Mother Brain Needs More Minions

Finally, what shall we think about those witches who somehow take members in large numbers twenty or thirty and shut them up together in a birds nest or some box, where they move about like living members, eating oats or other feed. This has been seen by many and is a matter of common talk. One should say that it is all brought about by the devil’s work and illusion. The senses of the witnesses are deceived in the manner we have mentioned above.

A man reported that he had lost his member and approached a certain witch in order to restore his health. She told the sick man to climb a particular tree where there was a nest containing many members, and allowed him to take any one he liked. When he tried to take a big one, the witch said you may not take that one, adding, because it belonged to a parish priest.

In August 1590, two women Jonett Grant and Jonett Clark were together tried and convicted of performing various murderous
acts of witchcraft. The verdict against them listed their crimes as slaughtering cattle by witchcraft, raising the devil, murdering several men and women by witchcraft, and finally stealing penises from some men while bestowing them on others. For instance, they were accused of giving “ane secreit member to Johane Coutis; and gewing and taking of power fra sindrie mennis memberis; ITEM, sylit of taking ofjohnne Wattis secreit member fra him” (Pitcairn 1833:206). For these acts the two women were sentenced to be burnt at the stake at the Castle Hill of Edinburgh.

There is never a single, orthodox version of a myth. As our circumstances change, we need to tell our stories differently in order to bring out their timeless truth. In this short history of mythology, we shall see that every time men and women took a major step forward, they reviewed their mythology and made it speak to the new conditions. But we shall also see that human nature does not change much, and that many of these myths, devised in societies that could not be more different from our own, still address our most essential fears and desires.