vius after is had ceasedto "erupt", and found "nothing in it." But there was something in it once;and the man of science, which Sir Charles was not, still finds a great dealin the remains, and the antiquarian a Pompeii or a Herculaneum - 'tis saidthere are still seven buried cities to unearth. I have done what little(it is really very little) I could, to disinter something from the deadvolcano of Italian sorcery. If this be the manner in which Italian witchcraft is treated by the most intelligent writer who has depicted it, it will not be deemedremarkable that there are few indeed who will care whether there is averitable Gospel of the Witches, apparently of extreme antiquity, embodyingthe belief in a strange counter-religion which has held its own from pre-historic time to the present day. "Witchcraft is all rubbish, orsomething worse," said old writers, "and therefore all books about itare nothing better." I sincerely trust, however, that these pages may fall into the hands of at least a few who will think better of them. I should, however, in justice to those who do care to explore dark and bewildering paths, explain clearly that witch-lore is hidden with mostscrupulous care from all save a very few in Italy, just as it is among theChippeway Medas or the Black Voodoo. In the novel to the life of ISettimani an aspirant is represented as living with a witch andacquiring or picking up with pain, scrap by scrap, her spells andincantations, giving years to it. So my friend the late M. DRAGOMANOFFtold me how a certain man in Hungary, having learned that he had collectedmany spells (which were indeed subsequently published in folklorejournals), stole into the scholar's room and surreptitiously copied them,so that the next year when DRAGOMANOFF returned, he found the thief in fullpractice as a blooming magician. Truly he had not got many incantations,only a dozen or so, but a very little will go a great way in the business,and I...
