The Witches of Venice

OF all the books in Signor Bernoni’s valuable collection of the folk-lore, popular beliefs, and songs of the Venetian people, perhaps the most interesting is Le Strighe, — The Witches, — which contains the traditions of witchcraft and legends of witches which are still current in Venice. It is strange that in these days of students of folk-lore and comparative culture it should have escaped notice. The fact that it is written in dialect is not a sufficient explanation, for Venetian can be mastered without much difficulty by any one who has some small knowledge of Italian. However, no English writer has as yet given Signor Bernoni’s little book the attention which it deserves. Therefore a short analysis of its contents may not be amiss.

Since the chief interest in the study of modern superstitions depends not so much upon their intrinsic qualities as upon their relation to earlier faiths, it will be better to begin here with a few general words about the European doctrine of witchcraft and a more careful examination of its Venetian development, of which these old women’s tales and gossipings are the survivals.

There were two principal causes for the startling progress of the witch belief throughout Europe during the fourteenth century, and its supremacy during the next two hundred years. One was the weariness of the people of a temporal slavery, which they were not yet strong enough to defy openly, and which in consequence drove them to rebel in secret. By an occasional wild outburst, during which they broke all social and religious bonds, they hoped to relieve their pent-up feelings. The other and more important cause was the spiritual reign of terror inaugurated about the same period, when Satan, or the chief power of evil, was made the central figure of religious thought, heretical as well as orthodox. As the stern, sorrowing Christ, instead of the gentle, merciful Good Shepherd, became the Christian’s ideal of a divine Saviour, so a well-nigh omnipotent Satan, forever sowing seeds of temptation and reaping rich harvests of souls, succeeded the earlier weaker devil, who had been easily repelled with a few drops of holy water or the sign of the cross. It is true he could still be conquered by the use of proper weapons, but his defeats were now more than outbalanced by his victories. This change was brought about in a great measure by the increase of heresy, which led the church to look upon the independence and so-called blasphemies of heretics as the work of the devil, while heretics in their turn referred the corrupt doctrines and practices of the church to the same source. The new creed of fear was, moreover, strengthened by the physical misfortunes — greatest of which was the black death — which desolated Europe during the Middle Ages. When everything was ascribed to spiritual causes, it was but natural that plagues and pestilences were supposed to emanate either from God, in his indignation at man’s new allegiance to Satan, or else from the arch-enemy himself.

Now both these causes of the evil were to be found in Venice, though the black art, with its attendant horrors, is not readily associated with the city whose very name, like that of her great painters, has come to be suggestive of color and sensuousness. Just as, when the sun or the moon shines on her palaces and waters, even the possibility of gray days or of black nights in Venice is forgotten, so the records of her feastings and follies make it seem as if the stories of the tyranny of the Council of Ten must be as baseless as Byron’s sentimentalizing on the Bridge of Sighs. But to her history there is a dark side, which, black and bitter as it is in itself, appears doubly so when contrasted with its opposite of rich joyousness and frivolous gayety. The shadows in the picture are but the deeper because of the brilliancy of the light. The victories of the republic were mighty, but so also was the price paid for them. People clamoring against taxation which made bread a luxury beyond their means ; tumults without the palace ; the Doge retreating ; a wild mob let loose upon the city, laying siege to and pillaging her fairest buildings, — such were but too often the fruits of success. Even while men from every part of Europe flocked to Venice as to a university of pleasure and luxury, hearts were broken and lives taken by unrelenting tyrants. Beneath the gay mask was the stern reality of righteous indignation of honest citizens silenced by the dishonest, and of grievous sorrow of wives and daughters robbed of husbands and fathers by their pitiless seducers, — a sorrow which is still reëchoed in the songs the people sing to-day. Need indeed had Venetians, in the era of their glory, for year-long festivals and Carnival madness, for gorgeous pageants and much guitar-twanging and many sweet love songs. For there was in their midst a power " that never slumbered, never pardoned,” and that it was well for them to forget while they could. The tyranny of the Council of Ten, with its mysterious, hidden trials and executions, was no less hard to bear than the brutal, open violence of feudal lords in France. Venice’s cup of pleasure was full to overflowing, but in it were the dregs of despair.

