Letters on demonology and witchcraft / [Sir Walter Scott].

  • Walter Scott
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on demonology and witchcraft / [Sir Walter Scott]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ficult question to those whose studies have qualified them to give judgment on so obscure a subject, it so far appears clear, that the Witch of Endor was not a being such as those believed in by our ancestors, who could transform themselves and others into the ap- pearance of the lower animals; raise and allay tem- pests, frequent the company and join the revels of evil spirits, and, by their counsel and assistance, de- stroy human lives; and waste the fruits of the earth, or perform feats of such magnitude as to alter tlxe face of nature. The Witch of Endor was a mere for- tune-teller, to whom, in despair of all aid or answer from the Almighty, the unfortunate King of Israel had recourse in his despair, and by whom, in some way or other, he obtained the awful certainty of his own defeat and death. She was liable, indeed, deservedly, to the punishment of death, for intruding herself upon the task of the real prophets, by whom the will of God was, in that time, regularly made known. But her existence and her crimes can go no length to prove the possibility that another class of witches, no otherwise resembling her than as called by the same name, either existed at a more recent period, or were liable to the same capital punishment, for a very different and much more doubtful class of of- fences, which, however odious, are nevertheless to be proved possible before they can be received as a cri- minal charge. Whatever may be thought of other occasional expressions in the Old Testament, it cannot be said, that in any part of that sacred volume, a text occurs, indicating the existence of a system of witchcraft, under the Jewish dispensation, in any respect similar to that against which the law- books of so many European nations have, till very lately, denounced punishment; far less under the Christian dispensation—a system under which the emancipation of the human race from the Levi- tical law Avas happily and miraculously perfected