work could have been extended ad infinitum by adding to it theceremonies and incantations which actually form a part of the Scripture of Witchcraft, but as these are nearly all - or at least in great number -to be found in my works entitled Etruscan-Roman Remains and Legends ofFlorence, I have hesitated to compile such a volume before ascertainingwhether there is a sufficiently large number of the public who would buysuch a work. Since writing the foregoing I have met with and read a very clever and entertaining work entitled Romanzo dei Settimani, G. Cavagnari, 1889,in which the author, in the form of a novel, vividly depicts the manners,habits of thought, and especially the nature of witchcraft, and themany superstitions current among the peasants in Lombardy. Unfortunately,notwithstanding his extensive knowledge of the subject, it never seems tohave occurred to the narrator that these traditions were anything butnoxious nonsense or abominably un-Christian folly. That there existin them marvelous relics of ancient mythology and valuable folklore, whichis the very cor cordium of history, is as uncared for by him as it would be by a common Zoccolone or tramping Franciscan. One would think it mighthave been suspected by a man who knew that a witch really endeavored tokill seven people as a ceremony rite, in order to get the secret of endlesswealth, that such a sorceress must have had a store of wondrous legends;but of all this there is no trace, and it is very evident that nothingcould be further from his mind than that there was anything interestingfrom a higher or more genial point of view in it all. His book, in fine, belongs to the very great number of those writtenon ghosts and superstition since the latter has fallen into discredit, inwhich the authors indulge in much satirical and very safe but cheap ridicule of what to them is merely vulgar and false. Like Sir CharlesColdstream, they have peeped in the crater of Vesu...
