councillor Stolzenberg.
Rich and poor, young and old, suffered alike. At the seventh of these
recorded burnings, the victims are described as a wandering boy, twelve
years of age, and four strange men and women found sleeping in the
market-place. Thirty-two of the whole number appear to have been vagrants,
of both sexes, who, failing to give a satisfactory account of themselves,
were accused and found guilty of witchcraft. The number of children on the
list is horrible to think upon. The thirteenth and fourteenth burnings
comprised four persons, who are stated to have been a little maiden nine
years of age, a maiden still less, her sister, their mother, and their
aunt, a pretty young woman of twenty-four. At the eighteenth burning the
victims were two boys of twelve, and a girl of fifteen; at the nineteenth,
the young heir of the noble house of Rotenhahn, aged nine, and two other
boys, one aged ten, and the other twelve. Among other entries appear the
names of Baunach, the fattest, and Steinacher, the richest burgher in
Wuerzburg. What tended to keep up the delusion in this unhappy city, and,
indeed, all over Europe, was the number of hypochondriac and diseased
persons who came voluntarily forward and made confession of witchcraft.
Several of the victims in the foregoing list had only themselves to blame
for their fate. Many again, including the apothecary's wife and daughter
already mentioned, pretended to sorcery, and sold poisons, or attempted by
means of charms and incantations to raise the devil. But throughout all
this fearful period the delusion of the criminals was as great as that of
the judges. Depraved persons who in ordinary times would have been thieves
or murderers, added the desire of sorcery to their depravity, sometimes
with the hope of acquiring power over their fellows, and sometimes with
the hope of securing impunity in this world by the protection of Satan.
One of the persons executed at the first burning, a prostitute, was heard
repeating the exorcism which was supposed to have the power of raising the
arch enemy in the form of a goat. This precious specimen of human folly
has been preserved by Horst in his _Zauberbibliothek_. It ran as follows,
and was to be repeated slowly, with many ceremonies and wavings of the
hand:

"Lalle, Bachera, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,
Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator
Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton
Agra Jod Loi. Koenig! Koenig!"

The two la