Page:An Examen of Witches.pdf/146

with a rod. But it seems to me that there is no difference between this touching with a wand and the touch with the hand of which we have just spoken.

Chapter XXX.

Of the Images Used by Witches.

Furthermore, l. multi de malefic. C. & ibi Binsfeld., Grilland, de Sortileg. q. 5. num. 9.witches make use of certain waxen images, which they melt and pierce, and so cause their enemies to pine away even as the images waste away. And this agrees with what has been written of Meleager, who was burned commensurately with the burning of the fatal brand by the witch Althea. And we have Ovid as our authority that Medea used this practice.

Amor. III. 6.
Boet. lib. 11.

The waxen likeness of her absent foes
She pierced and injured with a hundred blows.

Wier, de praestig. IV. 9.And again:

Images of wax with magic art
She made, and killed them, piercing to the heart.

Duffus, King of Scotland, was in this manner afflicted for a long time, until the witches who were melting his image were found in the town of Forres in Moravia. It is believed that Charles IX of France, in whose reign the slaying of Huguenots on St. Bartholomew took place, died through the means of such an image. Many