Sathan took you be the hand, and ye said that his hand was cold.' On the other hand Agnes Murie 'knew not whether his body was hot or cold'.[1] According to Isobel Gowdie at Auldearne in 1662, 'he was a meikle blak roch man, werie cold';[2] at Torryburn, Lilias Adie found his skin was cold;[3] and the Crighton witches in 1678 said, 'he was cold, and his breath was like a damp air'.[4] In 1697 little Thomas Lindsay declared that 'Jean Fulton his Grand-mother awaked him one Night out of his Bed, and caused him take a Black Grimm Gentleman (as she called him) by the Hand; which he felt to be cold'.[5]
The evidence as to the forms assumed by the Devil is tabulated here under each animal, each section being arranged in chronological order.
1. Bull.—In 1593 at Angers 'Michel des Rousseaux, agé de 50 ans, dict que ledict homme noir appellé Iupin se transforma aussitost en Bouc … et apres leur auoir baillé des boüetes de poudre, il se trãsforma en Bouuard'.[6] At Aberdeen in 1597 Marion Grant confessed that 'the Devill apperit to the, sumtyme in the scheap of a beist, and sumtyme in the scheap of a man'. Jonet Lucas of the same Coven said that the Devil was with them, 'beand in likenes of ane beist'. Agnes Wobster, also of the same Coven, acknowledged that 'thaireftir Satan apperit to the in the likenes of a calff, and spak to the in manner forsaid, and baid the be a gude servand to him'.[7] In 1608 Gabriel Pellé confessed that he went with a friend to the Sabbath, where 'le Diable estoit en vache noire, & que cette vache noire luy fit renoncer Dieu'.[8] De Lancre says that at Tournelle the Devil appeared 'parfois comme vn grand Bœuf d'airain couché à terre, comme vn Bœuf naturel qui se repose'.[9] At Lille in 1661 the witches 'adored a beast with which they committed infamous things'.[10]
- ↑ Burns Begg, pp. 219, 221, 228, 230
- ↑ Pitcairn, iii, p. 603.
- ↑ Chambers, iii, 298.
- ↑ Fountainhall, i, p. 14.
- ↑ Narrative of the Sufferings of a Young Girle, p. xli; Sadd. Debell., p. 40.
- ↑ De Lancre, L'Incredulité, p. 769
- ↑ Spalding Club Misc., i, p. 129.
- ↑ De Lancre, L'Incredulité, p. 794.
- ↑ Id., Tableau, p. 68.
- ↑ Bourignon, Parole, p. 87; Hale, p. 26.