Nor was the religions reason for the growth of witchcraft wanting among Venetians. There was, it must be admitted, no power calling itself Catholic which was as independent of the Pope as their republic. But at the same time there were few other nations so firm in their Catholicism or more truly devout. Rebels to Rome Venetians indeed were, and that long before the days of Paolo Sarpi, but never heretics or men of lukewarm faith. So many were their conflicts with the Pope that, in reading their history, it seems as if, when they were not calmly bearing excommunications, anathemas, and interdicts rather than submit to his temporal interference, they were hurling his demands back in his face, as it were, by chasing his nuncio with sticks and stones from their midst. Now cut off from all spiritual comfort, which, despite their insubordination, they held so dear, and now hindered in their equally precious commerce, intercourse with them being forbidden to the rest of Europe, a great part of the time Venice and her ships were like moral plague spots on the sea. But then, on the other hand, there were as many proofs of the strength of the national religious sentiment. It showed itself in the great number of churches and shrines, in the wonderful beauty and wealth of St. Mark’s, in the prayers of the people before the election of a Doge and their psalm-singing after it, in the delight of the painter in recording religious ceremonies or miracles of the olden time, when he painted the houses and canals and churches of his beloved city. It was the same with all classes, — with the rulers as with the people. “ The habit of assigning to religion a direct influence over all his own actions and all the affairs of his own daily life is remarkable in every great Venetian during the times of the prosperity of the state,” Mr. Ruskin writes in his Stones of Venice. The piety of the Doges was continually manifesting itself: at one time, in their preparation for war by solemn service in St. Mark’s ; at another, in their commemoration of triumphs by setting up, not their own statues, but those of saints, on the pillars carried home as trophies. It was a Doge who cared to chronicle the fact that, in the days when Venice still had her fields where sheep could graze and vines where birds could sing, Christ and his mother and angels and saints came to tell the bishop where to erect temples in their honor. The curious contrast between this piety and the Venetian spiritual independence was never more strikingly demonstrated than during the Fourth Crusade, when the Doge, Henry Dandolo, in direct opposition to papal decrees, made the capture and surrender to him of a Christian town the condition of his transporting the impecunious Crusaders across the sea to the Holy Land ; and then, after having thus forced them to defy the Pope, inauguerated his expedition by elaborate ceremonial in St. Mark’s. It was truly with the Venetians as they themselves said:

“ Siamo Veneziane, poi Christiani,” — We are first Venetians, and then Christians. But though they gave it this secondary rank, their religious belief was sound enough to keep them from heresy, even in ages when men were beginning to make public profession of infidelity and skepticism. Satan had not yet shaken their faith. But if they looked beyond their own territory, they saw him almost everywhere triumphant.

The wolf had robbed near shepherds of their folds; was there not. therefore, daily danger of his coming down upon theirs ? His success abroad made them doubly watchful at home, and thus, though they were firm in their resistance to him, the sense of his presence became greater, the fear of his power increased. The physical cause for this fear was as strong here as elsewhere ; Venice lost three fourths of her inhabitants by the black death, and, probably because of her constant communication with the East, was ravaged by the plague again and again. This, be it remembered, was the evil declared by modern students of witchcraft to have given the chief impetus to its rapid progress in the fourteenth century.

