Cain And His Worshippers

“Rusticus in Luna
Quem sarcina deprimit una,
Monstrat per spinas
Nulli prodesse rapinas.”

—ALEXANDER NECKHAM, A.D. 1157.

This is, for reasons which I will explain anon, one of the most curious
traditions which have been preserved by the Tuscan peasantry. I had made
inquiry whether any conjuring by the aid of a mirror existed—“only this
and nothing more”—when, some time after, I received the following:

LA SCONGIURAZIONE DELLO SPECCHIO.
_When one wishes to enchant a lover_.

“Go at midnight when there is a fine full moon, and take a small mirror,
which must be kept in a box of a fine red colour, and at each of the four
corners of the box put a candle with a pin, or with a pin in its point,
and observe that two of the pins must have red heads, and two black, and
form a cross, and note that every candle must have two tassels hanging
from it, one red and one black.

“And within the box first of all put a good layer of coarse salt, and
form on the salt a ring or wreath of incense, and in the middle of this a
cross of cummin, and above all put the small mirror. Then take the
photograph of your lover, but not the real photograph but the negative,
because it must be on a plate of glass (_lastra di vetro_). Then take
some hairs of the lover and join them to the photograph (_sono uniti
dalla parte del quore_), and then take a fine sprig of rue.

“And with all this nicely arranged in the box, take a boat and sail out
to sea; and if a woman works the spell she must take three men with her
only, and if a man three women and no other person. And they must go
forth at an instant when the moon shines brightly (_risplende bene_) on
the mirror. Then hold the left hand over the mirror, and hold up the rue
with the right. Then repeat the following: {255}

INCANTESIMO.

“Luna! Luna! Luna!
Tu che siei tanto bella!
E nel tuo cerchio rachiude
Un si pessimo sogetto
Rachiude Chaino che per gelosia
Uccise il proprio fratello.

“Ed io che per la gelosia
Del mio amante non ho potuto
Ne bere e ne mangiare,
Ne colle amiche
Non posso conversare,
Io l’amo tanto, tanto,
E non sono corrisposta,
Quanto lo vorrei e per la sua
La sua fredezza io ne sono
Tanto gelosa non so qual’ malarono
Quale malarono io commetterei,
Vado a letto non passo riposare,
Mi viene visioni che
Il mio amante mi debba ingannare.

“Luna, Luna, mia bella Luna!
Che tanto bella siei e ben’ risplende,
Ti prego volere pregare per me
_Chaino_ che per gelosia
Uccise il proprio fratello,
Ed io vorrei punire il mio amante,
Ma non farlo morire
Ma pero farlo soffrire,
Che non abbia mai bene
Ne giorno, ne notte,
Non possa ne bene ne mangiare.
E la notte non possa riposare,
E Chaino col suo fascio,
Suo fascio, di pruini,
Il mio amante dal su’letto
Puo le fare, alzare
E alla casa mia
Farlo presto ritornare!

“Chaino! Chaino! Chaino!
Per tre volte io ti chiamo.
Ti chiamo ad alta voce,
In un punto dove si trova,
Soltanto che cielo e aqua,
E le due mie compagne.

“Chaino! per la gelosia
Che provarti tu per il tuo fratello!
Provo io per il mio amante,
E vorrei a me farlo ritornare,
Per non allontanarsi mai più.

“Tu che dal alto del cielo
Tutto vedi—questa scatola
E bene preparata e tutte e quattro
Le candele o accese, tu puoi guardare,
Puoi guardare questo specchio,
E se tre parole pronunzierai
Tutti i pruini che ai
Nell’ fascio delle legne che adosso,
Sempre porti potrai,
Potrai farli passare
Nel corpo, e nel cuore
Del mio amante,
Che non possa dormire e sia
Costretto a vestirsi,
E venire a casa mia,
Per non andarsene mai più.

“Con questo ramo di ruta
Lo bagno nel mare,
E bagno le mie due compagne
Che pronunzierrano queste parole
Tale [secondo il nome] colla ai uta
Di Chaino vai dalla tua amante
Per non lasciarla mai più.

“Se questa grazia mi fai
Fai alzare un forte vento,
E poi spengere le candele.
Chaino! Chaino! Chaino!”

THE INVOCATION.

“Moon! O moon! O moon!
Thou who art always fair,
Yet holdest in thy ring
One of such evil name,
Because thou holdest Cain;
Cain who from jealousy
His own born brother slew.

