THE WONDERFUL and TRUE RELATION Of the Bewitching a Young Girl in IRELAND, What Way She was tormented, and a Receipt of the Ointment that She was cured with,  
Printed in the Year, 1699.   

The true and wonderful Relation of the Bewitching of a young Girl in Ireland; What Way She was tormented, and a receipt of the Ointment She was cured with.  
IT seemeth hard to unruly Minds, that GOD should keep intellectual Souls so strange to the unseen World of Spirits; that We know so little of them, that our Knowledge of them is no more by the Way of Sense; But there is in it much of GOD's arbitrary Sovereign Power, and much of His Wisdom, and much of His Justice, and also of His Love.  
But to see the Devils and other Spirits ordinarily would not be enough to bring our Atheists to the saving knowledge of GOD, without which all other knowledge is vain. They that doubt of GOD, the most perfect, eternal, and infinite Being, while they see the Sun, Moon, and Stars, the Sea, and Land, would not know Him by seeing created Spirits, and finding that almost all the Atheists, Sadducees, and Infidels, did seem to profess that were they but sure of the Reality of the Apparitions and Operations of Spirits, it would cure Them; I thought this the most suitable Help for them.  
I confess it is very difficult to expound the Causes of all mentioned in these Histories of Witches and Spirits: But proved Matters of Fact must not be denied, but improved as well as well as We can, and And I confess very many cheats of pretended Possessions have been discovered which have made some weak injudicious Men think that all are such. Two sorts of persons have oft been found Deceavers,  
1. Persons prepared and trained up purposely by Papist Priests, to honour their Exorcisms, You may find in Print of the Boy of Bilson, Petrius who afterwards I heard turned Quaker at Bristol, many such like are recorded in History.  
2. Lustful, rank Girls and young Widows, that plot for some amorous procacious Design, or have Imaginations conquered by Lust, tho' I think when they come to a Furor Vterinus, Satan oft sets in.  
The Instances tell Us, 1. that the state Converse, Policy, Laws of the Aerial World or Regions, are much, tho' not wholly, unknown to Us here. 2. And so is the natural State of the departed Souls of wicked Men, as to their having Bodies or no Bodies, their Power, their Wits, their Motions, and Passions. 3. and also, whether they be proper Devils when joined with, or of another Species. 4. And 'tis hard to know by their Words or Signs, when it is a Devil, & when is an Humane Soul that appeareth. 5. and it is unsearchable to us, how far God leaveth invisible, intellectual Powers to free will about inferior things, suspending his predetermining motion though not his general motion and concourss & whether those called Fairies and Goblins are not such.  
But as all these, and more such, are unknowen to us, so GOD seeth it meet for us that it should be so, and we should not so much as desire or endeavour that it might be otherwise.  
But we may know (which must suffice us) That no Spirits can do any thing, but by GOD's will or permission  
But now to come to this true relation which my eyes did see all along and many Hundereds did see which they can atest to this day say Atheists what they will I was not blinded in it.  
At Antrim in Ireland a little girl in the ninth year of her age, for beauty, education, or birth inferior to none where she lived, having inocently put into her mouth a Sorrel leaf, which was given her by a Witch that begged at the door, to whom she had first given a piece of bread, and then some Beer, it was scarce swallowed by her, when she began to be tortured in her bowels, to tremble all over, and then to be convulst, and in fine, to swon away & fall as one dead. Several Doctors being called (for at the forsaid place where these things happened in May 1698. it is customary for to practise physic) tho' they so▪ many Days experimented the Remedy usual in this Case; The Child found no relief, but was still afflicted with very freqent and most terrible Paroxisms; whereupon, as the custom of the Country is, they consult the Ministers of that place, but they had scarce laid their Hands on Her when the child was transformed by the Daemon in to such shaps as a man that hath not beheld it with his eyes, would hardly be brought to imagine. It began first to roll itself about, and nixt to Vomit Horse Dung, Needles, Pins, Hairs, Feathers, bottoms of Thread, Fieces of Glass Window Nails draven out of a Cart or Coach wheels, an iron knife above a span long, Egg and Fish shells in the mean while, her parents and those of the neighbourhood, observe that whensoever the Witch came near the House, or so much as turned her eye towards it, even at the distance of two hundreth paces, the poor Child was in much greater torment than before, insomuch that she could by no means be easy of her fit, or show one sign of life until she was at a very great ●…nce from Her. This Witch was soon 〈…〉 pprehended, and confessed both this, 〈…〉 ite other the like Feats, for when 〈…〉 ngled and burnt, being desired by the Minister who assisted Her in Her last Agony, and