The knowledge of these facts in the history of Venice, together with some small understanding of the raison d’être of the witch belief in Europe during the period already mentioned, would make the existence of so-called witches in the Venetian dominions in the past a certainty, were there no records to prove it. But there are such records. Even before the Ecclesiastical Inquisition was introduced in Venice, and long before there was mention of heresy as a crime, the Doge Tiepolo, in 1232, in a proclamation providing punishment for various offenses, included sorcery in the number. This shows that already in the thirteenth century, when hitherto free Venetians were slowly realizing their new position as ciphers in the state, an outlet was needed for silenced discontent. More definite laws were passed when the Inquisition was finally set. up in Venice, and a special clause set forth the power of the religious tribunal over sorcerers and witches. There were executions, too, in the days when Inquisitors were so afraid lest the devil should lay waste the whole earth that in Germany and Italy alone thirty thousand men and women, whom he had seduced to sorcery, were burnt, thus purifying the world. One of the liveliest battlegrounds between the followers of Satan and the clergy was not very far from Venice. When the witch mania was at its height in Northern Italy, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was against Verona especially that the Pope found it necessary to direct his spiritual thunderbolts. The fever, raging on every side, made its way to the Venetian dominions; and about the same time, in 1518, the renewed zeal of the judges of the Holy Office was rewarded by the discovery of such a formidable number of witches that the people who were not yet accused, but who did not know when their hour might come, rebelled and appealed to the supreme power of State. Indeed, so indignant were they that the Council could scarcely pacify them with a decree forbidding the sentences of the Inquisitors to be carried out. They could not forget that they were Venetians first, and then Christians; and this was the reason there were never any Torquemadas or Boguets in Venice. Though the Inquisition obtained a foothold in the republic, its power there from the first was weakened by the Venetian doctrine of state and church. Side by side with its own judges sat the secular judges appointed by the Council. It could try prisoners before its tribunal for heresy, but for nothing else. Not even the richest or the lowest Jew from the Ghetto could be claimed as its prey. The witch who had abused the sacraments and holy things of the church could be brought before it; but for her other evil deeds — for the murder and illness and madness wrought by her cursed charms — she was responsible only to the secular powers. Even when she was found guilty of the one crime it was allowed to condemn, the sacred court, in passing sentence upon her, could not touch her worldly possessions. According to the treaty made with the Pope, the wealth or property of the condemned fell to lawful temporal heirs. Venetians concluded, not unreasonably, that the latter ran no more risk from the taint of witchcraft attached to their inheritance than did the clergy or the church. There was consequently less fear of unprincipled Inquisitors in the republic than there was in France or Spain. When their profits were all spiritual, their ardor cooled. Thus it happened, as the inevitable result of the people’s attitude in religious matters, that while in Venice there were representatives of the vast sisterhood which extended from the Blockula of Sweden to the walnuttree of Benevento, sorcery there never became the terrible scourge that it was in other lands, where its victims at times threatened to outnumber those of the black death.

That popular outcry in 1518 was the last heard. Not because Venetians now grew submissive, but because even the limited power of the Inquisitors was gradually lessening. The reaction that was to result in removing witchcraft from the sphere of philosophy to that of old women’s gossip set in here a little earlier than in other parts of Europe; indeed, long before the fever reached its crisis in England. This change in the Christian world, as has been explained by Mr. Lecky, was due, not to laxity on the part of the church, or to powerful proofs of the innocence of the accused, but to the development of the spirit of rationalism, which made the wisdom of one generation seem folly to the next. If in France, where witchcraft attained its strongest ascendency, the denunciations of a Boguet and the arguments of a Bodin could be succeeded by the skepticism of a Montaigne, it does not appear strange that in the more liberal Venetian republic belief in sorcery, after having been held by grave dignitaries of state, should have speedily degenerated into a mere superstition of the people. A few traditions and legends are the only traces of the old witch-faith of Venice, just as her crumbling palaces, with their dishonored halls and faded tapestries, and the catalogued and ticketed curiosities in museums are all that remain of her glory.

This is why these stories collected by Signor Bernoni are of great interest. Childish as they are, they can still show what were the essential elements of Venetian witchcraft in the days when the power of a witch seemed no less a reality than that of the Ten. In all important characteristics it does not appear to have differed from the witchcraft of other Christian lands. There is more than a little truth in the Italian saying, Tutto il mondo e paese, — all the world is one country. Uniform action must be the outcome of uniform causes. The same leading factors which had produced the witches of Lothian and Warboys in Great Britain, and those of Labourd in France, had been at work in Venice. Hence much the same results had ensued. The Venetian witch would have been quite at home in the little church of North Berwick or in the old ruined castle of Saint Pré, just as Mephistopheles was at the classical Walpurgis night. For, like Agnes Sampsonn and her honest women, and Gratiane and her followers, she had sold herself to the devil, body and soul, and in return had received certain favors. Like them, and indeed like all her sisters from north to south, it was, and if these legends are to be believed still is, her habit to fly by night to uncanny revels, to brew magic potions and work subtle spells, to send storms and rule the winds, to strike men and beasts with noxious diseases and with death. She too had her Hecate or dame, the mistress of her charms, and her bad days and her seasons set apart for evil.

is a little rhyme which means, according to Signor Bernoni’s informers, that when it rains and the sun shines witches are friendly; but when it rains and the wind blows, then are they in a great fright and very violent, and to be avoided. While all the year round Wednesdays and Fridays are most propitious for their evil purposes, there is one month, October, in which every day is of equal value to them, so that it is called el mese de le strighe, — the month of witches. But Christmas Eve is the night for general meetings, when, by those three magic words known only to the sisterhood, new witches are made, just as the four principal festivals of the year were for the witches of Labourd. By consecrating the sacred days of the church to their witchcraft, almost all witches have shown their contempt for the Lord. On the whole, there has not been more originality in the wickedness of the worshipers of Satan than in the holiness of the saints.

