similar stories are told. Bodin, Demonom. II. 8.One witch will even harm another by means of a certain image made from molten lead, as is often found in Germany, as I have remarked elsewhere. They make images, too, so as to hang their companions by the hair. There are other images made in order to gain the love of a woman. Most of these images are mentioned by Plato in the eleventh book of his “Laws.” Our own witches for the most part have their images baptised. But who will doubt that it is Satan alone who works in these cases? for it is not possible for a witch, by means of his images, to kill a man who is two hundred leagues distant from him.
Similarly it is Satan who operated in the case of the execrable witch who on Good Friday pierced the Crucifix with his arrows, and was thus enabled to kill every day three men, provided that he had seen and recognised them. Later we shall see that these wretches generally use images when they wish to perform an act of healing.
The thing would be easier to believe if they sent some gift; for if the gift were poisoned it could injure its recipient, as did the shirt which Medea sent to Jason’s new wife, Creusa: for as soon as Creusa had put on this shirt her body began to burn all over so that she died. Hercules burned in the same manner. I have in our prison a woman charged with almost the same thing; for she gave a neighbouring woman a shirt as a gift, and as soon as the woman put it on she began to feel ill.