Chapter XXXIV.
How Witches do Hurt to the Fruits of the Earth.
Witches also do hurt to the fruits of the earth in several ways. For they raise hailstorms and tempests to ruin them when they have ripened, as we have already said.
St. Augusti.
St. Thom.
Binsfeld ad 1. 4. de malefic. & q. 9. conclus. 4.Secondly, with the help of Satan they cause cankerworms, rats and other vermin to waste and devour the fruit: such vermin being either created by Satan or brought from elsewhere; for it is certain that devils can bring animals together wherever they please.
Thirdly, at the prayer of witches Satan procures the loss and waste of the two principal causes of the fertilisation of the soil and its preservation in its natural condition, namely, moisture and heat. Lastly, it is said that witches, with the help of their Master, strip the fruit from one field and cause it to be transferred to another. II. 1. 15.
XVIII. 6.The Germans Hoppo and Stadlin, according to Sprenger, boasted of having done this. And Pliny records that Caius Furius was formerly brought to trial for the same reason. Vergil himself saw it practised:
Eclog. 8.I saw the crops pass over from one field
To another.