But though this similarity exists in general characteristics, in minor details there is contrast enough between the witches of different countries. A creed which is radically the same in two places will in each be influenced in its form or expression by immediate surroundings. Mephistopheles, be it remembered, for a little while felt himself strange and disconcerted on the Pharsalian Fields. While these minor differences are less important in studying witchcraft as a whole, they are the most noteworthy in considering its manifestations in any one province or among any one people. Therefore the most interesting of the Venetian witch stories are those which have received so much local color that they are recognized at once to belong necessarily to Venice. The very source of witch-life may be said to have been the Sabbat. It was in attending it that witches always paid allegiance to their master, held their unholy rites, and derived power for future mischiefs. As participation in its ceremonies was their chief duty, or, in the eyes of Inquisitors, crime, so accounts of it. were made the leading theme in witch records, until the places where it was held and the manner of traveling to it became as generally known as the shrines of the church and the mode of pilgrimage to them. Indeed, to-day the Brocken and the walnut-tree of Benevento are as famous as the house of Loretto or the tomb of St. Thomas; the broomstick and the sieve, as the pilgrim’s cockle, hat, and shoon. Fortunately, it is upon this very point that the Venetian stories manifest decided individuality. The witches of Venice have a Brocken of their own. They have always celebrated their Sabbat in Alexandria. Belonging to a seafaring people, it was natural that their search for a place where they might meet without being discovered by their fellow-citizens led them over seas. Perhaps Alexandria was chosen for their secret orgies because, when Venetians carried the body of St. Mark to their capital, the Egyptian city may have seemed to have fallen into the devil’s clutches. As a rule, the witches of history have made their midnight expeditions on broomsticks or goats, only occasionally, like the women of North Berwick, going by sea ; while those of poetry have been licensed to ride on green cocks and wooden horses and in egg-shells. But in Venice, most likely on account of their familiarity with water as the principal highway for temporal concerns, they have usually gone to their meetings in boats. The very first story in Signor Bernoni’s book describes one of these midnight journeys. It is the tale of seven witches who, between midnight and morning, go to and return from Alexandria.

“ Once upon a time,” it begins, “ there were seven witches, and every night they led their wicked life; every night they went to sleep, but at the stroke of midnight they all got up and met together on the Fondamente Nove, where, jumping into a boat by the shore, they went off in it to work their witchcraft through the world. One morning the master of this boat saw that the knot in the rope by which it was fastened was not that which he had made himself. ' How is this ? ’ he cried. ' Some one must have been in my boat last night. I never made this knot. To-night I will be on the look-out, and shall see who comes ! ’ In fact, that evening, instead of staying at home, he went to his boat and hid in the stern. At the stroke of midnight he heard footsteps and the voices of women, and he said to himself, ‘Ah ha! We’ll see what these women are up to ! ’ The women who, you must know, were witches, unfastened the rope and stepped into his boat. Their chief came first, and as the others joined her she counted: ' Up with one! up with two, mount! up with three, mount! up with four, mount! up with five, mount! up with six, mount! up with seven, mount! ’ When she had counted the seventh, and the boat never moved, she exclaimed, ' How is this? Why doesn’t the boat start?’ The man in the stern then knew they were witches, and he thought to himself, ‘Oh, poor me! what will become of me if they find me ? They ’ll kill me, for sure.’ Badly frightened, he held his breath and waited. The chief looked here and looked there, counted them again, and made sure they were alone. ' One of you must be with child,’ she said. ' So then, up with eight! ’ As soon as she said these words, away went the boat like the wind, and in a minute they were all at Alexandria. Arrived there, they went ashore, and hurried off to attend to their sorceries. Once they had gone, the man in the stern was curious to know where he was; so he got up and crept very softly on shore after them, and then taking courage, he said, ' Cio! Come, now, when they go back again, so will I! ’ It was so dark, he could n’t see anything, but he found a large tree, and lie broke off a branch which was covered with fresh leaves ; and then he ran and hid it in the stern, and then hid himself, for frightened enough he was by this time, poor fellow ! After a while he heard the party coming back, dancing, singing, and laughing ; and when they were on board again the chief called out as before, ' Up with one ! up with two ! up with three ! ’ And when she had counted seven, she added, ' Up with eight, for one of you must be with child ! ’ Hardly had she said, ' Up with eight! ’ when off went the boat, and in a minute they were at the Fondamente Nove, from which they had started. There the witches got out, saluted each other, and went home, and all before cock-crow. The owner of the boat, when he was sure they had gone, jumped out and picked up the branch he had brought back. ‘ Corpo di Diana,’ he cried, ‘ if it is n’t a branch of a datepalm ! If I’m not mistaken, we’ve been to Alexandria, for date-palms don’t grow here.’ So he took the branch and went to his own house, and when everybody was up and stirring he hurried to find some of his friends, to tell them how he had been that night to Alexandria. Of course his friends would n’t believe him, so he showed them the branch with its fresh leaves ; and then they knew he spoke the truth, because in those days there were many witches who did these evil things almost every night.”

