[the witches] are seized by Justice, they neither weep nor shed a single tear, for their false martyrdom, whether by torture or the gallows, is so pleasant to them that many of them weary to be put to death; and suffer very joyously when they face the trial, so much do they weary that they are not with the Devil. And they are impatient of nothing so much in their prison as that they cannot testify to him how much they suffer and desire to suffer for him."
The meetings of the witches were of two classes, the sabbath and the esbat.[1] The esbat was a local meeting, held near a village, and attended only by the village people. It was at these local meetings that the various enchantments for individual and local purposes were performed. Thus at North Berwick[2] the witches met at the Kirk for the express purpose of destroying the King—James VI. of Scotland, our James I.—by making a wax image of him, and in case that failed, they were instructed in the making of poison to effect their end. In Somerset[3] the witches met to make images to cause the death of an enemy; in Lancashire[4] they met to arrange the escape of one of their number from prison. The admission of a candidate also took place at the local meetings, though this was a ceremony which might be performed in private with only the sponsors present, or even at the Sabbath in the presence of the whole congregation. At Auldearne Isobel Gowdie,[5] whose confession was entirely voluntary, gives a description of a ceremony which is not only interesting in itself, but also shows what the original object of these meetings may have been. The ceremony, as she describes it, was one for blasting fertility by means of a mock plough. The Devil held the plough, the officer
