d in blood, with the devil himself, by which the wizard or witch
renounced baptism, and sold his or her immortal soul to the evil one,
without any saving clause of redemption.

There are so many wondrous appearances in nature, for which science and
philosophy cannot, even now, account, that it is not surprising that,
when natural laws were still less understood, men should have
attributed to supernatural agency every appearance which they could not
otherwise explain. The merest tyro now understands various phenomena
which the wisest of old could not fathom. The schoolboy knows why, upon
high mountains, there should, on certain occasions, appear three or
four suns in the firmament at once; and why the figure of a traveller
upon one eminence should be reproduced, inverted, and of a gigantic
stature, upon another. We all know the strange pranks which imagination
can play in certain diseases--that the hypochondriac can see visions
and spectres, and that there have been cases in which men were
perfectly persuaded that they were teapots. Science has lifted up the
veil, and rolled away all the fantastic horrors in which our
forefathers shrouded these and similar cases. The man who now imagines
himself a wolf, is sent to the hospital, instead of to the stake, as in
the days of the witch mania; and earth, air, and sea are unpeopled of
the grotesque spirits that were once believed to haunt them.

Before entering further into the history of Witchcraft, it may be as
well if we consider the absurd impersonation of the evil principle
formed by the monks in their legends. We must make acquaintance with
the primum mobile, and understand what sort of a personage it was, who
gave the witches, in exchange for their souls, the power to torment
their fellow-creatures. The popular notion of the devil was, that he
was a large, ill-formed, hairy sprite, with horns, a long tail, cloven
feet, and dragon's wings. In this shape he was constantly brought on
the stage by the monks in their early "miracles" and "mysteries." In
these representations he was an important personage, and answered the
purpose of the clown in the modern pantomime. The great fun for the
people was to see him well belaboured by the saints with clubs or
cudgels, and to hear him howl with pain as he limped off, maimed by the
blow of some vigorous anchorite. St. Dunstan generally served him the
glorious trick for which he is renowned--catching hold of his nose with
a pair of re