nglish superstitions in
these and their allied forms, as exhibited in various
documents, appears in a recent work of authority, entitled
'Leechdoms, Wort-Cunning, and Starcraft of Early England.
Published by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the
Rolls.' Diseases of all sorts are for the most part inflicted
upon mankind by evil demons, through the agency of spells and
incantations.

[51] Strutt derives the 'long-continued custom of swimming
people suspected of witchcraft' from the Anglo-Saxon mode of
judicial trial--the ordeal by water. Another 'method of
proving a witch,' by weighing against the Church Bible (a
formidable balance), is traced to some of their ancient
customs. James VI. (_Demonologie_) is convinced that 'God
hath appointed, for a supernatural sign of the monstrous
impiety of witches, that the water shall refuse to receive
them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water
of baptism and wilfully refused the benefit thereof.'

From Scandinavia the Normans must have brought a conviction of
the truths of magic; and although they had been long settled,
before the conquest of England, in Northern France and in
Christianity, the traditional glories of the land from which were
derived their name and renown could not be easily forgotten. Not
long after the Conquest the Arabic learning of Spain made its way
into this country, and it is possible that Christian magic, as
well as science, may have been influenced by it. Magic,
scientifically treated, flourished in Arabic Spain, being
extensively cultivated, in connection with more real or practical
learning, by the polite and scientific Arabs. The schools of
Salamanca, Toledo, and other Saracenic cities were famous
throughout Europe for eminence in medicine, chymistry, astronomy,
and mathematics. Thither resorted the learned of the North to
perfect themselves in the then cultivated branches of knowledge.
The vast amount of scientific literature of the Moslems of Spain,
evidenced in their public libraries, relieves Southern Europe,
in part at least, from the stigma of a universal barbaric
illiteracy.[52] Several volumes of Arabian philosophy are said to
have been introduced to Northern Europe in the twelfth century;
and it was in the school of Toledo that Gerbert--a conspicuous
name in the annals of magic--acquired his preternatural
knowledge.