The wise woman, or witch, had a host of remedies which had been tested in years of use. Many of the herbal remedies developed by witches still have their place in modern pharmacology. They had pain-killers, digestive aids, and anti-inflammatory agents. They used ergot for the pain of labor at a time when the Church held that pain in labor was the L

In early Christian times, many people feared being consumed by the Seven Deadly Sins: wrath, greed, lust, sloth, envy, gluttony, and pride. These instinctual emotions were recognized as being so powerful that Peter Binsfeld, a 16th-century German theologian and bishop, attributed each one of these sins to a particular demon: Satan (wrath), Mammon (

“He lost no time, but ran with shouts of words, acts, death, life, descent, ascent, all the time shouting for us to return to him.”