Storm-Raising: A How-To Guide
'Among their other crimes, many alleged witches were accused of raising storms in order to wreck ships, destroy crops and inflict a host of other calamities upon their enemies. Sorcerors of various kinds had been accused of using such magic for many centuries before the witchcraft mania, and it was inevitable that the new breed of witches should be linked with such dubious magical activity. Such was the belief in the power of witches to control the elements, in fact, that whenever a strong wind caused damage in a locality the blame would be laid almost as a matter of course at the door of some elderly and little-loved crone.
'Francesco-Maria Guazzo gave his own account of storm-raising in his classic Compendium Maleficarum of 1626:
'"Witches have confessed that they made hailstorms at the sabbat, or whenever they wished to blast the fruits of the earth. To this end, according to their confessions, they beat water with a wand, and then they threw into the air a certain powder which Satan had given them. By this means, a cloud was raised which afterwards turned to hailstones and fell wherever the witches wished."
'To achieve the same result, other witches threw sacrificial pullets into the air, tossed pieces of flint over their left shoulder towards the west, shook wet brooms, poured water or urine into holes in the ground, boiled hog bristles or eggs, laid sticks on a dry river bank, recited charms, boiled babies in cauldrons or buried leaves of sage in the ground to rot.'
- Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering (1996)
'Francesco-Maria Guazzo gave his own account of storm-raising in his classic Compendium Maleficarum of 1626:
'"Witches have confessed that they made hailstorms at the sabbat, or whenever they wished to blast the fruits of the earth. To this end, according to their confessions, they beat water with a wand, and then they threw into the air a certain powder which Satan had given them. By this means, a cloud was raised which afterwards turned to hailstones and fell wherever the witches wished."
'To achieve the same result, other witches threw sacrificial pullets into the air, tossed pieces of flint over their left shoulder towards the west, shook wet brooms, poured water or urine into holes in the ground, boiled hog bristles or eggs, laid sticks on a dry river bank, recited charms, boiled babies in cauldrons or buried leaves of sage in the ground to rot.'
- Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering (1996)