of Witches
63
ships beneath the waves by means of the storms which he raised with his charms and witchcraft. I pass by the report that was spread to the effect that the Norse Princes of Denmark, Sweden and NorwayFlorimond de Raemond, Antichrist, c. 26. sent to Queen Elizabeth of England two sorcerers who by their magic arts caused squalls to arise which, in the year 1588, scattered in one moment that great Spanish Armada the like of which had never been seen before.
The Romans also had certain priests who were charged with the raising and allaying of thunder and lightning; and their laws on this matter are to be found among those of the Twelve Tablets. Now I have no doubt that Satan can produce hail; Bodin, Demonom. II. 2.Paracel. de Malefic. c. 4.yet there are those who maintain that, when the Devil foresees the approach of a storm, he deceives witches into the belief that it is they who cause it; while others have written that Satan keeps hail clouds in certain caverns which are, as it were, his magazines, and that he brings them thence when he is invoked by his disciples. But granting that this last be true, as I well believe it may be, it does not therefore follow that all hailstorms are caused by Satan. For hail is caused naturally by a mingling of vapours and exhalations raised into the middle region of the air. But these matters, like all other natural phenomena, are at Satan’s commandment. This we fully learn from the Book of Job, where it is said that when the Devil had received from God power to afflict and injure Job, the lightning fell at once from Heaven and struck his flocks, the winds immediately arose and smote down his houses and overwhelmed his sons; in short, the Heavens so rose against him by Satan’s contrivance that in one moment he lost
