satisfaction, can be produced of a witch who escaped the axe or the fire
in this fashion. "I have myself," says he, "in my youth seen divers
witches burned, some at Arnstadt, some at Ilmenau, some at Schwenda, a
noble village between Arnstadt and Ilmenau, and some of them were
pardoned and beheaded before being burned. They were laid on the earth
in the place of execution and beheaded like any other poor sinner;
whereas if they could have escaped by touching the earth, not one of
them would have failed to do so."[20]

[Sacred or tabooed persons apparently thought to be charged with a
mysterious virtue like a fluid, which will run to waste or explode if it
touches the ground.]

Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that
mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed
persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical
substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a
Leyden jar is charged with electricity; and exactly as the electricity
in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the
holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away
by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent
conductor for the magical fluid. Hence in order to preserve the charge
from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully
prevented from touching the ground; in electrical language he must be
insulated, if he is not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid
with which he, as a vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases
apparently the insulation of the tabooed person is recommended as a
precaution not merely for his own sake but for the sake of others; for
since the virtue of holiness or taboo is, so to say, a powerful
explosive which the smallest touch may detonate, it is necessary in the