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Since the Serpent first crept into Adam’s garden, evil has always been with us. Wherever Man has traveled, he has found spirits, daemons, monsters, and all manner of enemies to both his mortal flesh and his immortal soul. These creatures come in many guises, and oft go unseen by the very common people who they most endanger – unseen, at least, until it is too late to escape their clutches. Let us thank God, then, that for almost as long as these evils have plagued mankind, there have been men and women with the faith and courage to fight them, to keep evil at bay so that the good men and women of the world may carry on with their lives, all unaware of the doom which awaits them should the vigilance of their guardians ever waver. Such a duty is one that few would choose willingly, particularly if they understood the nature of their foes. And indeed, when those foes are invisible to the untutored eye, even a willing guardian would never know that his efforts were needed. But those precious few, given sight of the Adversary, and the will to face them, are the Witch-Hunters. Those rare persons, men and women, Christian, Jew or otherwise live a hard life. A life with no home but one’s boots, no kitchen but a fire-pit, and never the same bed from one week to the next is not one that any of us would choose freely. This is the burden of the Witch-Hunter, and God gives such burdens only to those who can bear them. If the shepherd labors not to defend the sheep, the sheep will die and the shepherd will starve. How much more important, then, are the men over whom you, the Witch-Hunter, stand as the shepherd?
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