Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-08
WITCHES SABBATH.
A HUMOROUS SUPERSTITION OF THE
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

CCNb S6t~t OnI. Witchcraft and Its Punishments-Evcn |
 Transplanted to the New world-Uses l
 Made of the Folly by Famous Poets-A |
 NIadman's Vision.
 There were superstitious beliefs concerning | magic and witchcraft which had existed | from the earliest times, but which ragged with | extraordinary fury throughout the Fifteenth ! century, drawing upon its neophytes and | practicers the vengeance of the law and the | curses of the spiritual authorities. Thou sands of people in every country of Europe | were tried, convicted and executed for the crimes of witchcraft, and the fatal flres-for l the witches were usually burned at the stake were even kindled on the shores of the new | world. Belief in these crimes was universal, l and the most astonishing stories of the mon- l strous and abominable acts of the witches were made the subject of serious examina l tion by the tribunals of justice and were es- tablished by witnesses of apparently the highest credibility.
 It is difficult in this age of free and enlight- and we find it impossible to realize the con- ditions which made such a state of things possible
 MACBETH AND TAM O sHANTER
 When, therefore, we read of Macbeth ac- costed at night on the blasted heath by three hags whose prophecies filled his ambitious voul with projects of murder, we credit the great master with having evoked from his wonderful imagination a scene which in Shakespeare's time could easily have been drawn from the records of the courts We are equally unable to realize the possibility of the orgy witnessed by stout hearted Tam of Shanfar han ho xritchee danood at mid. night in the old and ruined Kirk A1lo&ay, and yet it was nothing more than picture of the obscene celebration of the Witches Sab bath, universally believed in even as late as 800 years ago.
 And now music is heard, harsh and broken like the growing of distant thunder or the tumult of an approaching storm. Some times it startles and shocks the sensibilities like mocking laugh in a chamber where the dead are laid out for burial. The sky is dark with the gloom of a night when the moon is buried in clouds, but nevertheless affords light enough to show that the land soape is wild and desolate. Among the rocks where four roads meet stands faintly out lined against the sky gibbet whose creaking irons announce an invisible corpse slowly swinging In the fitful breeze. There is over head in the air beating as of the wings of monstrous birds and a murmur Of innumer- able voices whispering as they pass in their tumultuous flight These arc the witches, anointed on the shoulders and on the soles of the feet with the fat of murdered and un- baptized children to enable them to fly and mounted on broomsticks, they assemble from every quarter to join their demon lovers in perpetrating the most hideous sac riReges and blasphemous rites. The air is filled with the rumor and" hum of . great multitude. There are the hoarse voices of men and the shrill tones of women, but SUD- pressed and murmurous.
 A HIDEOUS NIGHTMARE.
 Suddenly there is a wild and startling blast of trumpets and 8 burst of light reveal ing 8 vast and astonishing assemblage of strange beings adorning by the most shocking and obscene rites their internal prince and diabolic patron, who wears the form of a huge he goat. The worshipers appearing at distance as hideous monsters, the phantoms of q nightmare, are seen on near approach to be men and wopen, the latter in rich and gaudy garbs or clad only in the costume of the paradise from which they had been de- servedly driven. The blasphemous rites con- cluded, an orgy, extravagant in its shame lessness, monstrous ip It's depravity, accQn1- panied by internal music, then follows and proclaims this the Walpurgis night of Goethe
 HIS SuOu1u Do tue NlSlUu u Il Iu0uudu, bu6 creation of the. imagination of demon, but it was Hong current matter of belief. It was vast fabric of superstition that had grown up out of the ignorance and darkness which had clung to mankind from the day that the rebels against the Most High had builded on the plains of Shinar tower whose top was to reach into the heavens and force for them passage to that bliss which their crimes had forfeited. It was the curse which the Titans, who vainly piled up noun tains that they might scaie Olympus, had en- tailed upon our race and had drf.en them to seek from devils that spiritual knowledge which is reserved only for the angels and those who work righteousness Such is the Witches Sabbath, an inversion and prostitu= tion to the basest evil of all that is lovely. honorable, true, good and to be desired. We have forgotten 1t as matter of history, and we know it's hideous nature now merely as Q dream of the poets or as an inspiration of tho masters of music. May 1t ever be so.-New Orleans Picayune.