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As might be expected in an organised and devout community, marriage was regarded as a religious ceremony and was therefore solemnised at the Sabbath by the god himself. These were the everyday permanent marriages of an ordinary village, and show how the cult permeated the whole religious organisation and life of the people. Gaule makes the general statement that the Devil "oft-times marries them ere they part, either to himselfe, or their Familiar, or to one another; and that by the Book of Common Prayer." De Lancre is very explicit, "The Devil performs marriages at the Sabbath between male and female witches. Joining their hands he says to them aloud: Esta es buena parati, Esta parati lo toma." In Lorraine Agnes Theobalda said that she was at the wedding when Cathalina and Engel von Hudlingen took their Beelzebubs in marriage. In Sweden "the Devil had Sons and Daughters whom he did marry together." Besides the permanent unions there were temporary marriages in which the ceremonies were equally solemn; Gaule has confused the two kinds in his account. Such witch-marriages occurred in many places but they are more fully recorded in Lorraine than elsewhere. Sometimes one, sometimes both, of the contracting parties were already married to other partners, but that did not appear to be an obstacle, and the wedding gave an extra and special reason for feasting and joyousness.
Dances. At the meetings, both Sabbaths and Esbats, the proceedings often began and terminated with dancing, and in the dances the connection between the witches and the fairies is clearly seen. In all serious accounts of the fairies they are recorded as taking part in two important ceremonies in public; one is the procession, the other is the round dance. The dates of these ceremonies are the four great quarterly festivals, more particularly May-day and All Hallow Fen.
The origin of these ceremonies was undoubtedly religious, and they were in all probability derived from some form of imitative magic. When any ceremony is performed by several people together it tends to become rhythmic, and a dance is evolved in which after a time, the actions are so conventionalised as to be almost unrecognisable. The so-called Fertility Dances are a case in point, for though they were once common throughout the world they survive in recognisable form only among the more backward peoples. In Europe the details have not always been preserved, and it is often solely by comparison with the dances of savages that their original meaning can be seen. In Crete the dance of Ariadne, performed by youths and maidens, belonged apparently to the Fertility group, so also did the processional dance of the Bacchantes. Mars in Rome was served by dancing priests, and the running step with which Moslems go round the Ka'aba is perhaps the survival of a sacred dance at Mecca.
The processional dance might be performed either on foot or on horseback, the essential part being that there was a leader, whose course was followed and whose actions were imitated by the rest of the dancers. The procession of the fairies was always on horseback, but the Bacchae of ancient times and the medieval witches danced the processional dance on foot. The round dance, whether of witches or fairies, was also on foot. The dancing ground was regarded as sacred, and often the dancers assembled in the village and danced their way to the holy spot. A survival of such a processional dance is seen in the folk-dance known as "Green Garters", which carried the procession from the place of assembling to the Maypole, and was throughout England the customary introduction to the Maypole rites (pl. XIV).
A fact which stamps the processional dance as a religious rite is that it was often danced in the churchyard. To quote only a few out of many examples, in 1282 the priest of Inverkeithing "led the ring" in his own churchyard, the dancers being his own parishioners. The quaint old story of the Sacrilegious Carollers tells of a company of thirteen persons of both sexes, of whom the chief was the priest's daughter, who danced in a churchyard; this was in 1303 (plate XIV. 2). In 1590, Barbara Napier met the covens of North Berwick at the church, "where she danced endlong the kirkyard, and Gelie Duncan played on a trump, John Fian masked led the ring, Agnes Sampson and her daughters and all the rest following the said Barbara to the number of seven score persons". The religious importance of the churchyard dances caused them to survive long after the Middle Ages. Aubrey notes that in Herefordshire the village lads and lasses danced in the churchyards on all holydays and the eves of holydays; in Wales, too, the same custom was kept up till late in the nineteenth century, but there the dancing was always confined to the north side of the churchyard where burials are fewest.
