The Witches’ Sabbath
Image: The Witches' Sabbath, from a a manuscript collection assembled by Johann Jakob Wick (1522-1588) at Zürich, 1560-1588. Zentralbibliothek Zurich. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

From Francesco Maria Guazzo (Compendium maleficarum, 1626):

When the faithful of the Devil are gathered together they light a great bonfire. The Devil presides over the meeting and is seated on a throne, clothed in fearful goat- or dog-skins. They approach him to worship him in a variety of ways, sometimes on bended knee, sometimes with their backs to him, sometimes with their legs in the air and their heads bent backwards and their chins turned toward heaven. Then they offer him candles as black as pitch or children’s navels and in sign of homage they kiss his anus. They take their places at the tables which have been laid out and begin to eat the food which the Devil supplies or which each has brought. It is certain that these banquets are so disgusting that even a starving stomach would be revolted by seeing the display or smelling the odor. In a filthy cup the Devil pours out wine for his guests which is like black and rotten blood. There is a great abundance of all kinds of food except bread and salt. Human flesh is also served. And many of the guests say that their hunger and thirst are not satisfied by these foods and beverages. The banquets are followed by dancing in circles, always by the left [i.e., the wrong way]. And whereas our dances have enjoyment as their aim, these dances produce only fatigue, boredom, and dreadful torments. When they approach the demons to worship them, they turn their backs and retreat backwards like crabs, and to supplicate them they turn their hands backwards. To speak they fix their gaze on the ground, a gesture somewhat different from the customs of men. Sometimes they dance before eating, sometimes afterwards. Usually several tables—three or four—are prepared, at which each takes his place according to his rank and wealth. Each meal is blessed by the Devil with blasphemous words…After the banquet, each demon takes by the hand the disciple whom he has in his charge…they turn their backs to each other and holding hands in a circle they shake their heads like lunatics and often dance holding very obscene changes in honor of the devil.