Note 440 — Chapter VI · SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS.

Harbardsliod, 20.—Skirnismal, 26-34.—Keyser, op. cit. pp. 270, 293.—Hyndluliod, 43.—Lays of Sigurd and Brynhild.—Gudrunarkvida, II. 21.—Sigrdrifumal, 4.

At the close of the fifteenth century, Sprenger relates (Mall. Maleficar. P. II. Q. i. c. 9) as a recent occurrence in a town in the diocese of Strassburg, that a laborer cutting wood in a forest was attacked by three enormous cats, which after a fierce encounter he succeeded in beating off with a stick. An hour afterwards he was arrested and cast in a dungeon on the charge of brutally beating three ladies of the best families in the town, who were so injured as to be confined to their beds, and it was not without considerable difficulty that he proved his case and was discharged under strict injunctions of secrecy. Gervais of Tilbury, early in the thirteenth century, had already referred to such occurrences as an established fact (Otia Imp. Decis. III. c. 93).

The same belief was current among the Slavs. Prior to the conversion of Bohemia, in a civil war under Necla, a youth summoned to battle had a witch stepmother who predicted defeat, but counselled him, if he wished to escape, to kill the first enemy he met, cut off his ears and put them in his pocket. He obeyed and returned home in safety, but found his dearly beloved bride dead, with a sword-thrust in the bosom and both ears off—which he had in his pocket.—Æn. Sylv. Hist. Bohem. c. 10.