"[786]
[There is the same reason for burning bewitched things; similarly by
burning alive a person whose form a witch has assumed, you compel the
witch to disclose herself.]
And the same thing holds good also of inanimate objects on which a witch
has cast her spell. In Wales they say that "if a thing is bewitched,
burn it, and immediately afterwards the witch will come to borrow
something of you. If you give what she asks, she will go free; if you
refuse it, she will burn, and a mark will be on her body the next
day."[787] So, too, in Oldenburg, "the burning of things that are
bewitched or that have been received from witches is another way of
breaking the spell. It is often said that the burning should take place
at a cross-road, and in several places cross-roads are shewn where the
burning used to be performed.... As a rule, while the things are
burning, the guilty witches appear, though not always in their own
shape. At the burning of bewitched butter they often appear as
cockchafers and can be killed with impunity. Victuals received from
witches may be safely consumed if only you first burn a portion of
them."[788] For example, a young man in Oldenburg was wooing a girl, and
she gave him two fine apples as a gift. Not feeling any appetite at the
time, he put the apples in his pocket, and when he came home he laid
them by in a chest. Two or three days afterwards he remembered the
apples and went to the chest to fetch them.
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