ny.

"Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew!
A tough old sow and the mother thereon,
Then follow the witches, every one."

GOETHE: _Faust._ (Taylor _trans._)

In Norway the mountains above Bergen were a resort, and the
Dovrefeld, once the home of the trolls.

"It's easy to slip in here,
But outward the Dovre-King's gate opens not."

IBSEN: _Peer Gynt._ (Archer _trans._)

In Italy the witches met under a walnut tree near Benevento; in
France, in Puy de Dome; in Spain, near Seville.

In these night-ridings Odin was the leader of a wild hunt. In
stormy, blustering autumn weather

"The wonted roar was up among the woods."

MILTON: _Comus._

Odin rode in pursuit of shadowy deer with the Furious Host behind
him. A ghostly huntsman of a later age was Dietrich von Bern,
doomed to hunt till the Judgment Day.

Frau Venus in Wagner's _Tannhaeuser_ held her revels in an
underground palace in the Horselberg in Thuringia, Germany. This
was one of the seats of Holda, the goddess of spring. Venus herself
is like the Christian conception of Freya and Hel. She gathers
about her a throng of nymphs, sylphs, and those she has lured into
the mountain by intoxicating music and promises. "The enchanting
sounds enticed only those in whose hearts wild sensuous longings
had already taken root." Of these Tannhaeuser is one. He has stayed
a year, but it seems to him only one day. Already he is tired of
the rosy light and eternal music and languor, and longs for the
fresh green world of action he once knew. He fears that he has
forfeited his soul's salvation by being there at all, but cries,

"Salvation rests for me in Mary!"

WAGNER: _Tannhaeuser._

At the holy name Venus and her revellers vanish, and Tannhaeuser
finds himself in a meadow, hears the tinkling herd-bells, and a
shepherd's voice singing,

"Frau Holda, goddess of the spring,
Steps forth from the mountains old;
She comes, and all the brooklets sing,
And fled is winter's cold.

* * * * *

Play, play, my pipe, your lightest lay,
For spring has come, and merry May!"

_Tannhaeuser._ (Huckel _trans._)

praising the goddess in her blameless state.

By the fifteenth century Satan, taking the place of the gods,
assumed control of the evil creatures. Now that witches were the
followers of