Charles Godfrey Leland

“ I foresee that the day will come, and that perhaps not so very far distant, when the world of scholars will be amazed to consider to what a late period an immense body of antique tradition survived in Northern Italy, and how indifferent the learned were regarding it; there having been in very truth only one man, and he a foreigner, who earnestly occupied himself with collecting and preserving it. ”

“ That a real worship of or belief in classic divinities should have survived to the present day in the very land of Papacy itself, is a much more curious fact than if a living mammoth had been discovered in some out of the way corner of the earth, because the former is a human phenomenon. ”

“ However, everything this world does not go exactly as we would have it, and no one knows what fish or crab may hide under a rock in a river. For it so happened that the governess was not a Catholic at all, as will presently appear, and did not vex her pupil with any threats of a nun's life, nor even with an approval of it. ”

“ Surely a god hath set his lions loose
And laughs to hear them as they rage afar."
--C. G. Leland. The following story does not belong to the Gospel of the Witches, but I add it as it confirms the fact that the worship of Diana existed for a long time contemporary with Christianity. Its full title in the original MS., which was written out by Maddalena, after hearing it from a man who was native of Volterra, is La Pellegrina delta Casa al Vento -- "The Female Pilgrim of the House of the Wind." It may be added that, as the tale declares, the house in question is still standing. ”