superstitious minds of ignorant people those who have studied the history of the ages and who know the dark secrets locked in the vaults of time to bend the terror great minds have sucked with babies things and then the great museums of the world hang the work of the master artist of another age giving new testimony to the horrors of sorcery and witchcraft as they saw it in their day to tell you this hideous tale and to better help you understand these murderous creatures let's go back five hundred years that will bring us back to the time known as the duck ages witches hild much of europe in their black grip of fear and let us study some of the paintings by the great master artists who lived in the age of witchcraft and through their eyes and the genius of their art let us try to understand these strange creatures and the evil forces behind them in the old books we read that a witch is one who has given his soul to the devil to do that they must  god and all other things that are decent and good it is said that they make a pact with satan written in their own blood in return for this evil deed the devil gave them supernatural powers of magic and evil they could make their bodies disappear or change into any kind of beast or animal that will they were given the power to cast their ominous shadows across the lives of others they could cast evil spells upon their victims causing them to go blind or lose the use of their limbs or even lose their mind they could turn the victims lives into manners of all the devil is their master and they must go froth upon the earth serving only the powers of evil the witches with meat in the night at a prearranged run table usually an old secret dungeons or in the black death of a forest these meetings were called separate and were always held during the night all the devils greatest power was believed to be from sundown to cock crow and many of the finest paintings by the great artist a bad period tell the story more eloquently than words of the strange and evil things that took place at the seven which is what appears at this sinister ritual in the form of all kinds of hideous creatures such as beasts birds black mass will live in infamy forever or hear some of the most terrible criminal acts took place such as the slaying of children whose warm blood was offered up as a sacrifice to sa then the bodies were thrown to the dogs or roasted and by that which is following this ritual the entire gathering would throw themselves into the most depraved orgies of ill and obscenity conceivable to the human mind these evil perverted creatures it was all terribly exciting and it provided an excuse for their unbridled lust and  the fact that it had to be carried out in the most secrecy made it all the more thrilling yet those same evil murderous creatures changed their body isn't all sorts of hideous beast and engaged in those unbelievable rituals by night lived by day as ordinary human beings such as shopkeepers housewives or farmers and as the years went on the bitches continued their murderous assault upon the people from the beginning about thirteenth century through the eighteenth century witchcraft ran rampant through europe and was practiced with all of its blasphemous and obscene rituals so the middle ages  this terrible scourge and that girl convicted of practicing witchcraft must die armies were called out to hunt down the which is the fear was so great that i'm tired villages said to be infested by which is talk the old records tell of flames rising high into the night sky and hideous creatures streaking across the burning heavens screaming all obscenities when confronted with  many of the treacherous which is confessed to the most hideous crimes even the hardened soldiers who were trained to kill turned away sickened by some of their terrifying confessions one group of which is alone confessed to the murdering of about two thousand babies and small children booked from the brothels and slums of the big cities at last which is where no more old superstitions and taboos had  broomstick we are certain that these murderous creatures who walk the world in the dark ages committing their atrocious crimes and casting their evil spells never really existed except in the twilight zone  if i could have known of the strange and haunting experience that was waiting for me i never would have driven any further into the hill country of central texas there are those who say that it was all a dream and that it didn't happen at all nor could it happen in the twentieth century but i tell you it happened perhaps you'll be able to believe it if i tell you about where it happened and the people who live there to begin with it was early spring and there are few places in the whole world as lovely as central texas in april but this is not the six thinking religious asylum in america the green hills the rocky slopes and clear rushing streams reminded them of the hills beside the rhine from limestone outcroppings and the encircling hills they built their thick walled homes most of them still standing mellowed to amber by the sun still occupied by descendants of the settlers and they have kept the face that made their grandfathers brave sickness isolation and indian raids so that it be kept alive a characteristic of the valley is the great number of bells church bells they are been blocking with  are the school veils which have rung for a hundred years calling the children to school houses that were built by their great grandfathers though english and german are spoken interchangeably german is taught in the schools and is still the language of social contact and of the home and i sing in german you can joke all you want to about how far a sports car can go on a gallon of gas but when they're out they'll sit there like any other i was already late so i decided to leave the car and walk into the village this was the last day of the thing in festival and the last day i could take away from college i was writing a thesis on the early germans and taxes and the festivals were important to my research as i walk through the countryside toward the village i thought to myself how lucky these