One of the most surprising survivals of the processional dance was to be found at Shaftesbury. Like "Green Garters" it was connected with the May-day ceremonies, showing that it was in origin essentially religious. The petition of the civic authorities in the reign of Charles II is still extant, praying that the date of the dance might be changed from Sunday to a weekday, as the performance interfered with the attendance at church. This shows that the sanctity of the dance was such that it had to be performed on the sacred day. The description of the dance as seen by an eye-witness is published in the Sporting Magazine for 1803.
"The inhabitants of Shaftesbury have an annual custom of great singularity called the Besant, or a May Day Dance for the Waters of Mottcomb. The last new married couple of the town come in the morning to the Mayor's House and are presented, the one with a fine Holland Shirt, the other with a Shift of the same material, elegantly adorned with ribbons of all the colours of the Rainbow. With these begin the procession, and immediately after them a party bearing a large dish, in which is placed a calf's head, with a purse of money in the mouth. Round the buds or young horns is wreathed a chaplet composed of all the flowers of the season. Over this the Besant * is held at the end of a pole by a man dressed in singular uniform. Now comes the Mayor and his Aldermanic body; at the sound of the music, of which there is great plenty, the whole are put in motion, youth, age and even decrepitude, begin to dance, and in this way quit the town, descend the hill, and never cease leaping and prancing till they arrive at the Well of Mottcomb where the owners of the water wait to receive their merry customers. After a short speech of ceremony, the Mayor presents the Besant to buy the waters for another year; and now Mr. Mayor, unwilling to leave so valuable a pledge behind, begins to treat for a Redemption, when the Foreman of the Mottcomb people consents for the whole. Having received the dish with the calf's head, the purse of money and a new pair of laced gloves, he returns the Besant to the Magistrate, who having refreshed himself and Company on Mottcomb Green, return dancing in the most ridiculous way to the place from whence they came, finishing the day with May Games and the greatest Festivity" (see plate XIII).
The survivals of the processional dance in modern times are the Furry dance of England and the Farandole of France. In both these dances the performers hold
*1 For the description of the Besant or Byzant, see under Broom, p. 94.
hands to form a chain, and wind in and out of every room in every house of the village; where the leader goes the others must go, what the leader does the others must do. The dancers of the Farandole must be unmarried; and as the dance is often performed at night they either carry lanterns or "wear a round of waxen tapers on the head" like the fairies (plate XV). According to Jeanne Boisdeau, in 1594, the dance at the top of the Puy de Dome was danced back to back and was led by a great black goat, the oldest person present followed directly after him holding to his tail, and the rest came after holding hands. This seems to have been a circular dance to begin with, followed by a dancing procession. The Follow-my-leader dance was always of great importance among the witches, and it was essential that the leader should be young and active as pace was required. At Auldearne in 1662, the Maiden of the Coven was nicknamed "Over the dyke with it", because as Isobel Gowdie explained, "the Devil always takes the Maiden in his hand next him when we would dance Gillatrypes; and when he would leap from" the words are broken here "he and she will say 'Over the dyke with it'." At Aberdeen, Thomas Leyis was the leader and knocked down a certain Kathren Mitchell, "because she spoiled your dance, and ran not so fast about as the rest". At Crighton, Mr. Gideon Penman "was in the rear in all their dances and beat up those that were slow".
As the processional dance was performed by men and women side by side in pairs or in a long line with the sexes alternately, it was liable to break up into couples who continued dancing together after the procession was ended. Reginald Scot says a dance of this kind was called La Volta, an interesting piece of information for La Volta is said to be the origin of the modern waltz.
The processional dance could be in itself a complete act of worship, but it was most frequently used to bring the worshippers to the holy place where the round dance or "Ring" was to be performed.
The ring dance was specially connected with the fairies, who were reported to move in a ring holding hands. It is the earliest known dance, for there is a representation of one at Cogul in north-eastern Spain (Catalonia), which dates to the Late Palaeolithic or Capsian period (plate IX). The dancers are all women, and their peaked hoods, long breasts, and elf-locks should be noted and compared with the pictures and descriptions of elves and fairies. They are apparently dancing round a small male figure who stands in the middle. A similar dance was performed and represented several thousand years later, with Robin Goodfellow in the centre of the ring and his worshippers forming a moving circle round him (plate X). Though the interval of time between the two representations is very great it is obvious that the ceremony is the same in both cases, but the later example is, as might be expected, more detailed and sophisticated. The central figure is bearded like the Dancing God of Ariège, but the animal's skin has degenerated into animal's legs. The number of performers in the Robin Goodfellow picture is thirteen, including the god and the musician; there are only nine in the Cogul painting; but in both the palaeolithic and medieval examples the dancers are as carefully hatted or hooded as any fairy.
