"
In these confessions we find included nearly all the particulars of the
popular belief concerning witchcraft, and see the gradual degradation of
the once superb Lucifer to the vulgar scarecrow with horns and tail. "The
Prince of Darkness _was_ a gentleman." From him who had not lost all his
original brightness, to this dirty fellow who leaves a stench, sometimes
of brimstone, behind him, the descent is a long one. For the dispersion
of this foul odor Dr. Henry More gives an odd reason. "The Devil also, as
in other stories, leaving an ill smell behind him, seems to imply the
reality of the business, those adscititious particles he held together in
his visible vehicle being loosened at his vanishing and so offending the
nostrils by their floating and diffusing themselves in the open Air." In
all the stories vestiges of Paganism are not indistinct. The three
principal witch gatherings of the year were held on the days of great
pagan festivals, which were afterwards adopted by the Church. Maury
supposes the witches' Sabbath to be derived from the rites of Bacchus
Sabazius, and accounts in this way for the Devil's taking the shape of a
he-goat. But the name was more likely to be given from hatred of the
Jews, and the goat may have a much less remote origin.
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