people were to live in such peace and unspoiled beauty and yet as i approached the o'byrne mill on the outskirts of the village an ominous feeling crept over me it seemed as if in the dark shade trees about the mill rain or about to swallow me up and take me back a hundred years as indeed they soon guess it was a pity that such a lovely creature would be the one to tell me that i was too late for the festival she was dressed in a costume of the old country had taken some village children to the festival she said that her grandfather would be glad to have me at the as we turned to go i couldn't help thinking that the old miller could help me in my search so i turned to him he seemed pleasant enough as i asked him if he could help me but when i mentioned the words superstitions and witchcraft he simply turned them continued with  college what kind of clothes were being worn by girls her age suddenly i realized that i was out of place in this village with a century old homes and clean swept walks but as we approached the end her mood changed it was as if she wanted to help me but couldn't find words to explain how you must be careful the old ones do not like to speak of the  grandfather's friends are probably glad to have you in our house he would talk of anything you wish as much of what you don't that evening after a good german dinner by the fire all what do you have to go i mean well i'm not having too much luck with the others and i thought someone younger might be able to help someone like you with my thesis i'm doing research for a thesis they want to help you if they could be sure it was a german immigration you were writing about but ok so it's not just about the immigration story so it's also about customs and things like me i didn't mean to upset your folks the way i did but what can be the harm in a guy researching something that happened over one hundred years ago you would have to live here to know it to understand  believe it but i've done a lot of research on witchcraft and i actually believe it can be boiled down to a simple mathematical and economic formula how do you mean look and any history book any a where there was widespread famine sickness want you find an outbreak of women being denounced as witches in the late middle ages people were executed in europe and england in massachusetts twenty witches were put to death all of these were times of widespread disease and hunger but when your people first subtle in this country they had not only disease and hunger to contend with they had the comanche indian raids as well little wonder then that the ugly word witchcraft was heard in the new colony but what pleasure can you get from studying about all this to better understand the which ones we have today which you would think that after the delusions of new england in early texas the urge to hunt which is would have disappeared from the western world but nothing of the kind of medieval idea witchcraft was replaced with things like race nationality can i do to help your grandfather mention the a college voices telling all the country girls this you know i really mean it i believe it's just that i don't ever really notice anyone until i get a little bothered lined up like a camel you know with your german good looks set up with something simple and black you look like a little cameo i better h as i finish my packing i actually felt that my luck was changing for the better just how much better i couldn't describe it have to see  the early germans in texas to understand properly know how witchcraft and suspicion raised its ugly head in the early colony remember that in the first year of the supplements type sleeping sickness and other bitter hardships were climax by an epidemic that took the lives of two hundred of the six hundred settlers the villagers looked for someone on whom to blame the troubles what brought her subject than the widow who walked by moonlight the w conveniently denounce as well with any woman discovered with him in his bed such young man was our whole showing to be used when convenient to function where your wife cannot yes which is there like took the widow to the graveyard there are those who said that she waited probably without fear and that she whispered over and over to talk oh all right make sure the death to all x morning the elders came to the end they had fished the body of the miller out of the blood soaked mill pond there was no question of what had happened where they had also discovered the empty grave of the witch i tr speak up but words wouldn't form in my mouth this was all a dream i wanted to tell them this thing didn't happen as the elder continued to talk the sudden realization came to me that it was true i hadn't covered a grave of a witch and now after one hundred years she had returned to a venture s the elder warned that no one should leave or enter the village until the witch be found and return to her grave surely the which would not stop at one death where would she strike next  five i was the guilty party just as surely as if i had held a stake i had killed them i could no longer contain my guilt and yet some kind of power kept me from speaking up it was as if i was next by the witch yourself i made up my mind to find the witch and stop the killing the librarian must have wondered at my strange questions under the guise of research i asked her if there were some place people could hide in the hills by day maybe some place where they went to during the indian raids yes she could help me there were some caves downstream from the mill i had my information and so that night as the moon bay the hills with wind across the mill race and headed toward the caves down  as i watched fascinated by this beautiful creature i couldn't believe that here was a vengeful witch who had murdered two and was sworn to kill a third or later in the cold gray light i spread the dirt over the widow my feelings were mixed here was a woman who had taken to know yet she had been denounced maliciously and killed by the same state but she which are wrong the widow is not for me to say i am only glad that tempest is over and she has returned to  hundred years