nocturne de Lembeke, où, après la danse, elle a, comme tous les assistans, baisé un bouc à l'endroit de sa queue, lequel bouc fut ensuite brùlé et ses cendres distribuées et emportées par les convives.'[1] Jeanne de Belloc in 1609 'a veu le Grand maistre de l'assemblee se ietter dans les flammes au sabbat, se faire brusler iusques à ce qu'il estoit reduit en poudre, & les grandes & insignes sorcieres prendre les dictes poudres pour ensorceler les petits enfants & les mener au sabbat, & en prenoient aussi dans la bouche pour ne reueler iamais'.[2] A French witch in 1652 declared that at the Sabbath 'le diable s'y at mis en feu et en donné des cendres lesquelles tous faisaient voller en l'air pour faire mancquer les fruits de la terre'.[3] At Lille in 1661 the girls in Madame Bourignon's orphanage stated that 'on y adoroit une bête; & qu'on faisoit avec elle des infamies; & puis sur la fin on la brûloit, & chacun en prenoit des cendres, avec lesquelles on faisoit languir ou mourir des personnes, ou autres animaux.[4]
The collection and use of the ashes by the worshippers point to the fact that we have here a sacrifice of the god of fertility. Originally the sprinkling of the ashes on fields or animals or in running water was a fertility charm; but when Christianity became sufficiently powerful to attempt the suppression of the ancient religion, such practices were represented as evil, and were therefore said to be 'pour faire mancquer les fruits de la terre'.
The animal-substitute for the divine victim is usually the latest form of the sacrifice; the intervening stages were first the volunteer, then the criminal, both of whom were accorded the power and rank of the divine being whom they personated. The period of time during which the substitute acted as the god varied in different places; so also did the interval between the sacrifices. Frazer has pointed out that the human victim, whether the god himself or his human substitute, did not content himself by merely not attempting to escape his destiny, but in many cases actually rushed on his fate, and died by his own hand or by voluntary submission to the sacrificer.
