text: In Germany, in those times, was it the 'Devil' or was it Krampus, per wikipedia, 'the horned god of the witches,' known for pursuing 'buxom women.' In Church parlance it is the Devil. In reality, Krampus? -- a mythology perhaps from pre-Christian times
  
  I assume that the Inquisition was an effort to wipe out competing ideologies, such as Paganism. Weren't even the 'civil' trials blessed by Church or tolerated? Don't minimize Church guilt
  
  The Church failed to eliminate Krampus as there are still annual? festivals at night, men dress in masks, drink, get rowdy, pinch the frauleins
  
  Speculating -- In former times, was festival a time of impregnations which increased variability in the gene pool and improved survivability of remote communities?? With its obsession with sex, did the Church object? Women so impregnated in festival were killed??  Is there correlation between the number of women killed as 'witches' in the Holocaust Of Women and the local observance of Krampus festivals??