The counting of witches by the chief suggests the " calling over ” by the Dame in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queenes. But the few local allusions in the story are of greater interest. The choice of the Fondamente Nove as the landingplace of the witches is a strange reminder of the fallen fortunes of Venice : for of old, in this part of the city, were the summer palaces and myrtle gardens of rich Venetians. The cemetery of San Michele, with its long red wall and tall cypresses, was not as yet. and in the soft evening hour, when gay parties in their gondolas floated towards Murano, there was no reminder of the dead to mar their delight in the loveliness of the island-dotted lagoon and the snowshrouded, shadowy mountains beyond. But the plash of their oars, the music of their songs, was gradually silenced as the glory of the republic grew less and less, and now their pleasure-ground is the home of the dead ; where they once stepped lightly and gayly into their gondolas, witches now stealthily embark for their shameless feasts, and restless spirits haunt at least one of the old palaces, — the well-known white house, with its wonderful outlook to far Cadore, which no living man to-day dares enter. That the boatman brought away with him green branches as a proof of his midnight travels is a very characteristic touch, which makes the legend seem wholly Venetian. To old women, who hardly ever leave their own little court, and still more seldom go beyond their own parish, the fresh leaves would be almost as sure a proof of land as was the dove’s olive branch to Noah. Although the above story shows Alexandria to have been the scene of the witches’ midnight gatherings, it tells nothing of the nature of these meetings. That they were gay is implied by the dancing, singing, and laughing of the seven, as they returned to the boat. But whether this gayety was stimulated by the presence of the demon, and by rites solemnized in his honor, remains a matter of conjecture. There is nothing to show that the Alexandrian orgies were as profane as those which dishonored the little church of North Berwick and the wilds of Les Vosges. Fortunately, however, there is another story, the fourth in the collection, which supplies the necessary evidence. Scanty as the details are, they suffice to demonstrate that in the palmy days of witchcraft the Venetian Sabbat was, like all others, a form of devil-worship. The legend is interesting enough to quote without abridgment. It runs as follows : —

Of a young man who, when he was with two witches, by saying, “ Body, here : spirit, go ! ” was carried to a great feast and ball of witches and demons.

