old pastor, notwithstanding the horrible deceits practised on him in
the person of his daughter, retained as firm a faith in the truth of
witchcraft as in that of the Gospel.

During the earlier centuries of the middle ages little was known of
witchcraft. The crime of magic, when it did occur, was leniently
punished. For instance, the Council of Ancyra (314) ordained the whole
punishment of witches to consist in expulsion from the Christian
community. The Visigoths punished them with stripes, and Charlemagne,
by advice of his bishops, confined them in prison until such time as
they should sincerely repent.[3] It was not until very soon before
the Reformation, that Innocent VIII. lamented that the complaints of
universal Christendom against the evil practices of these women had
become so general and so loud, that the most vigorous measures must be
taken against them; and towards the end of the year 1489, he caused the
notorious Hammer for Witches (_Malleus Maleficarum_) to be published,
according to which proceedings were set on foot with the most fanatical
zeal, not only in Catholic, but, strange to say, even in Protestant
Christendom, which in other respects abhorred everything belonging
to Catholicism. Indeed, the Protestants far outdid the Catholics in
cruelty, until, among the latter, the noble-minded Jesuit, J. Spee, and
among the former, but not until seventy years later, the excellent
Thomasius, by degrees put a stop to these horrors.

After careful examination into the nature and characteristics of
witchcraft, I soon perceived that among all these strange and often
romantic stories, not one surpassed my 'amber witch' in lively interest;
and I determined to throw her adventures into the form of a romance.
Fortunately, however, I was soon convinced that her story was already in
itself the most interesting of all romances; and that I should do far