Note 574 — Chapter II · THE WITCH TRIALS
Reading edition
Scot quotes a ghastly passage from Grillandus, who writeth “that when witches sleepe and feel no paine upon the torture, Domine labia mea aperies should be said, and so, saith he, both the torment will be felt and the truth will be uttered.—Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 17. And we find in del Rio: “Narravit mihi ... anno 1599 captam puellulam strigatricem, quae nec pedum ustulationem saevissimam, nec flagra validissima sentiebat; donec Sacerdos cujusdam monitu illi Agni benedicti ceream imaginem in collum injecere, tum enim vi sacra amuleti daemonis praestigiosa ludibria depulsa et illa vim doloris coepit persentiscere.”—Disquisitionum magicarum, p. 184. Venice, 1616. See also E. Gurney, Phantasms of the Living, p. 181, who considers the insensibility to pain may have been due sometimes to auto-hynotism.