“ Not many years ago there was a young man, and he was in love with a young girl. When he went to court her on Wednesdays and Fridays, her mother always wanted him to go home earlier than on other nights. He thought a good deal about this, but he could n’t imagine what it meant. One day he met a friend on the street, and, while talking to him, happened to tell him the whole story about the girl and his courtship, and how he could not understand why the mother always wanted to send him off sooner on Wednesdays and Fridays. Then his friend said to him, ‘ Next time she wants you to go, don’t do it. Just stay where you are, and don’t move for anything.’ When Wednesday came, he went to the house, as was his custom. At the usual hour the mother of his sweetheart told him that he must be off; she was sleepy, and wanted to go to bed. But he told her to go to bed ; that he was n’t ready to leave just yet; that he was there, and there he would stay. ' Very well,’ said the old woman, ‘ stay on.’ At midnight, as he was sitting on a chair by the chimney-place, she said to him, ‘ Since you’ve insisted on staying, you must now repeat the words you hear us say.’ Then she and the girl cried, ‘ Body, here, and spirit, go ! ' and he said the same thing as fast as he could, and in a moment they were at a great ball, where there was music and lights and many men and women dancing. There they stayed all night, but before it was day the host of the ball, who was no other than the devil, called the young man, and bade him pledge himself to his service. But the youth said no, to wait till he came back the next time. Then everybody cried, ' Spirit, go where you belong! ’ and the three were at once back on their chairs by the chimeyplace. The young man without delay hurried off to his confessor, and related to him the adventures of the night. ' These two women are witches,’ said the priest, ‘ and you are damned if you return to them.’ But he answered, ' I must go once again, because I promised I would.’ ‘ Well,’ said his confessor, ' return this once. But when you are at the feast, and are about to put pen to paper to sign your pledge, say to yourself, “Jesus of Nazareth, save me! When, the next Wednesday, he went to see the two witches, the same thing happened at the same hour, and again he was carried to the ball and into the midst of the dancers. By and by the host called him to sign his pledge. But when he took the pen in his hand he said to himself, ' Jesus of Nazareth, save me ! ’ Even while he was saying the words the pen slipped from his hand, and lo ! he was in the shallows of Santa Marta. Night as it was, he saw far off the bark of a fisherman ; he called loudly, and the man came and drew him out of the mud. Then, full of dread and fear, he ran to tell the tale to his confessor, who said to him, ' If you had not come to me you would have been lost. You should thank God that all has gone well with you.’ The priest then related the facts in a court of justice, and as the two women were foreigners they were banished from the city, and nothing more was ever heard of them.”

There was no question of torture or of burning here, though the crime, according to the ordinary standard of witchcraft, was great enough to warrant punishment by fire. The sentence of banishment is in keeping with the Venetian character. The legend is shaped in accordance with the spirit of those old laws which had narrowed the sphere of Inquisitors. It is almost unnecessary to add that the immediate and magical effect of the name of Jesus recalls innumerable French, English, Danish, and German stories, in which the holy name puts an end to unholy revels, the man who utters it finding himself the next morning in forest or mountain wilds, in open fields on stone heaps, or in some other lonely and remote place. There is one Danish tale in particular, in which a man, by anointing a piece of fruit peel and repeating his wife’s words, follows her to the Sabbat, there to be asked by the devil to sign his name in a book, — which is in very nearly all respects the same as the Venetian.

One of the points on which the opinion of authorities on witchcraft differed most often was whether the sorcerer or witch was carried bodily through the air to the place of meeting, whether merely the spirit went, or whether the journey was purely imaginary, a dream or illusion caused by the Evil One. Sprenger and the other authorities of the Malleus Maleficarum decided at once in favor of bodily transmission. But then, on the other hand, Bodin believed in spiritual attendance. That the Venetians agreed with the latter is shown not only in this witch cry of “ Body, here ; spirit, go ! ” but also in other stories, describing the doings of a witch whose spirit was turned into a mouse; of another whose body was in bed when her spirit was in the kitchen, on the hearth, making little pots; of a third whose husband at night turned her with her face on the pillow, that her spirit might not escape. The incidents recorded in this last are based upon a most unpardonable belief, which was evolved almost everywhere when the witch mania was at its height. This was the doctrine, encouraged by Inquisitors, that children could become witches and sorcerers. In those terrible trials, presided over by Pierre de Laucre, it was asserted that hundreds of girls and boys flocked to the indescribable Sabbats of Labourd, though, be it said to the credit of their elders, they were not admitted to the final, nameless rites. It was the same in Sweden, where children were counted among the revelers at the Blockula. There is a story told by Sprenger of a farmer in Switzerland, whose little daughter startled him by saying she could bring rain, and immediately raised a storm. In answer to his questions, she said it was her mother who had taught her to do this. The same story is told in Venice, with such slight variations that it seems as if it at first must have been borrowed from the Malleus Maleficarum, and then gradually have become identified with the traditions of the republic. The following is the Venetian version: —

