
... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be
proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge
to mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women 
were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still 
unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and 
in law.  Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than
the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death.  If
there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute
of value.
		-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
