ny time,
it was generally understood that he preferred the night between Friday
and Saturday. If Satan himself appeared in human shape, he was never
perfectly, and in all respects, like a man. He was either too black or
too white--too large or too small, or some of his limbs were out of
proportion to the rest of his body. Most commonly his feet were
deformed; and he was obliged to curl up and conceal his tall in some
part of his habiliments; for, take what shape he would, he could not
get rid of that encumbrance. He sometimes changed himself into a tree
or a river; and upon one occasion he transformed himself into a
barrister, as we learn from Wierus, book iv, chapter ix. In the reign
of Philippe le Bel, he appeared to a monk in the shape of a dark man,
riding a tall black horse--then as a friar--afterwards as an ass, and
finally as a coach-wheel. Instances are not rare in which both he and
his inferior demons have taken the form of handsome young men; and,
successfully concealing their tails, have married beautiful young
women, who have had children by them. Such children were easily
recognizable by their continual shrieking--by their requiring five
nurses to suckle them, and by their never growing fat.

All these demons were at the command of any individual, who would give
up his immortal soul to the prince of evil for the privilege of
enjoying their services for a stated period. The wizard or witch could
send them to execute the most difficult missions: whatever the witch
commanded was performed, except it was a good action, in which case the
order was disobeyed, and evil worked upon herself instead.

At intervals, according to the pleasure of Satan, there was a general
meeting of the demons and all the witches. This meeting was called the
Sabbath, from its taking place on the Saturday or immediately after
midnight on Fridays. These Sabbaths were sometimes held for one
district, sometimes for another, and once at least, every year, it was
held on the Brocken, or among other high mountains, as a general
sabbath of the fiends for the whole of Christendom.

The devil generally chose a place where four roads met, as the scene of
this assembly, or if that was not convenient, the neighbourhood of a
lake. Upon this spot nothing would ever afterwards grow, as the hot
feet of the demons and witches burnt the principle of fecundity from
the earth, and rendered it barren for ever. When orders had been once
issued for the mee