Note 66 — Chapter V

Henderson, loc. cit.; Bartsch, vol. ii. p. 192; Pitré, vol. xv. pp. 154 note, 155; vol. xvii. p. 102, quoting Castelli, “Credenze ed usi”; Horace, “Ep. ad Pison,” v. 340; Dorsa, p. 146; Wright, “Middle Ages,” vol. i. p. 290; Garnett, p. 70; “Mélusine,” vol. v. p. 90, quoting English authorities. Map, Dist. ii. c. 14, gives a story of babies killed by a witch. St. Augustine records that the god Silvanus was feared as likely to injure women in child-bed, and that for their protection three men were employed to go round the house during the night and to strike the threshold with a hatchet and a pestle and sweep it with a brush; and he makes merry over the superstition (“De Civ. Dei,” l. vi. c. 9).