formed by the whirling dancers, each carrying a
blazing torch; but no special ceremony seems to be assigned to August 1,
Lammas Day, a fact suggestive of a later introduction of this festival.

The organization of the hierarchy was the same throughout Western Europe,
with the slight local differences which always occur in any organization.
The same organization, when carried to America, caused Cotton Mather to
say, 'The witches are organized like Congregational Churches.' This gives
the clue at once. In each Congregational Church there is a body of elders
who manage the affairs of the Church, and the minister who conducts the
religious services and is the chief person in religious matters; and there
may also be a specially appointed person to conduct the services in the
minister's absence; each Church is an independent entity and not
necessarily connected with any other. In the same way there was among the
witches a body of elders--the Coven--which managed the local affairs of the
cult, and a man who, like the minister, held the chief place, though as God
that place was infinitely higher in the eyes of the congregation than any
held by a mere human being. In some of the larger congregations there was a
person, inferior to the Chief, who took charge in the Chief's absence. In
Southern France, however, there seems to have been a Grand Master who was
supreme over several districts.

The position of the chief woman in the cult is still somewhat obscure.
Professor Pearson sees in her the Mother-Goddess worshipped chiefly by
women. This is very probable, but at the time when the cult is recorded the
worship of the male deity appears to have superseded that of the female,
and it is only on rare occasions that the God appears in female form to
receive the homage of the worshippers. As a general rule the woman's
position, when divine, is that of the familiar or substitute for the male
god. There remains, however, the curious fact that the chief woman was
often identified with the Queen of Faerie, or the Elfin Queen as she is
sometimes called.

This connexion of the witches and fairies opens up a very wide field; at
present it is little more than speculation that the two are identical, but
there is promise that the theory may be proved at some later date when the
subject is more fully worked out. It is now a commonplace of anthropology
that the tales of fairies and elves preserve the tradition of a dwarf race
which once inhabite