Witchcraft and European Penis Theft December 3, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval , trackback
The Malleus Maleficarum (1485) is the classic witch hunter’s book. It is the first ‘convincing’ attempt to place witches in a diabolical formula with magically affected victims at one end, the devil in the middle and large and roaring fires at the other. The author, though, Heinrich Kramer, very naturally sucked up a lot of folklore into his description of witches. For example, he gives us our best record of witch penis anxiety (as the cultural historians are probably already calling it).
A similar experience is narrated by a venerable Father from the Dominican House of Spires, well known in the order for the honesty of his life and for his learning. ‘One day,’ he says, ‘while I was hearing confessions, a young man came to me and, in the course of his confession, woefully said that he had lost his member. Being astonished at this, and not willing to give it easy credence, since in the opinion of the wise it is a mark of light-heartedness to believe too easily, I obtained proof of it when I saw nothing on the young man’s removing his clothes and showing the place. Then, using the wisest counsel I could, I asked whether he suspected anyone of having so bewitched him. And the young man said that he did suspect someone, but that she was absent and living in Worms. Then I said: ‘I advise you to go to her as soon as possible and try your utmost to soften her with gentle words and promises’; and he did so. For he came back after a few days and thanked me, saying that he was whole and had recovered everything. And I believed his words, but again proved them by the evidence of my eyes.’
This is folklore and yet it is jarringly like a witness account too. The Dominican Father looks at the absence and then advises the young man to negotiate with the witch. It has sometimes been suggested that the Dominican Father is Kramer himself. This seems somewhat unlikely. In fact, Beach is surprised that Kramer included a passage advising negotiation of any sort with a witch: as noted above his usual solution was kindling. However, lest this insane instance seem too detached from real life note that a century later, in 1590, two women were burnt at Edinburgh ‘taking of johnne Wattis secreit member fra him’. Note, too, that there is an interesting study of some of these sources Moira Smith, The Flying Phallus and the Laughing Inquisitor: Penis Theft in the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’, Journal of Folklore Research 39 (2002), 85-117
Other western instances of penis theft: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