“I too through jealousy
Of one whom I still love
Can neither drink nor eat,
Nor even talk with friends,
I love so much—so much—
Yet am not loved again
As I would fain be loved.
Through his indifference I
So jealous have become,
I do not know what sin
I would not now commit;
I cannot sleep at night
For dreams in which I see
Him faithless unto me.

“Moon, moon, O beauteous moon!
As thou art fair and bright,
I pray thee, pray for me;
_Cain_ who from jealousy
Slew his own brother born,
As I would punish well
The one whom I yet love,
Yet would not cause his death,
So may he suffer thus:
May suffering be his lot
By day as in the night,
May he not eat or drink,
Nor may he sleep at night!

“May Cain who bears the bunch
Upon his back, of thorns,
Stand by my lover’s bed,
And make him rise from sleep
And hasten to my home.

“O Cain! O Cain! O Cain!
Three times I call to thee,
Call with my loudest voice,
Just as I find myself
Between the sea and sky,
And my two friends with me.

“Cain, by the jealousy
Which once thy brother caused,
And which I now endure,
For him whom still I love,
Make love return to me
And never leave me more.

“Thou who from heaven on high
Seest all things, here behold
This casket well prepared!
The mystic tapers four
All lighted, look on them!
Then in this mirror look.
Then if thou wilt but speak
_Three words_—then all the thorns
Which on thy back thou bear’st,
All in a bundle bound,
Will pass into the life,
The body and the heart
Of him whom yet I love,
So that he sleep no more,
And be compelled to rise,
Compelled to clothe himself,
And hasten to my home,
Never to leave me more.

“Now, with this branch of rue,
Which I dip in the sea,
I sprinkle both my friends,
That they may speak these words:
That ---, {259a} by the aid
Of Cain shalt seek thy love,
And never leave her more.

“If thou wilt grant me this,
Cause a high wind to blow,
Extinguishing the lights.
O Cain! O Cain! O Cain!”

Before proceeding further, I would explain that the use of a photograph,
which must be a negative on glass, instead of being, as was suggested to
me, a modern interpolation, is, strangely enough, a proof of the
antiquity of the rite. In the old time, a picture or portrait painted in
transparent colour on glass was held up to the moon that its rays might
pass through it and enchant the subject. And among the Romans, when one
had a portrait of any one cut on diaphanous stone, it was used in the
same way. I had in my possession once such a portrait-gem, {259b} and a
fine needle-hole had been bored through the right eye so as to blind the
original of the likeness. And I had a friend who lived in Russia, who
discovered that a person who hated him had obtained his photograph, and
pricked holes with a very fine needle in the eyes to blind him. The
negative of a photograph on glass would very naturally occur as a
substitute for a picture. But what is most important is that this
mention of the translucent negative proves fully that the whole ceremony,
in its minutest detail, has actually been preserved to this day, and that
the incantation, long as it is, exists as I have given it, since every
line in it corresponds to the rite. And as I know that it was gathered
by a witch and fortune-teller among others, and carefully compared and
collated, I am sure that it is authentic and traditional.

Fifty pages are devoted by the Rev. T. Harley in his “Moon Lore” to the
subject of the Man in the Moon, and since the book appeared in 1885 there
have been great additions to the subject. This human being is declared
by myths found in India, and especially among the Oriental gypsies, in
Ireland, Borneo, Greenland, and South America, to be a man who is
punished by imprisonment above for incest with his sister the sun. As he
wanders for ever over the heavens, just as gypsies wander on earth, they
claim him for their ancestor, and declare that Zin-gan (or gypsy) is
derived from two words meaning sun and moon. _Kam_, the sun, has been
varied to _kan_, and in gypsy the moon is called _chone_, which is also
_t-chen_, _chin_, or _sin_. But the point lies in this, that Cain was
condemned to be a “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth,” which gives
much apparent strength to the idea that Cain, whether Shemitic or Aryan,
was, for a great crime, or as chief of sinners, imprisoned in the moon.

This sufferer, in different legends, has been represented as a
Sabbath-breaker, as Judas Iscariot, as Isaac, and many more
transgressors, almost always with a _bunch_ or _bush_ of _thorns_, for
which there has been literally no real explanation whatever. This I will
now investigate, and, I think, clearly explain.

Dante in two places speaks of the Man in the Moon as Cain, and as if it
were a very popular legend (_Inferno_, xx. 123):

“Ma vienne omai che già tiene ’l confine
D’ambedue gli emisperi, e tocca l’onda
Sotto Sibilia, Caino e le spine
E gia iernotte fu la Luna tonda.”

