[Footnote 53:  Translator’s preface to Horneck’s “Account of what happened in the Kingdom of Sweden.”  See appendix to Glanville’s work.]

The Blockula, which was the object of their journey, was a house having a fine gate painted with divers colours, with a paddock, in which they turned the beasts to graze which had brought them to such scenes of revelry.  If human beings had been employed they were left slumbering against the wall of the house.  The plan of the devil’s palace consisted of one large banqueting apartment and several withdrawing-rooms.  Their food was homely enough, being broth made of coleworts and bacon, with bread and butter, and milk and cheese.  The same acts of wickedness and profligacy were committed at Blockula which are usually supposed to take place upon the devil’s Sabbath elsewhere; but there was this particular, that the witches had sons and daughters by the fiends, who were married together, and produced an offspring of toads and serpents.

These confessions being delivered before the accused witches, they at first stoutly denied them.  At last some of them burst into tears, and acquiesced in the horrors imputed to them.  They said the practice of carrying off children had been enlarged very lately (which shows the whole rumours to have arisen recently); and the despairing wretches confirmed what the children said, with many other extravagant circumstances, as the mode of elongating a goat’s back by means of a spit, on which we care not to be particular.  It is worth mentioning that the devil, desirous of enjoying his own reputation among his subjects, pretended at one time to be dead, and was much lamented at Blockula—­but he soon revived again.

Some attempts these witches had made to harm individuals on middle earth, but with little success.  One old sorceress, indeed, attempted to strike a nail, given her by the devil for that purpose, into the head of the minister of Elfland; but as the skull was of unusual solidity, the reverend gentleman only felt a headache from her efforts.  They could not be persuaded to exhibit any of their tricks before the Commissioners, excusing themselves by alleging that their witchcraft had left them, and that the devil had amused them with the vision of a burning pit, having a hand thrust out of it.

The total number who lost their lives on this singular occasion was fourscore and four persons, including fifteen children; and at this expense of blood was extinguished a flame that arose as suddenly, burned as fiercely, and decayed as rapidly, as any portent of the kind within the annals of superstition.  The Commissioners returned to Court with the high approbation of all concerned; prayers were ordered through the churches weekly, that Heaven would be pleased to restrain the powers of the devil, and deliver the poor creatures who hitherto had groaned under it, as well as the innocent children, who were carried off by hundreds at once.