Compendium Maleficarum/Book 2/Chapter 11
Chapter XI
Witches Use something of Religion in Healing Sickness.
Argument.
Most cunningly does Satan, that Master of perversity, mask his magic under the appearance of religion; and this he does, both that he may the more easily lead into superstitious error those who are naturally disposed to that cult; and that, by himself working miraculous cures, he may avert suspicion from his followers, so that it shall not be thought that he who has removed the sickness was the original cause of it. This we shall later make clear. For witches observe various silences, measurings, vigils, mutterings, figures and fires, as if they were some expiatory religious rite; and worse still, they transfer the sickness to certain pious men, alleging that it is a punishment for having dishonoured their deity. Most intolerable of all, they often mingle with their prayers all sorts of filth and dung and excrement, than which nothing can be imagined more foreign to the purity which is proper to Divine worship and ceremonies. The following are examples of this sort.
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Examples.
Within the last fifteen years there was at Nancy a woman named Thenotte who was a witch. Once when she was asked to heal a sick neighbour (for she was supposed to have such power), she said that the sickness had been caused by S. Fiacre,[1] who must therefore be placated with gifts at his shrine; and that, if they bade her, she would gladly undertake the matter. She was induced by payment to attempt this work. First she measured the sick woman cross-wise with a waxed linen cloth, then folded the cloth so many times and placed it in her bosom as though to cherish it. Then for the whole of the following night she lay outside the doors of the house in which the sick woman was, and at dawn went her way in utter silence. When she came to the shrine of S. Fiacre she went in and lit the linen cloth, and with the burning drops of wax traced a cross on the steps of the High Altar; and then went out and walked three times round the chapel, with the cloth still spluttering blue flames. When she had done all this she went back to the city.
A peasant of the Vosges named Desiré Finance had cherished a long grudge against a fellow townsman named Valentine Valère and longed to be thoroughly revenged upon him, but had not found any safe or favourable chance of doing so. But this chance came when Valentine was travelling alone in a solitary place, and a figure like a shadow seized him and hurled him from his horse with such violence that he was lamed in one leg. But some time later he had pity on the man, since he had suffered his misfortune for so long, and went to him as if upon some other business. Then he asked him how he came by that accident, and was told at great length the cause, which he himself knew much better; and finally he promised a sure and immediate cure, if he would do as he told him, and that he would take no payment for it. The other anxiously waited to hear what he must do; and Desiré told him to go and beg the horse-dung from nine different stables, enough to fill a sack, and to limp with it and take it as a gift to S. Benedict, to whom there was a famous shrine in the German town of Berguel; for thus, he said, he would by some secret virtue and power be freed from his affliction and grow strong again. See how it is the custom of witches to cover their cures thus with the cloak of religion; when they have nothing to do with religion, but rather despise and mock at it.
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- ↑ “S. Fiacre.” Abbot in Ireland; died 18 August, 670. He long dwelt in a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the memory is preserved in Kilfiachra (Kilfera), Kilkenny. S. Fiacre migrated to France and built an oratory at Brogillum (Breuil), where his shrine is yet a place of pilgrimage. During his life he healed all manners of diseases and numberless cures are wrought at his tomb. His shrine was removed in 1568 to the Cathedral at Meaux for safety from the violence and destruction of the Calvinists, and precious Relics have been distributed to other sanctiuaries. Feast, 30 August.