Chapter XXVI.
Whether Witches Afflict with Words.
Raemond, Antichrist, 26. 6.Fourthly, witches cause harm and mischief by their words. A Jew named Zambares by uttering certain words made a bull fall stark dead at the feet of St. Sylvester in the time of Constantine the Great. Nider tells that he saw a witch who, by pronouncing a single word, caused people to die suddenly; and he tells also that he likewise saw another who, with one word made her neighbour’s chin turn upside down. When Françoise Secretain wished to kill certain beasts, she struck them with a wand, saying these words: “I touch thee to kill thee,” etc. I have seen many other witches who did likewise. Moreover, we find in Homer that Circe changed the companions of Ulysses into swine by the power of words.
Circe did with her chants accursed and strange
The wretched comrades of Ulysses change.
And Aristophanes writes that the witches of Thessaly performed marvellous things by their words:
Vile witches can with magic utterance
Free wretched souls of all the ills that chance;
Or charm the remnants of their wits away
From those who dote on loving all the day;
Or stay a river in its onward flowing
So as to set its waters backward going.
