Satan in Goray

husbands were told to have their men drink the water in which their breasts had been washed; those with the falling sickness were told to cut the nails of their hands and feet and have the nails kneaded into a lump of dough and thrown to a dog. At times older women would tease the young barren ones, shocking them with their lewd talk.
    And then, finally, men also began to arrive in the town. There were beggars and vagabonds; there were ascetics, and there were husbands trying to get the signatures of a hundred rabbis for a writ of remarriage; a yeshiva student was seeking a master to teach him cabala; a penitent was tormenting himself by putting peas in his shoes. A convert from Amsterdam also came, a man who had taken a vow of silence as well as a bandsman who walked around blindfolded, so as not to perceive women, and a barefoot jester who asked for alms and recited obscene rhymes. These lived by begging from the pilgrims, slept in the poorhouse or, when that was full, in any corner they could find. Evil often transpired secretly. Once two wandering beggars who had come to Goray decided to marry, and married they were by some mischief makers on a dung-hill.

    7

    The Hour of Union

    This was a year of severe drought. The grass that was to be used as fodder had been scorched, and the peasants sold their beasts at half-price. Wheat grew sparsely in the fields, and the stalks were light and empty. Burning winds threshed the yet unreaped grain, and ripped the green fruit from the trees. Every day a host of peasants passed through Goray on their way to chapels and shrines to pray for rain. They were so poor that the men wore straw for clothing. Their cheeks were hollow, and their protruding, frightened eyes stared from beneath their strands of flaxen hair like the eyes of madmen. The women carried their babies on their backs, wrapped in sheets, gypsy fashion. The feet of these wanderers were black from the dust of the roads, their voices were hoarse from imploring their God, and it seemed as if they had already died, and that this entourage was conducting itself to the grave. The rumor in the villages was that, before going off to join their Messiah, the Jews had prevailed upon the devil to kill all Christians. Each day the water sprite carried off another Christian; the water sprite was large as a cow, and swam backward in the river which he patroled early each evening in search of victims; his custom was to sing and do antics to attract the passers-by. Nor was this the only evil the devil concocted. He had of late sent a black cloud of locusts swooping down upon the fields; he had also summoned the field mice of the world and had sent them scampering through the furrows of wheat and into the barns. And one night a peasant saw a spirit dancing on stilts near the windmill. It whirled and capered and whistled, its face bearded, its feet webbed like the feet of a goose. Wild creatures circled it, foxes, and polecats, martens and wolves. They beat their wings like birds, and flew away laughing. A young woman who had gone to the well late one evening to fetch water, felt her bucket touch some live thing, and heard a voice from the depth cry out: "Sell me thy soul, handsome one. I shall give thee sweet almonds and a string of beads. I shall set a crown on thy head, and thou shalt be my princess."
    The peasants in the villages did not speak their wrath. In silence each day they sharpened their scythes, though there was no crop to harvest, in silence they filed the blades of their axes. It was thought by some that they would rise in revolt, murdering the Jews as well as the Polish gentry. Others predicted Cossack armies advancing from the Ukraine and Wolhynia, as in Chmelnicki's days, to avenge the oppression of the people. As if this were not enough, there was an increase in the number of practitioners of the evil eye. Cattle stopped giving milk and women turned yellow with jaundice. In the village of Kotzitza the householders buried a witch alive. They nailed a horseshoe to her left foot to prevent her from running from her grave, and they stuffed her mouth with poppy seed. In the village of Maidan the peasants lured a witch into the woods, chained her to a tree, and built a fire about her, after stripping her of her clothes. The villagers watched the naked witch writhe and tear at her flesh in agony, calling upon the name of Satan, until the flames consumed her. Then four women hacked her body to pieces with sickles, and