сн. vii By their Terrible Deeds and Imprecations Witches Produce Rain and Hail

(...) encompassed their enemies with a thick darkness by means of his spells, so that they rallied and won the victory. They can moreover cause rivers to stop flowing, and dry up springs, and irrigate the land with fresh springs produced from rocks and stones: they can make the water of a river turn ba?k and flow to its source, a thing which Pliny* says happened in his time (II, 103). Many examples are to be found in Remy, of which I shall quote a few here.

The district of Treves a peasant was planting cabbages ш his garden with hiseight-year-old daughter, and praised the girl highly for her skill in the work. The young maid, whose sex and age combined to make her talkative, boasted that she could do more wonderful things than that; and when her father asked what they were, she said: "Go away a little, and I will quickly make it rain on whatever part of the garden you wish." He was astonished, and said: "Come then, I will go a little away." And when he had withdrawn the girl dug a trench and pissed in it, and beat the water with a stick, muttering I know not what, and behold there fell from the clouds a sudden rain upon the said place. The astounded father asked: "Who taught you to do this?" She answered: "My mother did; and she is very clever at this and other things like it." The peasant nobly faced his right and plain duty, so a few days later, on the pretence that he had been invited to a wedding, he took his wife and daughter dressed in festal wedding robes to the neighbouring town, where he handed them over to the Judge to be punished for the crime of witchcraft.

It is recorded in the Malleus Male-ficarum that certain Inquisitors determined to prove by means of a witch whom they had in custody the truth of —, the power '[Ъ claimed by witches of stirring up tempests. They therefore released her; since it is certain that, as long as they remain in prison, all magic powers desert them. She then went to a thickly wooded place and there dug a trench with her hands and filled it with water, which she continued to stir with her finger until there arose from it a vapour which grew into a dense cloud. This cloud at once became alive with thunder and lightning, to the great awe and terror of the onlookers. But she said: "Be of good heart; I will cause all this cloud to be removed to whatever place you wish." And when they named a desert place near by, the cloud was at once borne thither by the force of the wind and tempest, and let loose its hail upon the rocks, so confining all its damage within the prescribed and indicated limits.

The following example is very like the first. A Suabian peasant was (...)