[margin: a: Binsfeld, On the Confessions of Witches, part 1, conclusion 5; Remigius, book 2, chapter 4; Life of Saint Bernard, book 1, chapter 6]
I call it this when, by a potion, an evil incantation, and certain rites, they put someone to sleep, so that meanwhile they may pour poison into him, or snatch away infants, or kill them, or steal something by theft, or defile someone by sexual violation or adultery. Magicians sometimes do this, and it can be done by natural soporific poisons. Peter Binsfeld and Nicolas Remigius have brought together recent examples. It is also clear from the example narrated in the Life of Saint Bernard; for there an incubus deceived a wife for so many years while her husband lay beside her, and this had to have happened while he was asleep.
Virgil touches here and there on many secrets of magic, and among them this one, in Aeneid 6, concerning Cerberus and the Cumaean Sibyl:
[margin: Unkeyed marginal gloss on Valerius Flaccus: “horn” means “power and strength”; “greater” means “higher or deeper.”]
Seeing his necks already bristling with snakes, the prophetess Throws him a cake drugged with honey and medicated grain. He, opening his three throats with ravenous hunger, Snatches up what is thrown before him, and loosens his monstrous backs; Huge, he is spread on the ground and stretches through the whole cave. Aeneas seizes the entrance, the guardian being buried in sleep.
So also Ovid, in Metamorphoses 7, concerning Medea:
There remains to put to sleep with herbs the ever-watchful dragon, Which, marked by crest and triple tongues, And horrible with hooked teeth, was guardian of the golden tree. After she sprinkled this one with the grass of Lethean juice, And three times spoke words making placid sleep, When sleep came upon eyes that had not known it, The Aeson-born hero took possession of the gold.
But Virgil mentions only a natural effect. Ovid, however, also mentions a magical one produced by incantations; and therefore these words of the same Medea, in the epistle, are to be understood in this way:
I withdrew the flaming eyes by medicated sleep, And gave you the fleece safe, for you to carry away.
And in Seneca:
You also, sleepless serpent, leaving Colchis, come, First lulled to sleep by my songs.
Apollonius also, in book 4 of the Argonautica, relates that it was lulled to sleep by incantations; and Valerius Flaccus, in book 8 of the Argonautica, shows in many verses that this was accomplished with great effort:
And now the Colchian woman had stretched out her hands and hair to the stars, Pouring forth songs in a barbarian measure, and summoning you: “Father Sleep, all-powerful Sleep, you whom the Colchian woman summons From every region, I call, and now command you alone to go against the dragon. You who by your nod have subdued the seas, by your horn the clouds, And the lightning-bolts, and whatever flashes in all the upper air: but now, Now come, greater one, most like to your brother, death. You too, most faithful guardian of the Phrixean sheep, It is time at last to turn your eyes from this care. What deceit do you fear, while I stand here? I myself will keep the grove for a little while; Meanwhile lay aside your long labor.”
The creature, weary, did not depart from the Aeolian gold, Nor, though she commands it, does it endure to give its face to permitted rest; And, struck by the first cloud of sleep, It shuddered and shook the sweet slumbers from the tree. Against it the Colchian woman persists in foaming with Tartarean poisons, And in shaking all the silences of the Lethean branch; With hostile chant she overwhelms its struggling eyes, And with tongue and hand exhausts every Stygian power, Until sleep occupies its burning rages. And now the mane falls away in another direction, and the head nods under compulsion, And its huge neck sinks outside its own fleece, and so forth.
That Madauran Platonist Apuleius, who, as Saint Augustine testifies, was highly skilled in the magical arts, either invented or narrated not without purpose the following about the Thessalians: the people of Larissa used to appoint guardians over corpses, hired for a large sum of money. These guardians had to keep watch exceptionally well through the whole night, with eyes open and unblinking, always intent on the corpse; their gaze was not to be turned anywhere, indeed not even slanted aside. For the most dreadful shape-shifters creep secretly upon them, their face changed into that of any animal, so that they easily deceive even the eyes of the Sun and Justice. They put on the shapes of birds, and again dogs and mice, indeed even flies. Then by dreadful enchantments they overwhelm the guardians with sleep.
At Larissa the son of the first man of the city had died, and Telephron contracted for a thousand coins to guard his corpse for one night. He thought himself a man of iron and sleepless, certainly sharper-sighted than Lynceus or Argus, and all eye. What more? Shut up in the chamber, abandoned to the solace of the corpse, having rubbed his eyes and armed them for vigils, he soothed his mind with little songs.