“But now he comes who doth the borders hold
Of the two hemispheres, and drive the waves
Under the sibyl, Cain, with many thorns.
And yesternight the moon was round and full;
Take care that it may never do thee harm
At any time when in the gloomy wood.”

This twentieth canto is devoted to the sorcerers in hell, and ends with
allusion to the full moon, the sibyl, and Cain, as allied to witchcraft,
prediction, and sin. When the moon is full it is also “high tides” with
the witches, now as of yore:

“Full moon, high sea,
Great man shalt thou be:
Red dawning, cloudy sky,
Bloody death shalt thou die.”

Dante again mentions Cain in the moon, in the _Paradiso_, ii. 50:

“Ma ditemi, che con li segni lui
Dio questo corpo, che laggiuso in terra
Fan di _Cain_ favoleggiare altrui?”

“But tell me now what are the gloomy marks
Upon this body, which down there on earth
Make people tell so many tales of Cain?”

To which Beatrice replies by a mysterious physical explanation of the
phenomenon, advising him to take three _mirrors_ and observe how the moon
is reflected from one to the other, and that in this manner the _formal
principio_, or first creative power, passes from light to darkness. The
reader will here remember that with the witches the _mirror_ is specially
devoted to conjuring Cain.

It is worth noting that a _spechietto_, or small looking-glass, was
specially (Barretti) “a little mirror placed at the bottom of a jewel
casket.”

I would now note that the _thorns_ which Cain carries signify, not only
in modern Italian, but in old Roman sorcery, the sting of hatred and of
jealousy. It is a most apparent and natural simile, and is found from
the crown of thorns on Christ to the Voodoo sorcery in Western America.
Miss Mary Owen knew a black girl in Missouri who, as a proof of being
Christianised, threw away the thorn which she kept as a fetish to injure
an enemy. But in early times the thorn was universally known as
symbolical of sin, just as Cain was regarded as the first real sinner.
Therefore the two were united. Menzel tells us in his _Christliche
Symbolik_ (Part I. p. 206) that it is a legend that “there were no thorns
before the Fall; they first grew with sin, therefore thorns are a symbol
of the sorrow or pain which came from sin.” Of all of which there is a
mass of old German myths and legends, which I spare the reader, for I
have endeavoured in this comment to avoid useless myth-mongering in order
to clearly set forth the connection between Cain, his thorns, and the
moon.

That the conjuring the moon with a mirror is very ancient indeed appears
from the legend drawn from classic sources, which is thus set forth in “A
Pleasant Comedie called Summer’s Last Will and Testament. Written by
Thomas Nash. London, 1600”:

“In laying thus the blame upon the Moone
Thou imitat’st subtill Pythagoras,
Who what he would the People should beleeve,
The same he wrote with blood upon a Glasse,
And turned it opposite ’gainst the New Moone,
Whose Beames, reflecting on it with full force,
Shew’d all those lines to them that stood behinde,
Most pleynly writ in circle of the Moone,
And then he said: ‘Not I, but the newe Moone
Fair Cynthia persuades you this and that.’”

In the “Clouds” of Aristophanes the same idea is made into a jest, in
which Strepsiades thus addresses Socrates:

“_Strepsiades_. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and then draw
down the moon by night, and then shut her up in a round helmet-case
_like a mirror_, and then keep watching her—

_Socrates_. What good would that do you, then?

_Strepsiades_. What! If the moon were not to rise any more
anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

_Socrates_. Because what?

_Strepsiades_. Because the money is lent on interest.” {262}

These instances could be multiplied. What I have given are enough to
show the antiquity of the conjuration; and I also venture to declare that
any Italian scholar who is familiar with these formulas of sorcery will
admit that, making all due allowance for transmission among peasants, the
language, or words, or turns of expression in this incantation denote
great antiquity.

The next paper or tradition on the subject of Cain, which, as every
phrase in it indicates, was taken down from an old dame who at first
slowly recalled forgotten sentences, will be to many more interesting,
and to all much more amusing than the first. It once happened that an
old gypsy in England began to tell me the story of the ghostly baker of
Stonehenge and the seven loaves, but, suddenly pausing, he said: “What’s
the use of telling that to _you_ who have _read_ it all in the Bible?”
There is, however, this trifling difference, that I am not sure that my
Italian witch friends knew that Cain and Abel are in the Bible at all.
The Red Indian doctor, whose knowledge of the Old Testament was limited
to its being good to cure neuralgia, was far beyond the _contadini_ as
regards familiarity with “the efficacy of the Scripture.”

