Connecticut western news., 1873-02-21
WitchcraM.

It was in Germany that the belief in witchcraft seems to have first taken that dark, systematical form which held so fearful sway over mems minds in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. There the wilder superstitions of the ancient Teutonic creed have been pre- served in greater force than in any oth- CT part of Europe. The pious legends of Cesarius' of Heisterbach, who four ished in the earlier part of the thir- teenth century, are little better than mass of stories of magic and sorcery. The imaginative feelings of the people, and the wild character of many parts of the country, were peculiarly calculated to foster superstitions of this charac- ter.
 In fact, we may there trace back dis inctly most of the circumstances of the earlier belief relating to witchcraft to the mythology of the ante-Christian pe- riod. Thes grand night of meeting of the German witches was the Night of St. Walpurgia, which answered to one of the religious festivals of the Teu- tonic tribes before their conversion. In after times two other nights of annual assembly were added-those of the feasts of St. John and St. Bartholomew. It is probable that, as Christianity gain ed ground, and been established as the the religion of the state, the old reli- gious festivals, to which the lower and more ignorant part of the people, and particularly the weaker sex (more sus- ceptible of superstitious feelings), were still attached, were celebrated in solita- " places and in private, and those who frequented them were branded as witch es and sorcerers, who met together to hold communication with demons, for as such the earlier Christians looked upon all the heathen gods. This gives us an easy explanation of the manner in which the heathen worship became transformed into the witchcraft of the middle ages.
 ,@ At an early period it was commonly believed that the witches rode through the air to place of rendezvous on reeds and sticks, or on brooms, which latter were the articles readiest at hand to women of this classic society. The chief place of meeting of the great an- nual witch festivals in Germany appears to have been, from an early period, the Brocken Mountain, tire highest part of the wild Hartz chain: but there were several other places of resort.
 The persons believed to have been initiated at their assemblies were looked upon with dread; for they were sup posed to be capable of injuring people in various ways, both in their persons and their possessions, and their malice was especially directed against little children.
 One of the earliest trials for witch craft, unconnected with other offences on the Continent, is that of woman in the bishopric of Novara, on the north ern borders of Italy, about the middle of the fourteenth century; and it illus trates the general belief which also pre- vailed in Germany at that period.
 Itappears, from the slight account which remains sf the trial, that the be- Ii t1then held by the Church was, that women of this class. could by their touch or look fascinate men, or chil- dren, or beasts, so as to produce sick ness or death; and they believed fur ther, that they had devoted their own souls to the demon, to whom also they had done personal homage, after having trampled under foot the figure of the cross. For these offenses they were judged by the most learned theolo- gians to be worthy of being burnt at the stake