The fire crackles and sizzles. The smell of roasted meat wafts through the air. But this is not a leg of lamb or a side of pork cooking. No: Turning on the spit above the hungry flames is a baby. Hungry witches are gathered round the fire waiting to sink their teeth into its tender flesh.
Everybody fears the witches. The learned experts investigating demonic threats describe in gory details how witches roast and boil little children to eat their flesh and make magic ointments and concoctions from the fat and bones left over. They write hair-raising accounts of people and animals falling sick, losing the use of their limbs or dropping dead, killed by supernatural powers. A brief touch or a quick glance is enough for a witch to bring down misfortune and death on someone.
Entire villages and fields succumb to the dark forces when sudden hailstorms and violent downpours destroy the harvest and wash it away.
Yes, these women and men who have made a deal with the Devil possess truly terrifying powers. They can even transfer their frightening abilities to toads and snakes, to holy communion bread and wax dolls.
Death and destruction follow in their wake.