of Witches
71
Another use to which witches put the grease of which we are speaking is to cause the death, or at least the illness, of men and beasts. Christofle of the village of Aranthon confessed that Groz-Jacques and Françoise Secretain made her rub a certain ointment on the hinder parts of a cow, and that the cow died the next day. Vair, de Incant. II. 5.
Bodin, Demonom. IV. 4.And we read that in the year 1536 there were at Casale, a town in the Marquisate of Saluzzo, forty men and women who smeared the door latches with some ointment, as a result of which several people died. A rumour has reached us here that the same thing happened a year ago at Geneva; and this is no new experience to those of that city, for they suffered in the same way in the year 1536, when the ointment with which the doors were smeared caused so great a plague in the city that the greater part of the inhabitants died of it. But we need not go so far afield, for let us take what happened in this town of Saint Claude in the year 1564. There was a man of Orgelet, whom I shall not name, who put the plague in twenty-five houses by cunningly smearing with a grease, which he carried in a box, some spoons which belonged to the masters of the houses; but in another box he carried an antidote which he used every morning to protect and guard himself against the evil which he brought to others. He was executed for it at Annecy, where he confessed, among other things, what I have just said, and especially repented of having caused the death of the mistress of his own house. I have the story from the Sieur Millet, who was then Syndic and Magistrate at Saint Claude and witnessed his trial. There can, then, be no doubt that such ointments are actual poison.
Bodin, Demonom. IV. 4.And we read that in the year 1536 there were at Casale, a town in the Marquisate of Saluzzo, forty men and women who smeared the door latches with some ointment, as a result of which several people died. A rumour has reached us here that the same thing happened a year ago at Geneva; and this is no new experience to those of that city, for they suffered in the same way in the year 1536, when the ointment with which the doors were smeared caused so great a plague in the city that the greater part of the inhabitants died of it. But we need not go so far afield, for let us take what happened in this town of Saint Claude in the year 1564. There was a man of Orgelet, whom I shall not name, who put the plague in twenty-five houses by cunningly smearing with a grease, which he carried in a box, some spoons which belonged to the masters of the houses; but in another box he carried an antidote which he used every morning to protect and guard himself against the evil which he brought to others. He was executed for it at Annecy, where he confessed, among other things, what I have just said, and especially repented of having caused the death of the mistress of his own house. I have the story from the Sieur Millet, who was then Syndic and Magistrate at Saint Claude and witnessed his trial. There can, then, be no doubt that such ointments are actual poison.
