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Indefatigable in research, Mr. Leland collects from the mouths of Italian peasants all the information still surviving concerning witches and their rites. A lot of this he incorporated in his previous writings, and far more-some of it, were glad to think, on the point of appearance-has yet to start to see the light. It is difficult to over-estimate the eye of these survivals in Italy of pagan faith and rite, which is eminently desirable that so much of them as it can be should be preserved. These are on the verge of disappearance, and what is not now reclaimed will inevitably perish. On this point Mr. Leland insists. You may still find, however, some few people in the Northern Ramagna who know the Etruscan names of the twelve gods. Invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and the Lares may yet be heard, and there are women in the cities who mutter in the amulets they prepare spells known to the old Roman, and have lore which may be within Cato or Theocritus. Aradia (Herodias), it can be said, is, according to the Vangelo of the witches, the daughter of Diana by her brother Lucifer, the god of sunlight and of the moon, who for his pride was driven from Paradise. Aradia - not, Mr. Leland thinks, the Herodias of the New Testament, but a youthful replica of Lilith-is the principle patron of witches and the teacher of witchcraft. Deeply interesting is all that is said concerning her, and the book, which translates the poetic invocations, is a treasure-house to the student of witchcraft and myth.
