Identifier: storyhistoryoffr01bonn (find matches)
Title: The story history of France from the reign of Clovis, 481 A.D., to the signing of the armistice, November, 1918
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Bonner, John, 1828-1899 Bonner, John, 1828-1899. A child's history of France
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Publisher: New York and London, Harper
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ou heard that in Charle-magnes time a bishop was supposed to practise sorcery be-cause he had made a clock, and in this fourteenth centurya monk was accused of sorcery because he had a bottle ofphosphorus which shone in the dark. A great many peo-ple were supposed to be sorcerers, and to have the powerof inflicting disease, or of paralyzing the tongue or thelimbs of an enemy, or of causing death by means of en-chantments. There were many ways in which thesethings could be done. A very superior kind of sorcerercould do a man to death with a few words whispered, in aforeign tongue, over the bed in which he was to lie. Butlegitimate sorcery was done with wax figures. If you had lived in those days, and had been as bad as Ihope you are good, and had wanted to put your enemy outof the way, you would have made a little wax image ofhim a few inches high. Into this you would have stuckneedles. If your sorcery was the genuine article, eachneedle gave the real man exquisite pain, and eventually
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HANGING A SORCERER IN THE MIDDLE AGES laid him up in bed. Then you went on sticking moreneedles into the wax figure, and the man went on gettingworse; until at last, when you were tired of playing withhim, you set your figure before a hot fire, the wax melted,and the man died. This may strike you as something likewhat you have read in fairy tales. But in those ignorant 118 (1314-1328 old times lots of people lost their lives on charges of hav-ing caused death by the use of Avax fignres. Jeanne, the wife of Philip the Handsome, bore a grudgeagainst Gruilhard, Bishop of Troyes, in Champagne. Thebishop went to a sorceress and gave her money to soothethe queens temper. The sorceress failing to make thequeen better disposed to the bishop, the latter went to asorcerer and got from him a little waxen image of thequeen, christened it in regular style, with godfather andgodmothers, and stuck it full of needles. The queen re-maining in good health, the sorcerer got frightened andconfessed. Grui

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