“When twilight came,” he himself says, “and night advanced, and night grew deeper, and then the stillnesses grew deeper, and now it was the dead of night, my fear too was greatly increased. Then suddenly a weasel creeping in stood before me and fixed a very sharp gaze on me, so that the overbold confidence of so little an animal disturbed my mind. At last I said to it: ‘Why do you not go away, foul beast, and hide yourself among mice like yourself before you experience our immediate force? Why do you not go away?’ It turned its back and was at once driven from the chamber. Without delay such a sleep suddenly plunged me into the lowest pit of hell that not even the Delphic god himself could easily have discerned, with the two of us lying there, which of us was more dead. Thus lifeless and in need of another guardian, I was as though not there.”
He says this about himself, unaware meanwhile that his nose and ears had been bitten off; he underwent the butchery in another’s place. For that other Telephron, the dead man, after his spirit had been brought back from the lower world by Zatchlas the necromancer, narrates it thus:
“For when this most watchful guardian of my body was keeping exact vigil over me, the chanting old women pressed upon my remains, and for this reason, though often transformed, they did so in vain. Since they could not deceive his diligence, at last a cloud of sleep was cast over him, and, when he was buried in deep rest, they did not cease calling me by name until my dull joints and cold limbs began, by sluggish efforts, to strive toward the services of the magical art. This man, because he was indeed alive, but through sleep only dead, and because he was called by the same name as I, rose unwittingly at his own name. Walking forward of his own accord like the shade of a lifeless man, although the doors of the chamber had been carefully shut, through a certain opening, first his nose and then his ears were put forward, and he sustained the butchery in place of me.”
He adds the proof and the very certain signs of true weakening. In these words you see the corpse-mutilating monsters; you see a spirit, in the form of a weasel, inducing sleep; and you see the cloud of sleep. But he does not add in what way it was cast.
Most often witches are accustomed to use certain lights for this purpose; I think their smoke is called by Apuleius the “cloud of sleep.” Sometimes they light the feet or hands of the dead, first anointed with a certain oil received from a demon, or with little candles fixed to the several fingers. Sometimes they use charmed torches, made from a wick of a certain kind and a fat known to them, either carrying them lit before themselves, or setting them fixed and lit in some certain place at home; and the sleep lasts as long as that deathly light. Sometimes they suspend certain parts of a corpse in certain places; sometimes they employ other things, all equally wicked, which nevertheless obtain their efficacy only from a pact.
Caesarius the Cistercian narrates an example of this harmful magic by the mere hanging of limbs, in book 6 of the Miracles, chapter 10, in this way:
A certain simple man named Engilbertus, from the province of Tulpetinatus, died a few years ago. Although he had been born blind, because of the various gifts by which divine grace had illumined his inner man he was known in various provinces and was venerated by many great persons of both sexes. In a simple cloak and woolen tunic, and with bare feet, he walked in summer as in winter; and with a boy almost guiding him he rather often visited the thresholds of saints, though very far away. He never ate meat; at night he used not bedclothes but only a little straw or hay. I saw many good things concerning him, and he himself edified many both by word and by example.
In the time of his youth, when one night in the house of his maternal aunt, a wealthy matron, he had settled down to sleep among her other servants, at the very deep of night two thieves dug through the wall and entered. With the fire uncovered and a light lit, and the chests opened, they were speaking fearlessly. When the aforesaid Engilbertus heard them and did not doubt that they were thieves, since he could not wake the servants sleeping on either side, he put around his neck a little stool pierced with his knife and armed his hand with a club. And since, being as it were blind, he could not see them, he went toward them with hearing as his guide and, swinging the club with both hands, struck like a madman at whatever he could touch from every side and drove them from the house.
Following them all the way to the opening, when he blocked the entrance with a ladder, they stood outside the house and perceived that no one but him alone was awake. Confused by such an expulsion, they took counsel and tried to enter again. When he sensed this from the movement of the ladder, he placed one part of the ladder against a great chest in which grain was contained, standing next to the opening, and kept hold of the other part with both hands. As they entered up to the navel, Engilbertus pressed their backs strongly with the ladder, because they were lying face downward, and pressed them down so greatly that he utterly removed from them not only advance but also retreat. Placed as if under a winepress, and fearing death in the morning, they asked pardon. After they gave terrifying oaths that they would never harm his person or enter that house, they were released.
In the morning, when Engilbertus disclosed the matter, the sleeping people could not be awakened by the neighbors by any art. When harmful magical things were sought around the house, by the power of which they knew these things had been done, above the opening they found hanging from the roof something like the spine of a human corpse. When it was removed, all were immediately awakened. After many years had passed, these same thieves, stirred by the fame and virtues of the said Engilbertus, and, as I think, moved by his prayers, approached him. Because they confessed that they themselves were the men, thereafter they led a religious life. This wonderful deed, and certain others about which something will be said later, were related to me by others; and when I asked him whether they were true, he testified simply that they had happened in this way.