This is the witch-tale as written word by word:

ABELE E CHAINO.

“They were two brothers. Abel greatly loved Cain, but Cain did not love
so much the brother Abel.

“Cain had no great will to work.

“Abel, however, on the contrary, was greatly disposed (_si ingegnava_) to
labour, because he had found it profitable. He was industrious in all,
and at last became a grazier (_mercante di manzi_).

“And Cain also, being moved by jealousy (_per astia_), wished to become a
grazier, but the wheel did not turn for him as it did for Abel.

“And Cain also was a good man, and set himself contentedly to work,
believing that he could become as rich as his brother, but he did not
succeed in this, for which reason he became so envious of Abel that it
resulted in tremendous hate, and he swore to be revenged.

“Cain often visited his brother, and once said to him, ‘Abel, thou art
rich and I am poor; give me the half of thy wealth, since thou wishest me
so well!’

“Then Abel replied: ‘If I give thee a sum which thou thyself couldst gain
by industry, thou shouldst still labour as I do, and I will give thee
nothing, since, if thou wilt work as I do, thou wilt become as rich.’

“One day there were together Cain, Abel, and a merchant, whose name I
forget. And one told that he had seen in a dream seven fat oxen and
seven lean. And the merchant, who was an astrologer or wizard, explained
that the seven fat oxen meant seven years of abundance, and the seven
lean as many years of famine.

“And so it came to pass as he foretold—seven years of plenty and seven of
famine.

“And Cain, hearing this, thought: ‘During the seven years of plenty Abel
will lay by a great store, and then I will slay him, and possess myself
of all his goods, and thus I will take care of myself, and my brother
will be dead.’

“Now, Cain greatly loved God; he was good towards God, more so than Abel,
because Abel, having become rich, never spoke more unto the Lord; and
Abel would gladly have become a wizard himself.

“Then Cain began to think how he could slay Abel and become a merchant in
his place, and so went forth to cut wood.

“One day he called his brother Abel, and said to him: ‘Thou art so rich,
while I am poor, and all my work avails me little.’ And with that he
gave Abel a blow with a knife, and dressed himself in his garments, and
took a bundle of thorns on his back, and thus clad he took Abel’s place
as merchant, believing that no one would recognise him as Cain.

“And while thus buying and selling he met the merchant-wizard who had
foretold the seven years of famine and of abundance. And he said, ‘Oh,
good day, Abel,’ to make Cain believe that he was not discovered. But
the oxen who were present all began to chant in chorus:

“‘Non chiamate questo, Abele!
E Chaino, non lo vedete,
Per la gola della monete
Il fratello ammazato,
E dei suoi panni e vestito.
O Chaino or siei chiamato
Alla presenza del gran Dio,
Che a morte ti ’a condannato
Che di richezza eri assetato.’

“‘Do not call that person Abel;
It is Cain, do you not see it?
Cain who, for the greed of money,
Treacherously slew his brother,
And then clad him in his garments.
Now, O Cain! thou wilt be summoned
Speedily unto the presence
Of the Lord, who has condemned thee
Unto death for thy great avarice.’

“Cain came before God.

“‘O gran Dio di clemenza
Voi che siete grande, buono,
Velo chiedo a voi perdone,
Per il bene vi ho valuto,
Un instante vi ho dimenticato
Ma ne sono molto pentito,
Di aver ammazato
Abele il fratello mio.’

“‘O great God of endless mercy,
Thou who art so good and mighty,
Grant, I pray thee, grant me pardon
For the good I did while living!
Truly once, but for an instant,
I forgot myself, but deeply
I since then have long repented
That I slew my brother Abel.’

“But God replied: {265}

“A punishment thou shalt have because thou didst slay thy brother from a
desire to become rich. Likewise thou didst meddle with witchcraft and
sorceries, as did thy brother. And Abel made much money and was very
rich, because he did not love God, but sorcerers. Albeit, ever good he
never did evil things, and many good, wherefore God pardoned him. But
thou shalt not be pardoned because thou didst imbrue thy lands in human
blood, and, what is worse, in thy own brother’s blood.

“The punishment which I inflict is this:

“The thorns {266} which thou didst put upon thy brother are now for thee.

“Thou shalt be imprisoned in the moon, and from that place shalt behold
the good and the evil of all mankind.

