Excelsior Author:James Hamilton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WITCHES' DANCE ON THE BROCKEN. Among all the legends of Germany—that country- where every plain has its genius, every mountain its giant, every grotto its... more » dwarf, every house its domestic sprite or Cobold, every historic fact its myth—there is, perhaps, not one of them all so popular, or so universally known, as that of the Witches' Dance on the Brocken. This general diffusion, with the hold it so long maintained on the belief of the people, makes it hardly possible to doubt that it has its origin in some historic fact; and it is believed that this attempt to trace it to its source may not be without interest to many. The scene of this well-known legend, the Brocken, or Blocksberg, is the loftiest summit of that range of mountains on the confines of Hanover, called the Hartz, extending about seventy miles in length, and twenty in breadth. On this spot, according to the story, the witches and sorcerers of the whole earth hold their sabbath once a-year, upon the eve of May-day. Thither from all quarters these servants of Satan repair, mounted, some on horses, some on goats and wild beasts, some on pitchforks and brooms, and flock around their infernal master, when, after due homage paid to him, the unholy orgies commence. Brandishing torches, they dance around a blazing fire, with wild cries, till summoned before " the Devil's Pulpit"—a mass of granite thus named, and only very recently destroyed—where they alternately listen to his instructions, or recount their own exploits, making the air resound with blasphemies against God; and at length the hellish festival closes with a banquet, which consists entirely of sausages dressed on " the Witches' Altar," unless, indeed, a head-dish should be supplied, by the dismembered body of one of the confraternity. CUAULF.MAONE. 19 ...« less