Other sacred dances were known in ancient times. The Therapeutae, at the beginning of the Christian era, had a religious service very like that of the witches: "After the feast they celebrate the sacred festival during the whole night. They sing hymns in honour of God, at one time all singing together, and at another moving their hands and dancing in corresponding harmony. Then when each chorus of the men and each chorus of the women has feasted by itself separately, like persons in the Bacchanalian revels, they join together." This is so like the singing dances of the witches that it is possible that both derive from the same source. Yet no one accuses the Therapeutae of sorcery or devil-worship, for our knowledge of them comes from a sympathetic recorder.
Another singing dance, also of moderate antiquity though within the Christian era, is that attributed to Christ and the disciples. The date is not accurately known, but part of the chant is quoted by Augustine (died A.D. 430) in the Epistle to Ceretius, and part of sections 93-5 and 97-8 were read at the Second Nicene Council. The whole chant is too long to transcribe here, I therefore quote only a few lines.
(94) "Now before he was taken by the lawless Jews he gathered all of us together and said: Before I am delivered up unto them let us sing an hymn to the Father, and so go forth to that which lieth before us. He bade us therefore make as it were a ring, holding one another's hands, and himself standing in the midst he said: Answer Amen unto me. He began, then, to sing an hymn and to say: Glory be to thee, Father. And we, going about in a ring, answered him: Amen. (95) I would be saved, and I would save. Amen. I would be washed, and I would wash. Amen. Grace danceth; I would pipe; dance ye all. Amen. I would mourn; lament ye all. Amen. The number Eight (lit: one ogdoad) singeth praise with us. Amen. The number Twelve danceth on high. Amen. The Whole on high hath part in our dancing. Amen. Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen. I would flee, and I would stay. Amen. (96) Now answer thou unto my dancing. Behold thyself in me who speak, and seeing what I do, keep silence about my mysteries. Thou that dancest, perceive what I do, for thine is this passion of the manhood, which I am about to suffer. Thy god am I, not the god of the traitor. I would keep tune with holy souls. I have leaped; but do thou understand the whole, and having understood it, say: Glory be to the Father. Amen. (97) Thus, my beloved, having danced with us the Lord went forth." The early date of this singing dance shows the importance attached to this mode of worship, which though heathen in origin was transferred to the religious services of the Christians as though with the sanction of the Founder of the religion.
The ring dance was regarded as a sinister ceremony by the priestly authorities who were engaged in suppressing the Old Religion during the Middle Ages. Boguet compares the round dance of the witches with that of the fairies, whom he stigmatises as "devils incarnate". The ring usually moved to the left, but where as in France the dancers faced outwards the movement was widdershins, against the sun. The Aberdeen witches were accused of dancing devilish dances round the Market and Fish Crosses of the town, and also round a great stone at Craigleauch.
The ring dance has shared the fate of many religious rites and has become an amusement for children. Some such dances have a person as the central object, round whom the whole ring turns. Those which have no central figure are usually imitative dances, like Mulberry Bush, where the original actions were undoubtedly not so simple and innocent as those now performed. In parts of Belgium the children still dance in a ring with the performers facing outwards.
The immense importance of the dance as a religious ceremony and an act of adoration of the Deity is seen by the attitude of the Church towards it. In 589 the third Council of Toledo , forbade the people to dance in churches on the vigils of saints' days. In 1209 the Council of Avignon promulgated a similar prohibition. As late as the seventeenth century the apprentices of York danced in the nave of the Minster. Even at the present day the priest and choristers of the cathedral at Seville dance in front of the altar on Shrove Tuesday and at the feasts of Corpus Christi and of the Immaculate Conception; while at Echternach in Luxembourg on Whit-Tuesday the priest, accompanied by choir and congregation, dances to church and round the altar.