Thus far Caesarius. Indeed thieves often use magic so that they may remain hidden. In West Flanders, not far from Bailleul, in previous years one thief was apprehended, and there was found with him the severed foot of a man who had been hanged; he was abusing its burning joints for a soporific light of this kind.
In a town of the territory of Liege, Huy as some say, or Dinant as others say, two men came by night to an inn. They pretended that they were very tired from the road. After supper they denied that they would go elsewhere to bed, but with exceedingly importunate and stubborn insistence they at last obtained from the innkeeper permission to sleep by the fire in the kitchen. Meanwhile the maid of the house, to whom those strangers were not very pleasing, secretly watched through a certain opening to see what they would do. At dead of night she saw them draw from a purse the severed hand of a dead man, anoint the fingers, and then light them by applying them to the fire. The light seized everyone except one. The magicians found that unusual and wondered at it. Therefore they tried repeatedly and brought the fingers to the flame, always in vain. Then one of them said, “What then, if only one person in the house is awake?” And, fixing the hand to the chimney, with four fingers gleaming like candles with a dark flame, they went out of the house and with a known whistle summoned their companions to the plunder.
The girl followed them; when they went out of the house, she shut the door and locked them out. Then she burst into the master’s bedchamber. She found everyone snoring so deeply that they could not be awakened by any force, for she had dragged and pulled them from the bed into the middle of the chamber. Meanwhile the thieves were directing themselves into the house through a certain window. She met them and knocked down the ladders. Yet they pressed on and attempted another entrance. Remembering the light, and suspecting that this was the cause of the household’s sleep, she blew out all the fingers. When the light died, the sleepers awakened, ran to the cry, and drove the manifest criminals from the house. After a few days they were captured and confessed the crime. What wonder, therefore, if witches creep at night to the cradles of little infants, and of others whom they are going to destroy?
Peter Binsfeld, in his commentary on the title On Malefactors and Mathematicians, at the end of book 4, writes as follows:
The same Johannes Cuno de Rover reported that when Anna his mother and two other witches had come together to destroy by harmful magic, at night, a certain zealous persecutor of workers of harmful magic, a little master going ahead opened the windows and doors. But Johannes Cuno himself was brought by his mother and the others as a companion, to hold a burning candle which was not natural, but had been made by diabolical art, as Johannes Cuno himself distinguished it in his own writings. When they came into the chamber of the one to be harmed, in the city of Trier, since the one to be harmed, after the custom of good Christians, had fortified himself with the sign of the cross and pious exercises before he surrendered himself to rest, they could accomplish nothing, but had to fly back with the matter undone and with the doors closed. The good man whom they wished to harm still lives by God’s grace, and will live as long as it pleases God. The mother of the said Cuno, when she herself too was examined on the proposed articles, confessed in the same manner as her son on this point.
Those who are necromantic workers of harmful magic of a higher order do not need this candle to light the way before them; it is enough if they have fixed it, lit, in some remote place. This is manifest in the following narrative, received from trustworthy men and worthy to be known, for it also adds an example of divine vengeance. I will abstain from naming the place, the order, and the persons, lest anyone with a witch-like nose in Spain, where the matter truly happened, penetrate into the bedchamber of truth and into knowledge of the persons.
There, in a certain great city, was a preacher of great name. Although he preached with others, he himself had either become or remained reprobate. He was familiar with a certain nobleman, who had a rather pretty wife, but a chaste matron. That lecher began to be desperately in love with her. He did not long cherish the hidden fire in his breast; he opened his mind and tried to persuade the woman to the disgraceful act. She, resolved to guard her chastity, diligently tried to recall him from his madness to a sounder mind. But this was adding oil to the furnace, as water thrown on burning naphtha makes it more violently fierce and causes the blaze to grow. Thus the admonitions inflamed him still further. He did not cease pressing until, weary of his molestation, she resolved to avenge herself on the scoundrel.
She disclosed the whole matter to her husband, whom such grief burned no less than the sons of Atreus. At his command the wife appointed a time. The night desired by the evil lover came. The husband, excellently armed with several servants, was in a nearby room, intending to receive this familiar man in no familiar fashion. The matron was awaiting his arrival. At last there he was, in secular dress, girded with sword and dagger. Boldly he followed her as she led him, and after he had sat down he repeated the old song. The woman refused and denied, as usual. The darkness of night had made the adulterer bolder, and he prepared force. Force was repelled by force. At last the woman, frightened, cried out and with a loud voice gave the sign agreed upon with her husband. It was, as they say, a tale told to a deaf man: neither her husband nor anyone else came running.