“Not many years ago there was a man and his wife and a little girl nine years old, who, you know, was their daughter. One morning her father said to her, ‘ Come, let’s take a walk.’ So they went out, and as they were walking he said to her, ‘ See, my child, what a beautiful day it is, and how bright the sun is ! ’ ‘ Yes,’ she said, ‘ but in a minute I can make thee see a very great storm.’ ' What dost thou say ? ’ her father exclaimed. ' Yes,’ she repeated, ‘ I can make thee this very minute see a great storm.’ Her father was speechless with surprise. He stared at her, and at last he asked, ' How canst thou do it? Show me.’ ‘Wait, I’ll show thee how,’ was her only answer. Then she went close to a ditch near by, and beating the water seven times with her hand made the ditch dry ; and immediately heavy black clouds covered the sun, and there came a great darkness and the wildest storm that was ever seen. Her father was lost in wonder. ‘ Tell me, tell me,’ he exclaimed, ‘ who taught you to do these things! ’ ‘I learned them from my mother,’ she answered. Now this put him in a great passion, and he started in a violent hurry for home. On the way he met his compare,¹ who greeted him ; but he was in such a state, it was all he could do to return the greeting. When his compare saw what a rage he was in, he said to him, ‘Why, what’s the matter? It seems to me you ’re angry at something.’ He did n’t want to stop, or even to tell what was the matter, but his compare gave him no peace until he had told the whole story. ‘ Oh ho ! ’ said the compare, ' I see with what we have to deal, and I think the best thing for you to do is to go to a priest and tell him all about it.’ The man, when he heard this, ran off at once to the priest and repeated the story. The priest listened to it all, and then said, ‘ Good ! Now hear what you must do, Go home, and don’t say a word. But to-night, a little before midnight, turn your wife with her mouth on the pillow, and watch what she does: if she is a witch she will struggle, but if she is guiltless she will not move.’ So then the man went home to his wife, and held his peace. A little before midnight, he took hold of her, and very softly, so as not to waken her, turned her with her mouth on the pillow. At the stroke of midnight, which was the hour when she usually went off to work her spells, her spirit could not get out, and she began to jump and struggle and turn; but her husband held her head down with his hand. At last she woke up and exclaimed, ‘ Oh, help me ! What is the matter ? ’ Then she turned and saw her husband. ‘ You dog,’ he said, ‘ now I know what you are ! Tell me who taught you to do this.’ When she heard his reproaches, she fell to weeping and asking his pardon, and told him that it was her aunt, who could n’t die without teaching her witchcraft to some one, and who had begged her to learn, so hard, she had n’t been able to resist. Her husband did n’t want to have anything more to do with her, because of her evil deeds. But she implored him to forgive her. and at last he did, because after all, as soon as he found out the truth about her and his daughter, he freed them both from their compact with the devil, and they could n’t be watches any longer.”

However this story may have been introduced into Venice, its ending is unmistakably of Venetian origin. The husband in the Swiss tale, instead of becoming reconciled to his wife, has her burnt, and dispatches the child to a nunnery, the latter being saved from her mother’s fate only because of her extreme youth. A German, Spaniard, or Scotchman, had he borrowed the story, would have retained its tragic dénoûment. But there is throughout the Venetian traditions on this subject a mildness in striking contrast to the grimness of other witch legends, but which is a natural outcome of the justice with which Venetians of old conducted their witch trials. Almost all the stories in this little book end by declaring the witch forgiven and allowed to go her ways in peace. It is the exception when she is handed over to the mercies of the civil law. Judging from this fact, the present popular belief seems to be that as a witch, once her calling is discovered, loses all power, and is therefore no longer dangerous to her fellow-citizens, there is no necessity to punish her. Thus the law here is wholly practical, interfering in order to insure the future peace of the community, and not to punish past crimes. Perhaps the strangest part of this belief is that very often a woman becomes a witch against her inclination, and consequently rejoices at her deliverance, as is shown in the above story. The way this happens is very carefully explained. A witch cannot voluntarily make herself known to any one unless she is at the point of death. But if she does not then find a confidant, her death is terrible, for the devil comes and strangles her.

That he is by no means a tender executioner is demonstrated in the following story, which is, moreover, interesting as the only one in the collection manifesting the least ferocity. It is the legend

Of a Witch strangled by the Devil.

