adults, nor were they permitted to join in all the ceremonies until after they had passed childhood.[1]
The same rule appears to have held good in Scotland, for when little Jonet Howat was presented to the Devil, he said, 'What shall I do with such a little bairn as she?'[2] It is, however, rare to find child-witches in Great Britain, therefore the rules concerning them are difficult to discover.
Another rule appears to have been that there was no sexual connexion with a pregnant woman. In the case of Isobel Elliot, the Devil 'offered to lie with her, but forbore because she was with child; that after she was kirked the Devil often met her, and had carnal copulation with her'.[3]
Since the days of Reginald Scot it has been the fashion of all those writers who disbelieved in the magical powers of witches to point to the details of the sexual intercourse between the Devil and the witches as proof positive of hysteria and hallucination. This is not the attitude of mind of the recorders who heard the evidence at the trials. 'Les confessions des Sorciers, que i'ay eu en main, me font croire qu'il en est quelque chose: dautant qu'ils ont tous recogneu, qu'ils auoient esté couplez auec le Diable, et que la semence qu'il iettoit estoit fort froide; Ce qui est conforme à ce qu'en rapporte Paul Grilland, et les Inquisiteurs de la foy.'[4] 'It pleaseth their new Maister oftentimes to offer himselfe familiarly vnto them, to dally and lye with them, in token of their more neere coniunction, and as it were marriage vnto him.'[5] 'Witches confessing, so frequently as they do, that the Devil lies with them, and withal complaining of his tedious and offensive coldness, it is a shrewd presumption that he doth lie with them indeed, and that it is not a meer Dream.'[6]
It is this statement of the physical coldness of the Devil which modern writers adduce to prove their contention that the witches suffered from hallucination. I have shown above (pp. 61 seq.) that the Devil was often masked and his whole person covered with a disguise, which accounts for part of the evidence but not for all, and certainly not for the most important item. For in trial after trial, in places far removed from
