If that
arch-patron of sorcerers, Wierus, is still unconvinced, and pronounces
the whole thing a delusion of diseased imagination, what does he say to
Nebuchadnezzar? Nay, let St. Austin be subpoenaed, who declares that "in
his time among the Alps sorceresses were common, who, by making
travellers eat of a certain cheese, changed them into beasts of burden
and then back again into men." Too confiding tourist, beware of
_Gruyere_, especially at supper! Then, there was the Philosopher
Ammonius, whose lectures were constantly attended by an ass,--a
phenomenon not without parallel in more recent times, and all the more
credible to Bodin, who had been professor of civil law.
In one case we have fortunately the evidence of the ass himself. In
Germany, two witches who kept an inn made an ass of a young actor,--not
always a very prodigious transformation it will be thought by those
familiar with the stage. In his new shape he drew customers by his
amusing tricks,--_voluptates mille viatoribus exhibebat_. But one day
making his escape (having overheard the secret from his mistresses), he
plunged into the water and was disasinized to the extent of recovering
his original shape. "Id Petrus Damianus, vir sua aetate inter primos
numerandus, cum rem sciscitatus est diligentissime ex hero, _ex asino_,
ex mulieribus sagis confessis factum, Leoni VII.
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