whose parentage was sufficiently evinced by an entire covering of black hair, although his limbs were wellformed, and his features fine. Fortunately, the careless guardian had exactly calculated the moment of the demon's birth; and no sooner was he informed of the event, than the new-born infant was borne off to the regenerating water, when he was christened by the name of Merlin; the fond hopes of the demons being for this time, at least, irretrievably disappointed. How Merlin, by superhuman prowess and knowledge, defeated the Saracens (Saxons) in many bloody battles; his magical achievements and favour at the court of King Vortigern and his successors, are fully exhibited by the author of the history.* Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts them as matters of fact; and they are repeated by Vergil in the History of Britain, composed under the auspices of Henry VIII.

By the ancients, whole peoples were sometimes said to be derived from these unholy connections. Jornandes, the historian of the Goths, is glad to be able to relate their hated rivals, the Huns (of whom the Kalmuck Tartars are commonly said to be the modern representatives), to have owed their origin to an intercourse of the Scythian witches with infernal spirits. The extraordinary form and features of those dreaded emigrants from the steppes of Tartary, had

*See Early English Metrical Romances, ed. by Sir H. Ellis.

INCUBUS AND SUCCUBUS.

123

suggested to the fear and hatred of their European subjects, a fable which Gibbon supposes might have been derived from a more pleasing one of the Greeks.*

The acts of Incubus assume an important part in witch-trials and confessions. Incubus is the visitor of females, Succubus of males. Chaucer satirises the gallantries of the vicarious Incubus by the mouth of the wife of Bath (that practical admirer of Solomon and the Samaritan woman),† who prefaces her tale with the assurance :

* A sufficiently large collection from ancient and modern writers of the facts of inhuman connections may be seen in the Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. 2. Having repeated the assertions of previous authors proving the fact of intercourses of human with inferior species of animals, Burton fortifies his own opinion of their reality by numerous authorities. If those stories be true, he reasons, that are written of Incubus and Succubus, of nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, and those heathen gods which were devils, those lascivious Telchines of whom the Platonists tell so many fables; or those familiar meetings in our day [1624] and company of witches and devils, there is some probability for it. I know that Biarmannus, Wierus, and some others stoutly deny it . . . but Austin (lib. xv. de Civit. Dei) doth acknowledge it. And he refers to Plutarch, Vita Nume; Wierus, de Præstigiis Dæmon., Giraldus Cambrensis, Malleus Malef., Jacobus Reussus, Godelman, Erastus, John Nider, Delrio, Lipsius, Bodin, Pererius, King James, &c. The learned and curious work of the melancholy Student of Christ Church and Oxford Rector has been deservedly commended by many eminent critics. That 'exact mathematician and curious calculator of nativities' calculated exactly, according to Anthony Wood (Athenæ Oxon.), the period of his own death-1639.

The wife of Bath, who had buried only her fifth husband, must appear modest by comparison. Not to mention Seneca's or Martial's

That maketh that ther ben no fayeries,
For ther as wont was to walken an elf

Ther walketh noon but the Lymitour himself.

Women may now go safely up and downe;
In every busch and under every tre
Ther is noon other Incubus but he.

Reginald Scot has devoted several chapters of his work to a relation of the exploits of Incubus.* But he honestly warns his readers whose chaste ears cannot well endure to hear of such lecheries (gathered out of the books of divinity of great authority) to turn over a few leaves wherein I have, like a groom, thrust their stuff, even that which I myself loath, as into a stinking corner: howbeit none otherwise, I hope, but that the other parts of my writing shall remain sweet.' He repeats a story from the‘Vita Hieronymi,' which seems to insinuate some suspicion of the character of a certain Bishop Sylvanus. It relates that one night Incubus invaded a certain lady's bedroom. Indignant at so unusual, or at least disguised, an apparition, the lady cried out loudly until the guests of the house came and found it under the bed in the likeness of the bishop; which holy man,' adds Scot, was much defamed thereby.' assertions or insinuations, St. Jerome was acquainted with the case of a woman who had buried her twenty-second husband, whose conjugal capacity, however, was exceeded by the Dutch wife who, on the testimony of honest John Evelyn, had buried her twenty-fifth husband!

See the fourth book of the Discoverie.

INFERNAL COMPACTS.

125

Another tradition or legend seems to reflect upon the chastity of the greatest saint of the Middle Ages.* The superhuman oppression of Incubus is still remembered in the proverbial language of the present day. The horrors of the infernal compacts and leagues, as exhibited in the fates of wizards or magicians at the last hour, formed one of the most popular scenes on the theatrical stage. Christopher Marlow, in The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus,' and Robert Greene, in 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,' in the Elizabethan age, dramatised the common conception of the Compact.

6

* 'It is written in the legend of St. Bernard,' we are told, 'that a pretty wench that had the use of Incubus his body by the space of six or seven years in Aquitania (being belike weary of him for that he waxed old), would needs go to St. Bernard another while. But Incubus told her if she would so forsake him, he would be revenged upon her. But befal what would, she went to St. Bernard, who took her his staff and bad her lay it in the bed beside her. And, indeed, the devil, fearing the staff or that St. Bernard lay there himself, durst not approach into her chamber that night. What he did afterwards I am uncertain.' This story will not appear so evidential to the reader as Scot seems to infer it to be. If any credit is to be given to the strong insinuations of Protestant divines of the sixteenth century, the 'holy bishop Sylvanus' is not the only example among the earlier saints of the frailty of human nature.

CHAPTER II.

Three Sorts of Witches-Various Modes of Witchcraft Manner of Witch-Travelling-The Sabbaths-Anathemas of the Popes against the Crime-Bull of Adrian VI.-Cotemporary Testimony to the Severity of the Persecutions-Necessary Triumph of the Orthodox Party-Germany most subject to the Superstition-Acts of Parliament of Henry against Witchcraft-Elizabeth Barton-The Act of 1562-Executions under Queen Elizabeth's Government-Case of Witchcraft narrated by Reginald Scot.

THE ceremonies of the compact by which a woman became a witch have been already referred to. It was almost an essential condition in the vulgar creed that she should be, as Gaule (Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches,' &c., 1646) represents, an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There are three sorts of the devil's agents on earth-the black, the gray, and the white witches. The first are omnipotent for evil, but powerless for good. The white have the power to help, but not to hurt.* As for the third

* A writer at the beginning of the seventeenth century (Cotta, Tryall of Witchcraft) says, 'This kind is not obscure at this day, swarming in