The sacred dance is undoubtedly pre-Christian, and nothing can emphasise more strongly its hold on the minds of the people than its survival after many centuries of Christianity. Not only has it survived but it has actually been incorporated into the rites of the new religion, and we see it still danced by priests and worshippers of the new faith in their holiest precints just as it was danced by priests and worshippers in the very earliest dawn of religion.
The music to which the worshippers danced was a source of great interest to some of the recorders, and accounts are very varied. It was not uncommon for the Grandmaster himself to be the performer, even when he led the dance; but there was often a musician who played for the whole company. The usual instruments were the flute, the pipe, the trump or Jew's harp, and in France the violin. But there were others in vogue also. The musical bow of the little masked figure of the Palaeolithic era (plate II) is very primitive, the player is dancing to his own music as the Devil so often did in Scotland. The flute as an instrument for magical purposes occurs in Egypt at the very dawn of history, when a masked man plays on it in the midst of animals. The panpipes, as their name implies, belong specially to a god who was disguised as an animal.
In Lorraine in 1589 the musical instruments were extraordinarily primitive. Besides small pipes, which were played by women, a man "has a horse's skull which he plays as a cyther. Another has a cudgel with which he strikes an oak-tree, which gives out a note and an echo like a kettle drum or a military drum. The Devil sings in a hoarse shout, exactly as if he trumpeted through his nose so that a roaring wooden voice resounds through the wide air. The whole troop together shout, roar, bellow, howl, as if they were demented and mad." The French witches were apparently appreciative of good music for they told de Lancrell that "they dance to the sound of the tambourine and the flute, and sometimes with a long instrument which they place on the neck and pulling it out down to the belt they strike it with a little stick; sometimes with a violin. But these are not the only instruments at the Sabbath, for we have learned from many that they hear there every kind of instrument, with such harmony that there is not a concert in the world that can equal it."
The Feast. The feast was an important part of the religious ceremonies, and in this the cult of the Horned God was like other Pagan ceremonies of which records remain. The Mithraic Supper and the Christian Love-feasts were of the same class.
Throughout all the ceremonies of this early religion there is an air of joyous gaiety and cheerful happiness which even the holy horror of the Christian recorders cannot completely disguise. When the witches' own words are given without distortion their feelings towards their religious rites and their god are diametrically opposed to the sentiments of the Christians. The joyousness of the cult is particularly marked in the descriptions of the feasts, perhaps because to the recorders there was nothing specially wicked in the ceremony, and they were at less pains to attribute infernal and devilish meanings to it than to other parts of the pagan ritual.
At the Great Sabbaths when whole villages met together for a combination of religion and amusement the feast must have been a source of great happiness, symbolising as it did the gifts of God to man, with the god himself presiding in person. The acknowledgment to the Divine Man of his gifts is recorded in the evidence of Isobel Gowdie at Nairn; she stated that when they had finished eating, "we looked steadfastly to the Devil, and bowing to him we said, 'We thank thee, our lord, for this'"
There seems to have been some doubt in the minds of the judges as to whether the feasts were not illusion on the part of the "Foul Fiend", so that it is interesting to find that the inquisitor Boguet reports, that "very often at the Sabbath, they eat in good earnest, and not by fantasy and imagination." The style of the feast varied according to the wealth of the giver. Boguet is again our informant when he says that the banquets were composed of various sorts of food, according to the place and rank of the participants, the table being covered with butter, cheese and meat. Among the very poor there was often no feast, as in Alsace in 1618 when Catherine Volmar contracted a witch-marriage with the Devil Peterlin, "there was no banquet because no one had brought food or drink".
