At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime

by A. Roger Ekirch

One can only speculate about when an inherent fear of darkness might first have taken root in the human psyche. In view of the terror that must have struck our earliest ancestors, very likely this most ancient of human anxieties has existed from time immemorial, much as Burke contended. Some psychologists, however, have surmised that prehistoric peoples, rather than naturally fearing darkness in its own right, may have first feared specific perils arising in the dark. Only then, as night grew increasingly synonymous with danger, might early populations, across a span of many generations, have acquired an instinctive terror.

Fear of the dark, fear of the dark, I have a constant fear that someone's always near.

Enlisted in Satan’s service were vast hordes of witches, having each entered into a solemn covenant with the Prince of Darkness. Armed with fresh powers, they reputedly congregated to worship the devil at nocturnal festivals initially called “synagogues” and, later, “sabbaths.” Besides engaging in sexual perversions and diabolical rites, they devoured young children, whose flesh enabled them to fly.

Torches blazed and sacred chants were phrased; As they start to cry, hands held to the sky. In the night, the fires burning bright. The ritual has begun, Satan's work is done.

The most notorious charm, the “thief’s candle,” found ready acceptance in most parts of Europe. The candle was fashioned from either an amputated finger or the fat of a human corpse, leading to the frequent mutilation of executed criminals. Favored, too, were fingers severed from the remains of stillborn infants. Because they had not been baptized, their magical properties were considered more powerful. To enhance the candle’s potency, the hands of dead criminals, known as Hands of Glory, were sometimes employed as candlesticks.

Hi to all Neil Gaiman.

If most nighttime fires arose from human negligence, and lightning caused sundry more, an alarming number were intentional. Certainly no more frightening crime existed—the “most pernicious to society,” declared a Scottish pastor in 1734. In English criminal law, nearly all forms of arson, directed against a home or a haystack, were punishable by death. In Denmark, whether or not lives were lost, beheading was the penalty for a mordbroender, meaning literally a murderer by fire.

Makes the tvtropes name "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking" eminently sensible - arson was as dangerous.

In a French community, the sergeant of the guard, hoping to reap a small fortune from the throngs of citizens attending a distant fair, ordered the town’s bell rung a half-hour early, with tardy souls forced either to pay a penny or remain abroad all evening. Such was the mad crush of panicked crowds as they neared the gate that more than one hundred persons perished, most trampled in the stampede, others pushed from the drawbridge, including a coach and six horses. For his rapacity, the guardsman was broken upon the wheel.

Notebandi.