some manual gesture, by a password, or by some token carried on his person. The token seems to have been carried on the foot, and was perhaps a specially formed boot or shoe, or a foot-covering worn under the shoe.[1]
Besides the Grand Master himself there was often a second 'Devil', younger than the Chief. There is no indication whatsoever as to the method of appointing the head of the witch-community, but it seems probable that on the death of the principal 'Devil' the junior succeeded, and that the junior was appointed from among the officers (see chap. vii). This suggestion, however, does not appear to hold good where a woman was the Chief, for her second in command was always a man and often one well advanced in years. The elderly men always seem to have had grey beards.
Danaeus in 1575 summarizes the evidence and says of the Devil, 'he appeareth vnto them in likenesse of a man, insomuch that it hapneth many tymes, that among a great company of men, the Sorcerer only knoweth Satan, that is present, when other doo not know him, although they see another man, but who or what he is they know not'.[2] De Lancre says, 'On a obserué de tout temps que lors qu'il veut receuoir quelcun à faire pacte auec luy, il se presente tousiours en homme'.[3] Cooper states that 'the Wizards and Witches being met in a place and time appointed, the devil appears to them in humane shape'.[4] Even a modern writer, after studying the evidence, acknowledges that the witches 'seem to have been undoubtedly the victims of unscrupulous and designing knaves, who personated Satan'.[5]
The witches not only described the personal appearance of the Devil, but often gave careful details as to his clothes; such details are naturally fuller when given by the women than by the men.
- ↑ It is possible that the shoe was cleft like the modern 'hygienic' shoe. Such a shoe is described in the ballad of the Cobler of Canterbury, date 1608, as part of a woman's costume:
'Her sleevës blue, her traine behind,
With silver hookes was tucked, I find;
Her shoës broad, and forked before.' - ↑ Danaeus, ch. iv.
- ↑ De Lancre, Tableau, p. 69.
- ↑ Cooper, Pleasant Treatise, p. 2.
- ↑ Burns Begg; p. 217.