When weather permitted the food was eaten in the open air. The feasts of the witches of Wincanton, in Somerset, sound very pleasant, "all sate down, a white Cloth being spread on the ground, and did drink Wine, and eat Cakes and Meat". In Scotland, where the weather was more uncertain, the records show that the feast usually took place indoors. The food was supplied by the Chief as a rule; sometimes one of the richer members of the coven would provide; and it was also not uncommon for the congregation to bring each his or her own food and eat it in company. In this last case the food was apt to be homely enough, as in Sweden , where "the diet they did use to have was, they said, Broth with Colworts and Bacon in it, Oatmeal, Bread spread with Butter, Milk, and Cheese." When the Grandmaster provided the food the feast was worthy of the giver, and if a rich member was the hostess the food was always of the best. Thus Elspeth Bruce gave her fellow-members a goose in her own house, and found great favour in the eyes of the Master, partly on account of her good dinner, but also because she was "ane prettie woman". The Lancashire witches had a simple method of providing for their feast, they merely took what they required from some local farmer, "the persons aforesaid had to their dinners beef, bacon, and roasted mutton; which mutton was of a wether of Christopher Swyers of Barley; which wether was brought in the night before into his mother's house by James Device, and killed and eaten." In the same way the witches of Forfar helped themselves to what they wanted, "they went to Mary Rynd's house and sat down together at the table, the Devil being present at the head of it; and some of them went to John Benny's house, he being a brewer, and brought ale from thence, and others of them went to Alexander's Hieche's and brought aqua vitae from thence, and thus made themselves merry."
The Somerset witches in 1664 were always the guests of their chief, who treated them well, "at their meeting they have usually Wine or good Beer, Cakes, Meat or the like. They eat and drink really when they meet in their bodies, dance also and have Musick". Another account says that "they had Wine, Cakes, and Roastmeat (all brought by the Man in Black) which they did eat and drink. They danced and were merry, and were bodily there and in their Clothes". Even as early as 1588 Alison Peirson, who went among the fairies, said that a man in green "appeared to her, a lusty man, with many men and women with him; she blessed herself and prayed, passed and with them further than she could tell; and saw with them piping and merriness and good cheer, and was carried to Lothian, and saw wine puncheons with tasses with them". Marie Lamont in 1662 said that "the Devil came to Kattrein Scott's house in the midst of the night, he was in the likeness of a mickle black man, and sung to them and they danced. He gave them wine to drink and wheat bread to eat, and they were all very merry". At Borrowstowness in 1679 there was a large party, the accusation was that "ye and each person of you was at several meetings with the Devil in the links of Borrowstowness, and in the house of you, Bessie Vickar, and ye did eat and drink with the Devil, and with one another, and with witches in her house in the night time; and the Devil and William Craw brought the ale which ye drank, extending to seven gallons". Very different was the picnic feast of the Andover coven in New England; Goody Foster, of Salem, was asked what she did for victuals at the meeting, "she answered that she carried Bread and Cheese in her pocket, and that she and the Andover Company came to the Village before the Meeting began, and sat down together under a tree and eat their food, and that she drank water out of a Brook to quench her thirst. And that the Meeting was upon a plain grassy place, by which was a Cart path and sandy ground in the path, in which were the tracks of Horses' feet. And she also told me how long they were going and returning".
The general belief among the Christian recorders was that at a witchfeast salt was not permitted, and various reasons were adduced to account for the omission. The sanctity of salt was a pre-Christian idea, and the taboo on its use was strictly observed by the Egyptian priests. Salt has a special significance among Moslems and other non-Christian peoples, and the belief in its holiness has continued into Christian times and even to the present day, for it is used in the making of the baptismal chrism. The spilling of salt is still considered unlucky, and the sowing of salt on the site of a sacked town probably meant that the place was taboo and might not be cultivated. The accounts of the witch-feasts show that salt was commonly used, though here and there it appears to have been omitted. Sometimes a reason for its absence is given, as in the case of the Alsatian witch, Anna Lang, in 1618, who had no bread or salt at the feast in the woods of Saint-Hippolite, because things had fallen out of the cart on the way there.
Wine was ordinarily drunk at feasts, especially when the provisions were given by the rich members of the flock. In France it was usually drunk out of wooden goblets, but in Alsace the wealthy ladies brought with them their own silver cups, out of which everybody drank. In England and Scotland beer or aqua vitae were the usual drinks.
The combination of religion and feasting and general jollity so characteristic of the Great Sabbaths is curiously reminiscent of the modern method of keeping Christmas.
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