that he was in too great a stew to go to bed, and accordingly sent for some of his friends to come and sit with him, at all events, the first part of the night, and pray for God's mercy upon him, so that he might be delivered from Satan's devices.

It appears that he had very good grounds for his apprehension, for, in the dead of night, a great horned goat walked straight up to the bridegroom, and politely requested him "to take a back," urging his entreaties with an importunity hardly to be resisted. The whole company fell to prayer, whilst the strength of two of the bystanders hardly sufficient to prevent the unfortunate artisan from crossing his new and unwelcome steed. But there was fortunately a priest in the company, who went on pattering his Ave Marias and Paternosters with such vehemence, energetically counting his beads, of course, all the time, that the goat, who could stand neither Latin nor nonsense, bolted with an audible expression of his displeasure.

Alas! for human nature! The artizan, while he was in this imminent peril, repented him of his misdeeds, and made many vows of amendment, but, the goat being gone, he speedily forgot all about it, neglected his prayers, and many of the duties of the church, out of which the

priests make a tolerable picking. But he was not allowed to pass scatheless, for one night, very shortly afterwards, when he was thinking of nothing less, in comes our friend the goat again to the bridal chamber ere the honeymoon had "paled her horns," roused him out of bed, and compelled him to take a ride, willy-nilly, leaving the bride to chew the cud of solitude. After the goat had carried him no trifling distance, he quickly deposited him sorely wearied on the roof of a house in RauchSchlott, or Schornstein, where he was found sitting the next morning shivering in his night gear, and the roof was of so pre-eminent a pitch, that the people were obliged to make a hole through the tiles, in order to take in the poor man, half dead with fear and cold.

In that house he lay for many a month very sick, but at length recovered sufficiently to return home; but his young wife turned out as great a shrew as her predecessor, and at length, being unable to endure her clamour, he enlisted as a soldier, and was shot during the wars in Hungary for his pains, leaving a warning to young men not to marry old wives, or if they do, not to forsake them.

We now come to an old lady, who, though she was a witch, appears to have been of a

much more amiable temper. Lercheimer, in his Treatise upon Goat and Pitchfork riding, tells us that there was a salter, residing somewhere in Pomerania, who was married to an old witch of a woman, with whom he wished no longer to cohabit, and accordingly told her that he intended to set out for Hesse to see his friends. He set forth on his journey therefore, notwithstanding that the old woman cautioned him that she would not allow him to go, and that he should never reach his destination, Now, after he had been some days on his journey towards Hesse, and was, doubtless, chuckling over his escape, a black goat came suddenly behind him, rushed slap between his legs, and lifted him up into the air before he could say "Jack Robinson." Away he flew with him over field, over forest, over water, and over land, and paused not until he had set him down again at his own door, in pain and trembling, perspiration, and exhaustion. The old woman addressed the truant mildly, and said, "Holloa, are you there again? This will teach you to stop at home for the future." Whereupon she supplied him with a change of garments and food.

CHAPTER VII.

"How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is't you do?

A deed without a name."

MACBETH, Act iv., Scene 1.

ON DIVINING BY THE CUP AND LOOKING INTO THE MIRROR.

These two superstitious practices, are expressed in German, by one word, "crystallschauen," but we know of no corresponding synonyme in English; however, in this and the following chapter, we shall be more willing to admit the agency of the Devil, although not precisely in the light in which it is considered by Dr.

Bräuner. In the previous articles, we have seen superstitions, which have been fostered by a crafty priesthood, because the encouraging them was a source of power and profit to it; the practices, with which we have now to do, spring from that restless curiosity-that earnest desire to dive into futurity, which is characteristic of an ill-regulated mind—of one, which, destitute of a Christian reliance upon the providence of God, is willing to use even the most unlawful means in order to allay this craving. So far then as the entertaining these illicit aspirations after futurity and seeking to gratify them thereby, argue a distrust of God, we must admit Satanic agency; although stopping short of the belief of the days of by-gone superstition, that the Devil rendered the means employed successful, so far as to shadow forth by them the responses required.

These superstitions have clung longer perhaps to the human mind than others, from this very wish to know the future, and were rife even in religiously educated Scotland, we care not to say how many years ago; but "we speak of that which we do know." Well do we remember on one All Hallow E'en, in a large assembly of youth of both sexes, the question arose, as to who would have the hardihood to