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.

    97/344 (page 95)
    It is undeniable that these Pythonesses were held in high respect while the pagan religion lasted; but for that very reason they became odious so soon as the tribe was converted to Christianity. They were of course, if they pretended to retain their influence^ either despised as impostors, or feared as sorceresses, and the more that, in particular instances, they be- came dreaded foi their power, the more they were detested, under the conviction that they derived it from the enemy of man. The deities of the northern heathens underwent a similar metamorphosis, re- sembling that proposed by Drawcansir in the Re- hearsal, who threatens “to make a god subscribe himself a devil.” The warriors of the North received this new im- pression concerning the influence of their deities, and the source from which it was derived, with the more indifference, as their Avorship, when their my- thology was most generally established, was never of a very reverential or devotional character. Their ideas of their own merely human prowess was so high, that the champions made it their boast, as Ave have already hinted, they Avould not give way in fight even to the immortal gods themselves. Such, Ave learn from Cesar, was the idea of the Germans con- cerning the Suevi or Swabians, a tribe to Avhom the others yielded the palm of valour; and many indi- vidual stories are told in the Sagas concerning bold champions, who had fought, not only with the sor- cerers, but Avith the demigods of the system, and come off unharmed, if not victorious, in the contest Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose, drawn up about eighty years ago, says was denominated Bourjo, a word of unknown derivation, by which the place is still known. Here a universal and subsisting tradition bore, that human sacrifices were of yore offered, while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from the elevation of the glacis, which slopes inward. With this place of sacrifice com- municated a path, still discernible, called the Haxcllgate, leading to a small glen, or narrow valley, called the Haxellcleuch—both which words are probably derived from the Haxa, or chief priestess of the pagans.