Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-01-11
WITCHES SABBATH.
A LUDIcRoUs SUPERSTITION OF THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
Witchcraft and Its Punishments-Even
Transplanted to the New World-Uses
Made of the Folly by Famous Poets-A
Madman's Vision

Made of the Folly by Famous Poets-A
Madman's Visions
There were superstitious beliefs concerning
magic and wltcheraft which had existed
from the earliest times, but which ragged with
extraordinary fury throughout the Fifteenth
century, drawing upon its neopbytes 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 fres-for
the witches were usually burned at the stake
were even kindled on the shores of the new
world. Belief in these crimes was universal,
and the most astonishing stories Of the mon
strous and abominable acts of the witches
were made the subject of serious examine
tion by the tribunals of justice and were es-
tablished by witnesses of apparently the
highest credibility.
1t is difficult in this age of free and enlight-
ened thought to believe those terrible annals,
and we find it impossible to realize the con-
ditions which made such 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
hays whose prophecies filed his ambitious
soul 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
O. Shanter, when the witches danced at mid
night in the old and ruined Kirk Alloway,
and yet it was nothing more than picture of
the obscene celebration of the Witches Sab
bath, universally believed in even as late as
300 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 startIes and shocks the sensibilities
| like a hooking laugh in a chamber where
the dead are laid out for burial The sky is
dark with the gloom of night when the
moon is buried in clou Is, but nevertheless
affords light enough to show that the land
scape is wild and desolate. Among the rocks
where four roads meet stands family 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 murmur of innumer-
able voices whispering as they pass in their
tumultuous flight. These are the witches,
anointed on the shoulders and on the soles Of
the feet with the fat of murdered and I'M
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
rileges and blasphemous rites. The air is
filed with the rumor and hum of great
multitude There are the hoarse voices Of
men and the shrill tones of women, but sup
pressed and murmurous.
HIDEoUs NIGHTMARE.
Suddenly there is a wild and startling
blast of trumpets and burst of light reveal
ing vast and astonishing assemblage of
strange beings adjoining by the most shocking
and obscene rites their Internal prince and
diabolic patron, who wears the form Of
huge he goat. The worshipers appearing at
a distance as hideous monsters, the phantoms
of a nightmare, are seen on near approach to
be men and women, the latter in rich and
gaudy CARDS or clad only in the costume Of
the paradise from which they had been de-
servedly driven. The blasphemous rites con-
Guided, an orgy, extravaganza in its shame
lessness, monstrous in its depravity, accom-
panied by internal music, then follows and
proclainls this the Walpurgis night of
Goethe
This should be the vision of a n man, the
creation of the. imagination of a demon. but
it was Elong a current matter of belief. 1t
was a vast fabric of superstition that had
grown up out of the ignorance and darkness
which had chung 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 scale Olympus, had en-
tailed upon our race and had driven 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-
ton to the basest evil of all that is lovely,
honorable, true, good and to be desir ed. We
| have forgotten it as matter of history, and
we know its hldeous nature now merely as
| dream of the poets or as an Inspiration of the
masters of music. May it ever be so.-New
Orleans Picayune.