witches, however, 'did accustome to meete within the backeside of Maister Dodges in the Pittes there'.[1] Boguet's evidence also points to there being a settled site for the Esbat in each village:
'Les Sorciers du costé de Longchamois s'assembloient en vn pré, qui est sur le grand chemin tirant à S. Claude, où l'on voit les ruines d'vne maison. Ceux du costé de Coirieres tenoient leur Sabbat, sous le village de Coirieres proche l'eau, en vn lieu appellé és Combes, qui est du tout sans chemin. [Autres] se retrouuoient en vn lieu dict és Fontenelles, sous le village de Nezan, qui est vn lieu assez descouuert … le Sabbat des Sorciers de la Moüille se tenoit en la Cour du Prioré du mesme lieu.'[2]
Jane Bosdeau (1594) went twice a week regularly to 'a Rendezvous of above Sixty Witches at Puy de dome'.[3] And the Swedish witches went so uniformly to one place that there was a special building for their rites:
'They unanimously confessed that Blockula is scituated in a delicate large Meadow whereof you can see no end. The place or house they met at, had before it a Gate painted with divers colours; through this Gate they went into a little Meadow distinct from the other … In a huge large Room of this House, they said, there stood a very long Table, at which the Witches did sit down: And that hard by this Room was another Chamber where there were very lovely and delicate Beds.'[4]
On the whole the weight of evidence in England and Scotland is in favour of Danaeus's statement that there was no fixed site, though this should be taken as referring to the local meetings only, not to the Great Assemblies. The Forfar witch-trials give much information: Helen Guthrie
'wes at a meitting in the church yeard of Forfar in the Holfe therof … Betwixt the oatseid and the bearseid [barleysowing), she wes at ane other meitting at the Pavilione hollis … This same year, betwixt the oatseid and bearseid, she was at a thrid meiting in the church yeard of Forfar in the holfe thereof, about the same tyme of the night as at the [former] meitings, viz. at midnight.—About the beginning of the last oat seid