“ Once upon a time there was a great witch, and she had wrought her evil deeds all her life, but had never been discovered.

“ She lived with some honest people, who knew nothing about her wickedness. One day she became very ill. and quickly grew worse and worse. The people of the house, not seeing her about, went to find out what was the matter, and when they came to her door they heard a terrible groaning and moaning. They knocked, but there was no answer ; they tried the door, but it would n’t open ; then they pushed and shook it so hard that they forced it open. They went in, and up to the bed, where the woman lay dying. She was raving mad, and turned and leaped on the bed, and would n’t say a word to anybody. What were they to do ? At last one ran for the priest, and another for the doctor. The priest came first. ‘ For charity’s sake,’ they said to him, ‘ go to this woman, who has rented one of our rooms, and is now dying ! ’ ‘ Very well,’ he answered, ‘take me to her room.’ They showed him the way, but no sooner had he come to the door than he knew she was a witch possessed by the devil, and so he said to them, ‘ I can’t go in.’ ‘Why not?’ they asked. ‘Don’t you hear her screams and sighs ? ’ he asked. ‘ If one of you will turn all those pictures on the wall, then I can go in.’ So they turned the pictures, and then they heard another great scream and sigh, and they hurried to the bed. But the woman was dead. Her eyes and tongue had started out of her head, and she was black as coals. ‘ She is dead ! ’ they cried. And the priest told them, ‘ The devil strangled her because she was a witch, and it was while he was doing it that she gave those screams and sighs. Now look under the bed and see what is there.’ They looked, and found scaldini, little pots, hairs, needles from Damascus, and all sorts of other things used by witches for their charms and spells. Then they took them all, and made a great fire, and threw them and her bed into it. And at once they heard a tremendous noise, a puffing and rumbling that seemed to come from hell. So they were certain she was a real witch.

“ And this witch died thus, in a state of raving madness, because she could find no one in whom to confide.”

The reason of the priest’s order about the pictures is that it is generally supposed that no witch can die in a room where there are pictures of Christ, the Madonna, or the saints, unless these be turned towards the wall. There is not space here to give the other stories, all of which, however, are well worth reading. Several, like so many northern witch tales, illustrate the doings of witches when their spirits assume animal shapes, and the danger of discovery which they then run. For, if the disembodied spirit receive a wound, the body likewise is wounded ; or, if any one who suspects what is going on close the mouth of the witch, her spirit, having escaped through it, cannot return, and consequently her body remains cold and lifeless. Two or three stories describe the methods by which witch charms can be dispelled, the information on this point being very explicit. The inevitable broomstick, laid across the threshold, comes into play. As was the case with the witch Jane Brooks, told of in Glanville’s account of the Demon of Tedworth, the drawing of blood from Venetian witches renders their charms ineffectual. And since they are eyebiting, it is well to remember the Italian protection against the evil eye, and in case of emergency to point towards a suspected witch the first and little finger of the hand, the other two with the thumb being closed upon the palm. Another good measure is to burn or to cut into small pieces the clothes of the person bewitched. It is not unwise to remember these instructions, as witches work their spells in many ways. They can bewitch with the eye or with a kiss. They ensnare children with fruit and flowers and sweets, and men and women with bread and wine, and indeed with anything and everything. The holier their materials, the deadlier are their spells. The Venetians’ knowledge of the mysteries of the black art extends even to the genesis of witches and witchcraft. Once, they say, Satan was furious with the Lord, because paradise contained more souls than hell, and he determined, by fair promises, to seduce human beings to his worship, and thus fill his kingdom. But he decided always to tempt women, in preference to men, because, through ambition or a desire for revenge, they yield more easily.

Popular belief thus accounts for the beginning of an evil which once filled the Christian world with untold misery, cruelty, and crime. These traditions and legends, which still linger among the lower classes, throw some light upon its character in the past, when belief in it was universal in Venice, and show what it has there become in the present era of rationalism. To foresee its future is not difficult. There is little doubt that witchcraft, with so many other superstitions, will in the end be abandoned even by the people. That the memory of its doctrines and practices, according to Venetian definition and observance, will not perish with the few old women who still believe in witches is due to Signor Bernoni. He has been as earnest in collecting the folk-lore of Venice as Ruskin has in studying her stones.

Elizabeth Robins Pennell.