l'autre et qu'au milieux il y auoit vne feme masquée tenant vne chandelle'.[1]
It will be seen from the above that the witches were often disguised at the dance, a fact strongly suggesting that the masking was entirely ritual. As the witch trials in Great Britain seldom mention, much less describe, the dance, it follows that the greater number of the cases of masks are found in France, though a few occur in Scotland, still fewer in England.
The transformation by means of an animal's skin or head is mentioned in the Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore in 668 (see p. 21). It continued among the witches, and in 1598 in the Lyons district 'il y a encor des Demons, qui assistent à ces danses en forme de boucs, ou de moutons. Antoine Tornier dit, que lors qu'elle dansoit, vn mouton noir la tenoit par la main auec ses pieds bien haireux, c'est à dire rudes & reuesches'.[2]
In many cases it is very certain that the transformation was ritual and not actual; that is to say the witches did not attempt to change their actual forms but called themselves cats, hares, or other animals. In the Aberdeen trials of 1596-7 the accused are stated to have 'come to the Fish Cross of this burgh, under the conduct of Sathan, ye all danced about the Fish Cross and about the Meal market a long space'. Here there is no suggestion of any change of form, yet in the accusation against Bessie Thom, who was tried for the same offence, the dittay states that 'there, accompanied with thy devilish companions and faction, transformed in other likeness, some in hares, some in cats, and some in other similitudes, ye all danced about the Fish Cross'.[3] In 1617 in Guernsey Marie Becquet said that 'every time that she went to the Sabbath, the Devil came to her, and it seemed as though he transformed her into a female dog'.[4] Again at Alloa in 1658, Margret Duchall, describing the murder of Cowdan's bairns, said 'after they war turned all in the liknes of cattis, they went in ouer Jean Lindsayis zaird Dyk and went to Coudans hous, whair scho declared, that the Dewill being with
