1622 Margaret NcWilliam 'renounced her baptisme and he baptised her and she gave him as a gift a hen or cock'.[1] In modern France the sacrifice of a fowl to the Devil still holds good: 'Celui qui veut devenir sorcier doit aller à un quatre chemins avec une poule noire, ou bien encore au cimetière, sur une tombe et toujours à minuit. Il vient alors quelqu'un qui demande: "Que venez vous faire ici?" "J'ai une poule à vendre," répond-on. Ce quelqu'un [est] le Méchant.'[2]
It is possible that the custom of burying a live animal to cure disease among farm animals, as well as the charm of casting a live cat into the sea to raise a storm, are forms of the animal sacrifice.
3. Child Sacrifice.—The child-victim was usually a young infant, either a witch's child or unbaptized; in other words, it did not belong to the Christian community. This last is an important point, and was the reason why unbaptized children were considered to be in greater danger from witches than the baptized. 'If there be anie children vnbaptised, or not garded with the signe of the crosse, or orizons; then the witches may or doo catch them from their mothers sides in the night, or out of their cradles, or otherwise kill them with their ceremonies.'[3] The same author quotes from the French authorities the crimes laid to the charge of witches, among which are the followin: 'They sacrifice their owne children to the diuell before baptisme, holding them vp in the aire vnto him, and then thrust a needle into their braines'; and 'they burne their children when they haue sacrificed them'.[4] Boguet says, 'Les Matrones, & sages femmes sont accoustumé d'offrir à Satan les petits enfans qu'elles reçoiuent, & puis les faire mourir auant qu'ils soient baptizez, par le moyẽ d'vne grosse espingle qu'elles leur enfoncent dans le cerueau.'[5] Boguet's words imply that this was done at every birth at which a witch officiated; but it is impossible that this should be the case; the sacrifice was probably made for some special purpose, for which a new-born child was the appropriate victim.
The most detailed account of such sacrifices is given in the trial of the Paris witches (1679-81), whom Madame de