“And the bundle of thorns shall never leave thee, and every time when any
one shall conjure thee, the thorns shall sting thee cruelly; they shall
draw thy blood.

“And thus shalt thou be compelled to do that which shall be required of
thee by the sorcerers or by conjuring, and if they ask of thee that which
thou wilt not give, then the thorns shall goad thee until the sorceries
shall cease.”

* * * * *

This is clearly enough no common popular nursery tale, such as make up
collections of Tuscan tales or popular legends, gathered from pious or
picturesque peasants. Through it all runs a deep current of dark heresy,
the deliberate contravention of accepted Scripture, and chiefly the spell
of sorcery and deadly witchcraft. It is a perfect and curious specimen
of a kind of forbidden literature which was common during the Middle
Ages, and which is now extremely rare. This literature or lore was the
predecessor of Protestantism, and was the rock on which it was based.

There have always been in the world since time began certain good people
whose taste or fate it was to be invariably on the wrong side, or in the
opposition; like the Irishman just landed from a ship in America, who,
being asked how he would vote, replied, “Against the Government, of
course, whatever it is,” they are always at war with the powers that be.
With Jupiter they would have opposed the Titans; with Prometheus,
Jupiter; as early Christians they would have rebelled against the Pagans,
and as heretics, Orientalised Templars, Vaudois, illuminati, sorcerers,
and witches, they would have undermined the Church, never perceiving that
its system or doctrine was, _au fond_, fetish, like their own. Among
these rebels it was long the rule to regard those gods or men who were
specially reviled by their foes or oppressors as calumniated. Even Satan
was to them “the puir deil;” according to the Taborites, an oppressed
elder brother of Christ, or a kind of Man in an Iron Mask kept out of his
rights by Jehovah the XIV. These discontented ones deified all who had
been devilled, found out that Jezebel had been a _femme incomprise_, and
the Scarlet Woman only an interesting highly-coloured variant of the
ancient hoary myth of Mademoiselle or Miss Salina the Innocent. When
Judas was mentioned, they solemnly remarked that there was a great deal
to be said on both sides of _that_ question; while others believed that
Ananias and Sapphira had been badly sat upon, and deserved to be
worshipped as saints of appropriation—a cult, by the way, the secret
observance of which has by no means died out at the present day—several
great men being regarded in Paris as its last great high priests.

The Cainites, as known by that name to the Church, were a Gnostic sect of
the second century, and are first mentioned by Irenæus, who connects them
with the Valentinians, of whom I thought but yesterday when I saw in a
church a sarcophagus warranted to contain the corpse of St. Valentine.
They believed that Cain derived his existence from the supreme power, but
Abel from the inferior, and that in this respect he was the first of a
line which included Esau, Korah, the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah, the
worshippers of Ashtoreth-Mylitta, or the boundless sensualists, the
sorcerers, and witches.

Considering what human nature is, and its instincts to opposition, we can
see that there must have been naturally a sect who regarded Cain as a
misjudged martyr. Abel appeared to them as the prosperous well-to-do
bourgeois, high in favour with the Lord, a man with flocks, while Cain
was a tiller of the ground, a poor peasant out of favour. It must be
admitted that in the Book of Genesis, in the history of the first murder,
we are much reminded of the high priest Chalcas in _La Belle Helene_,
where he exclaims, “_Trop de fleurs_!” and expresses a preference for
cattle. It is the old story of the socialists and anarchists, which is
ever new.

The witches and sorcerers of early times were a widely spread class who
had retained the beliefs and traditions of heathenism with all its
license and romance and charm of the forbidden. At their head were the
Promethean Templars, at their tail all the ignorance and superstition of
the time, and in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured
either by the nobility or the Church. They were treated with
indescribable cruelty, in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for
they were outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for
punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged themselves by
secret orgies and fancied devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous
sins, or what they fancied were such. I can seriously conceive—what no
writer seems to have considered—that there must have been an immense
satisfaction in selling or giving one’s self to the devil, or to any
power which was at war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at
the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or “later on” to Satan, and
danced and rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have _all_ our
accounts of sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every
earthly reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount
of ancient witchcraft still surviving in Italy there is not much
anti-Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism. Diana, not
Satan, is still the real head of the witches. The Italian witch, as the
priest Grillandus said, stole oil to make a love-charm. {269} But she
did not, and does not say, as he declared, in doing so, “I renounce
Christ.” There the priest plainly lied. The whole history of the witch
mania is an ecclesiastical falsehood, in which such lies were subtly
grafted on the truth. But in due time the Church, and the Protestants
with them, created a Satanic witchcraft of their own, and it is this
after-growth which is now regarded as witchcraft in truth.

