or women[1]; in France they are said to be minor devils, diablotins.[2] The officers were entrusted with the management and arrangement of all the meetings, they notified the members when and where the local meetings would be held,[3] they kept the records of attendance at the meetings and also of the ceremonials performed,[4] they appear to have arranged for the feasts, they often led the ring in the dance[5] or remained in the rear to make the less agile dancers keep up with the rest,[6] they introduced the new convert,[7] and in France they inflicted the "Devil's mark" on the newly admitted witch.[8]
The Scotch witches and apparently originally the English witches also, were divided into companies, or covines, as Isobel Gowdie calls them.[9] The number in a covine was thirteen,[10] twelve witches and the officer, i.e. the Devil's dozen. Each covine was independent of any other, but several could meet for any special purpose; for example, at North Berwick there were thirty-nine witches present,[11] three covines. All the covines of a district met together at the great Sabbaths, but as a rule each covine had its own weekly meeting, near the place of residence of the
- ↑ Woman: Glanvil, Sadducisimus Triumphatus, pt. ii. p. 291. Spalding Club Miscellany, i. p. 142. Potts, Wonderfull Discouerie of Witches, ed. 1613. Man: Sinclair, Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 46. Spotiiswoode Miscellany, ii. p. 67. Pitcaiin, Criminal Trials, i. pt. iii. p. 219.
- ↑ De Lancre, Tableau, pp. 73, 124, 147.
- ↑ R. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, Bk. iii. ch. 3. Glanvil, op. cit. pt. ii. pp. 293-5. In small places where there were only a few members, the Devil often went round to the houses himself.
- ↑ Pitcairn, op. cit. i. pt. iii. p. 219, iii. p. 613.
- ↑ Spalding Club Miscellany, i. pp. 97-8.
- ↑ Howell, State Trials, vi. 683, quoting Fountainhall's Decisions.
- ↑ Glanvil, op. cit. pt. ii. pp. 147, 291.
- ↑ De Lancre, op. cit. p. 194.
- ↑ Pitcairn, op. cit. iii. p. 603.
- ↑ Id. ib. iii. p. 603. Begg, Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, N.S. x. p. 212.
- ↑ Pitcairn, op. cit. i. pt. iii. p. 245.
