It is still
questionable how far she was supposed to act by mere magical ceremonies
and formula, or by a conscious alliance with the fiends, apart from the
poisons and drugs which she administered with a full knowledge of their
effect.
The more innocent form of the superstition, in which the mendicant
friar could venture to appear as the competitor of the witch, is shown
in the case of the witch of Gaeta whom we read of in Pontano. His
traveller Suppatius reaches her dwelling while she is giving audience
to a girl and a servingmaid, who come to her with a black hen, nine
eggs laid on a Friday, a duck, and some white thread, for it is the
third day since the new moon. They are then sent away, and bidden to
come again at twilight. It is to be hoped that nothing worse than
divination is intended. The mistress of the servant-maid is pregnant by
a monk; the girl's lover has proved untrue and has gone into a
monastery. The witch complains: 'Since my husband's death I support
myself in this way, and should make a good thing of it, since the
Gaetan women have plenty of faith, were it not that the monks balk me
of my gains by explaining dreams, appeasing the anger of the saints for
money, promising husbands to the girls, men-children to the pregnant
women, offspring to the barren, and besides all this visiting the women
at night when their husbands are away fishing, in accordance with the
assignations made in daytime at church.
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