Cain-worshippers and witches seem to have been all in the same boat. I
think it very likely that in these two traditions which I have given we
have a remnant of the actual literature of the Cainites, that
Gnostic-revived and mystical sect of the Middle Ages. But I doubt not
that its true origin is far older than Christianity, and lost in earliest
time.

One last remark. We are told in the tale that Abel, having become rich,
“cut” the Lord, or would speak to him no longer. I suppose that he
dropped the synagogue and _Yom kippur_, and became a _Reformirter_, and
his children in due time _Goyim_. Also that he wanted to become a
wizard, which may be a hint that he was “no conjuror.” But it is
seriously a proof of the naïveté, and consequent probable antiquity of
the tale, that these details are not “wrote sarcastic,” nor intended for
humour. And it is also interesting to observe how impartially the
narrator declares that Cain was “a good man,” and how he, in pleading his
own cause before the Lord, insists that in killing Abel he only
inadvertently forgot himself for an instant. One almost expects to hear
him promise that he will not do it again.

It is a striking proof of the antiquity of this tradition of Cain, as I
have given it, that the witch or wizard sympathy for the first murderer
is in it unmistakable. The sending Cain to the moon, instead of hell, is
understood to be a mitigation of his sentence. In his work on magicians
and witches, A.D. 1707, Goldschmidt devotes many pages to set forth what
was believed by all the learned of his time, that Cain was the father of
all the wizards, and his children, the Cainites, the creators of the
_Gaber_, fire-idolators, Cabiri, magic soothsaying, and so forth. So the
tradition lived on, utterly forgotten by all good people, and yet it is
to me so quaint as to be almost touching to find it still existing, a
fragment of an old creed outworn here among poor witches in Florence.

“Sacher Masoch,” a Galician novelist, informs us in a romance, “The
Legacy of Cain,” that the Cainites still exist in Russia, and that their
religion is represented by the following charming creed:

“Satan is the master of the world; therefore it is a sin to belong to
Church or State, and marriage is also a capital sin. Six things
constitute the legacy of Cain: Love, Property, Government, War, and
Death. Such was the legacy of Cain, who was condemned to be a
wanderer and a fugitive on earth.”

I have another apparently very ancient conjuration of a mirror, in two
parts. It is of the blackest witchcraft, of the most secret kind, and is
only intended to injure an enemy.

From an article in _La Rivista delle Tradizione Popolare_ of July 1894,
by F. Montuori, I learn that in a little work by San Prato on “Cain and
the Thorns according to Dante and Popular Tradition,” Ancona, 1881, which
I have not seen, the history of Cain is given much as told by Maddalena.
What is _chiefly_ interesting in the version of Maddalena is, however,
wanting in all the folklore on the subject collected by others; it is the
manifest trace of Cainism, of sympathy with the first murder, and in its
heresy. This opens for us a far wider field of research and valuable
historical information than the rather trivial fact that Cain is simply
the Man in the Moon.

Merk in _Die Sitten und Gebräuche der Deutschen_, gives (p. 644), from
Wolf, a strange legend which is nearly allied to Moon worship by witches,
and the mirror:

“There was a man in Kortryk who was called Klare Mone (bright moon),
and he got his name from this. One night when sleeping on his
balcony he heard many women’s voices sweetly singing. They held
goblets [there is some confusion here with _gläserne Pfannen_ or
glass panes in the roof from which the man looked; I infer that the
witches drank from “glass pans,” _i.e._, metallic mirrors], and as
they drank they sang:

“‘We are drinking the sweetest of earthly wine,
For we drink of the clear and bright moonshine.’

“But as the man approached them, ‘with a club to beat or kill them,
all vanished.’”

“Which fable teaches,” as the wise Flaxius notes, “what indeed this whole
book tends to show—that few people know or heed what witches ever really
were. Now, that this boor wished to slay the sorceresses with a club,
for drinking moonshine, is only what the whole world is doing to all who
have _different ideas from ours_ as to what constitutes enjoyment. So in
all history, under all creeds, even unto this day, people have been
clubbed, hung, tortured, and baked alive, or sent to Coventry for the
crime of drinking _moonshine_!”

And so this volume ends, oh reader mine!

“So the visions flee,
So the dreams depart;
And the sad reality,
Now must act its part.”
_Ite_, _lector benevole_,
_Ite_, _missa est_.