OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



falcon, which forthwith changes into a knight. 

 As soon as the lady has recovered from her 

 surprise, the knight tells her that he has long 

 loved her, but could not come until she wished 

 for him. Here we have an incident, borrowed 

 direct from Oriental magic, in which a modern 

 believer in psychical phenomena might find an 

 element of telepathy. The will, as in all magic, 

 is the motive power which acts sympathetically 

 on the object of desire, that object being in a 

 receptive condition. Quickly we turn from 

 magic, and the story goes on to tell that the 

 lady, before accepting the knight as her lover, 

 makes it a condition that he believes in God, 

 and the knight offers to prove his belief by 

 taking the Sacrament. This demand is evidently 

 in the nature of a protective test. It was very 

 usual to try some means of discovering whether 

 a person was in league with the powers of evil 

 or not ; for if any one unworthy touched holy 

 things, retribution came at once, either by death 

 or some dire visitation. But how is the priest 

 to administer the Sacrament without seeing the 

 knight ? The latter tells her that he will make 

 himself like her in appearance ; in other words, 

 that he will hypnotise the priest, and make him 

 see what he, the knight, wishes him to. The 

 ruse succeeds, and for a time all goes well ; 

 then comes discovery, despair, and death. The 

 whole story is a most extraordinary medley of 

 fairy-lore, religion, and magic, and most charac- 

 teristic of the mediaeval mind. 



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