st anecdote is instructive, if perhaps not strictly authentic. It
shows that in burning alive one of a bewitched flock or herd what you
really do is to burn the witch, who is either actually incarnate in the
animal or perhaps more probably stands in a relation of sympathy with it
so close as almost to amount to identity. Hence if you burn the creature
to ashes, you utterly destroy the witch and thereby save the whole of
the rest of the flock or herd from her abominable machinations; whereas
if you only partially burn the animal, allowing some parts of it to
escape the flames, the witch is only half-baked, and her power for
mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now
see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal
first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by
a well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the
stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the
animal's, and therefore the witch's, body nearly intact at the moment of
death, it allows her soul to escape and return safe and sound to her own
human body, which all the time is probably lying quietly at home in bed.
And the same train of reasoning that justifies the burning alive of
bewitched animals justifies and indeed requires the burning alive of the
witches themselves; it is really the only way of destroying them, body
and soul, and therefore of thoroughly extirpating the whole infernal
crew.

[Practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of Man.]

In the Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to stop
a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living memory.
On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John Rhys: "A
respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his
wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the
way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a
woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which
they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer
whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said
farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently
died. Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let
me give you another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw
at a farm nearer the centre of the island a liv