the chains, the stake, and the iron tools. Indeed it is the popular belief that there is some magic power and virtue inherent in such objects.
Others cook the whole body to dry
BK. II. CH. II.
ashes, and mix it with certain other matter into a solid lump. Giovanni Battista Porta mentions that this was wont to be done in his day, and Pliny (Historia Naturalis, XXVIII, 7) * also
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speaks of it. In our own time Remy tells of many who have been tried and executed for such practices in German Lorraine.
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Examples.
At Douzy on the 1st Octo- ber, 1586, Anna Ruffa con- fessed that she helped a witch named Lolla to dig up in this way a corpse which had recently been buried, and from its burned ashes they compounded a potion that they afterwards used for killing those whom they would.
The evidence of the witch Briceia at Vorpach in August 1587 is clear concerning the digging up of an infant’s body which had been buried
* “Fhstoria Naturalis,’ XXVIII, 7. “Quae ex mulierum corporibus traduntur, ad portentorum miracula accedunt, ut sileamus diuisos membratim in scelera abortiuos, men- sium pracula, quaeque alia non obstetrices modo
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the day before by its father, Wolf the Smith. It differs from the case we have just quoted only in the fact that they did not burn the body to ashes, but melted it into a solid lump so that they could more easily make an unguent fromit. But they reduced the bones to ashes with which they sprinkled the trees of orchards to pre- vent them from bearing fruit.
At Guermingen in Decem- ber 1588 Antony Welch re- ported what had been told him by the wives of Nichel Gross and Beschess, both of whom were well known to him through his companion- ship with them in witch- craft. They said that not long before they had dug up from the cemetery of Guer- mingen two corpses which had lately been consigned to the earth by their relatives Bernard and Antony Lerchen, and that they had burned them in a fire and used them for their own vile spells of witchcraft. But first they cut off the right arm
uerum etiam ipsae meretrices prodidere... Cinere eo quidem, si in testa sint cremati, uel cum spuma argenti scabritias oculorum ac pruri- gines emendari: item uerrucas, et infantium ulcera cum melle.”
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together with the shoulder and the ribs pertaining to it, which they required for the devilish light that we have mentioned above: for if they wished to poison anyone by night they set light to the fingers at the end of the limb, which burned with a blue sulphurous flame until they had completed their work; and when the flame was extin- guished the fingers remained whole and unwasted, as if they had never been burned. And this happened in the same manner just as often as they wished. Johann Miiller of Welferdingen had a child but
BK. II. CH. Il.
leaves and stalks and roots of plants; from animals, fishes, venomous rep- tiles, stones and metals; sometimes these are reduced to powder and sometimes to an ointment. It must also be known that witches admin- ister such poisons either by causing them to be swallowed, or by external application. In the first instance they usually mix some poisonous powder with the food or drink: in the second they bewitch their victim, whether man or woman, while he is sleeping by anointing him with their lotions, waters, oils, and unguents which con- tain many
one year old rel ff | and various whom he ——S FS zh poisons. They loved very =e —— & HE BH anoint the dearly. Aga- = Be ee | thighs, or tina of Pittel- ‘a Lay mt belly, or head, ingen and Ey) il i throat, breast, Maietta of Flt | Pay | ribs, or some Hoheneck oI SE | other part of stole this é = the body of child from its N the person to cradle and be bewitched, placed it ona who being burning pyre asleep _ feels which they nothing; but had prepared CA such is > the
for that pur- pose on a steep hill called “Za Grise,” and care- fully collected its calcined ashes. These they mixed with dew, shaken from the ears of corn and the heads of grasses, into a mass that could be easily crumbled, and with this they dusted the vines and crops and trees, causing their flowers to fade and preventing them from bearing fruit.
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