What was she to do? Flee? She was held by stronger arms. Consent? To honor, death was preferable to disgrace and sin. Therefore she drew out nails and teeth, a woman’s weapons, and disfigured his face; but in his rage he scarcely felt this. He had put down his sword, but a little dagger was stuck at his back. When the matron noticed it, while wrestling she snatched it with her hand from behind him, and, with the blade drawn, pierced her adversary and deprived him of life. The corpse fell. The victorious woman, hardly mistress of herself, ran to the room where she had hidden her husband. She found him and all the servants more like the dead than the living. She cried out, plucked at them, dragged them; she left nothing undone to wake them. But they remained sunk in sleep.
Suspecting, as was true, that this was happening by harmful magic, and seeing that all her hopes were placed in herself alone, she carried the corpse out of the house and threw it into the street with the sword and bloody dagger. Meanwhile, while it lay there, the night watch came upon the corpse. They carried it into the prison; when its face had been washed, not easily, but nevertheless, it was recognized as the preacher. The praetor, or, as they call him, the corregidor, was strong in prudence. Having ordered those present to keep silent, very early in the morning he went to the monastery. He summoned the Prior and said that he wished to deal with him about a matter of the greatest importance before the whole community; he should order all to gather as one in the chapter room. The Prior did so. All the living assembled, for that dead man alone was absent.
The praetor said that it seemed to him someone was missing. The Prior, after a count was made, said, “Truly all are present except so-and-so,” and he named him, “who perhaps is now preparing himself for the next sermon.” The praetor himself added, “Let him too be summoned; there will not be a long delay.” Some ran to summon him. The chamber was shut, they knocked on the door, and no one answered. Therefore the praetor himself went with the Prior, and they forced open the door. No one was in the cell; only a torch, burning and shining dimly, had been fixed in the chimney. All marveled and were stupefied. Then the praetor told the Prior and the community where and in what condition the corpse had been found.
And while they were removing it from the prison so that it might deservedly be given a profane burial, which Sacred Scripture calls the burial of an ass, behold, the nobleman came with his wife, and they narrated the whole matter. The moments of time were compared; it was found that they had awakened when the torch went out. Thus both the perfidy of the hypocrite was celebrated with everyone’s detestation, and the chastity and courage of the woman with the praises of the whole neighborhood. It will not easily be erased from the memory of those who dwell there.
From Remigius I shall now add certain things by which these matters may be explained and confirmed. He writes that strigae, for a soporific charm, use a corpse brought forth by abortion, the right arm cut from it together with the shoulder and the adjacent ribs, for use as a light; and that the outer fingers of this limb burn with a sulfurous and violet flame as long as they finish what they have begun; and that when this flame is extinguished, the fingers remain so whole and untouched as if they had furnished no fuel to the light. Workers of harmful magic confessed this at Guermingen on 14 Kalends of January, 1589. Thus Remigius, book 2, chapter 3. He confirms the same in chapter 4, when he teaches that they are accustomed first to anoint thoroughly, with an unguent prepared from the boiled limbs of that aborted corpse, the person whom they wish to put to sleep.
At Vergaville, on 10 Kalends of February, Margareta Luodman acknowledged in court, among her crimes, this also:
That one night she had entered N.’s house with the purpose of pouring poison into his throat while he was sunk in sleep, and that it had been very little short of being completed, so easy did everything seem. But, contrary to what they expected, he had been roused from sleep in good time; so that, the matter undone, she was compelled to flee with her partners in the crime, while he pursued her with armed hand, and at last, when he could not catch her, threatened more fiercely.
Therefore, when the same N. was interrogated about the matter for fuller knowledge, he as witness recounted the whole thing in sure and explicit words, just as that witch had related it beforehand: namely, that he had been attacked, as has been said, with poison, and that this one thing had been an obstacle to their giving it to him, that by chance he woke up, for he had not yet been smeared with their unguent, and had fortified himself against such great crisis and danger with the symbol of the cross and the Lord’s Prayer; and that it was wholly true that he had pursued them with a weapon over a long stretch of road, yet had not caught them.
And later:
Almost all those arrested on the charge, in the part of Germany that belongs to the territory of Lorraine, asserted in agreement that this ability to penetrate houses was granted to them by demons, provided that they had worked for them for some years: namely, so that through whatever narrow places they wished they might make a way for themselves with no trouble, contracted and diminished into mice, cats, locusts, and other little living things of this kind, as use required; and, once admitted, be restored again to their former form, if they wished; and conveniently carry through the act they had begun, as was declared above: first by anointing through all the limbs the one whose death they are contriving, so that he may not wake; then by firmly and strongly drawing apart his mouth, so that he may not expel the potion by movement; finally by pouring poison into his throat, with a lamp brought near which breathes out a sulfurous flame.