The numerous trials and executions for witchcraft form a
dark page in history. Thousands of harmless old men and women were put to death
on the charge of being leagued with the Devil. Even the most intelligent and
humane people believed in the reality of witchcraft and found a justification
for its punishment in the Scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live." [32] The witch epidemic which broke out in America during the
seventeenth century, reaching its height at Salem, Massachusetts, was simply a
reflection of the European fear and hatred of witches.
[32] Exodus, xxii, 18.
UNLUCKY DAYS
The Middle Ages inherited from antiquity the observance of
unlucky days. They went under the name of "Egyptian days," so called
because it was held that on one of them the plagues had been sent to devastate
the land of Egypt and on another Pharaoh and his host had been swallowed up in
the Red Sea. At least twenty-four days in the year were regarded as very
unlucky. At such times one ought not to buy and sell, to build a house, to
plant a field, to travel or, in fact, to undertake anything at all important.
After the sixteenth century the belief in unlucky days declined, but there
still exists a prejudice against fishermen starting out to fish, or seamen to
take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to enter a new
place, on a Friday.