at that Moment on which depends Eternity; when the Executioner had now fitted the Rope to her Neck, that she would dissolve the Spell, and ease the Child, she said it was not in her Power because the Ember-Weeks were past since she had bewitched Her; adding, that should she undo the Villainies she had perpetarted, the child would not so quickly recover, for the two other Witches, whom she named, had also given her mortal Infections, from the Effects whereof she could not without Difficulty, and much time, be delivered, the Mother as in a despicable case, brought her Daughter to me about the middle of September, and I had her with Me some weeks What I then saw, heard, and handled, because I know many Physicians, those especially that are averse that there can be Witchas, will hardly believe it upon my Narrative; So may GOD help Me, as I shall most truly relate what I saw. The Day after this unfortunat child came to my house I took care to send for a Minister who still lives here, while he was yet 50 paces from my Chamber, the Girl fell down as one deprived of Life; I took her for dead, For she had not so much as the least breath: her Fingers and Toes, (which if I had not seen it myself, I could not have believed it,) were so writhe and convulst, that the exterior or third Joint, sttuck so hard unto the second, a thing which is scarce possible narurallie, that they might seem to have been fastened together with the stiffest Glue: I endeavoured to thrust a Golden Bodkin betwixt them, and after an Iron Nail, a Wooden Spindle, etc. but all in vain; the Mother seeing the Child fall, For she would never go one step from her, said, the Ministers were coming, she had no sooner said this, but they knocked at the Door: when they were come in and lighted a Candle, as soon as ever they had read the first Words of a Chapter of the Gospel of S. Matthew, the Girl which hitherto had lain more immovable than any dead Corpse, fell a shaking all over, Her Fingers and Toes continuing as they were, with that Violence that she could not be held still by six of us, by no means We could use; myself who with all my strength essayed to hold her Head, observed it both by my sight and feeling, to be writhe as by an Ophisthonick Convulsion, together with Her Neck towards her shoulders; in the mean time, her belly was ra●ed up to a prodigious bigness and was nearer her Throat, than Her Thighs: and that with so great a Noise & Grumbling of Her Bowels, that all present could hear it at above ten Paces distance. The Sound was the nearest to that which is caused by tempestuous Waves under the Prow of a ship; all this while the child vomited seural of the abovementioned things I begged the Minister, out of Compassion to Her, to forbear his reading, he had scarce pronounced the last syllable, when in an instant she lay as quiet as possible, and after He had quited the House, and was at a considerable distance off, she undid her fingers and Toes, and open her Eyes, & strait way stood up, and when she had wept a little, and chid her mother for sending for the Minister, tho' she never saw them, nor as she said, heard them, she presently began to eat, drink, and play with her equals just as if nothing had ailed her, but upon the Minister's returning to do his office, she was as formerly, I saw her this while cast up Feathers, Bundles of Straw, above the bigness of my thumb, with pins stuck across the straws, Points woven of Thread of several Colours, and a row of Pins stuck in a blue paper, as fresh and new as any sold in the Pedlar's stall: In fine, every thing as the innocent child affirmed, which she had seen in the Witches basket when she begged, which favours plainly of Devilsm, & which all the Philosophers in the World, are not able to solve; for by what Operation could every thing she had seen in the basket, be conveyed in the same kind and tale into the Bowels of the child, except the Devil himself was not assisting? But when I saw all she had cast up, was perfectly dry, and without the least wet, I told the Ministers and several learned men present (for I called many out of desire of being the better informed) that surely our Eyes were enchanted; for that these things could not possibly come out of her Body, For how could it be that the pricking of so many Pins, should bring up no Blood? How could a sharp knife come up the narrow throat of a young child without cutting the passage I added that it was my Opinion that these things must be convyed privately some way from some other Place, and then by the malicious Daemon that took pleasure to deceive us, drop from the Child's Lips into our hands and that I was brought to mind of a Verse in Ovid, which I never understood, but now less than ever, it is this,  

Devovet absentes simulacraque cerea singit,  
Et miserum tenues in jecur urget Acus.  
Curses the absent, than forms waxen shapes  
Runs into th' Liver Needles—   
The words are spoken of Maedea a Witch, but the child herself being immixed with us in our debates and of a capacity above her years, soon resolved this difficulty, for we doubt not said she, but that thes things come out of me, and with that she caught my Hand, and put it to her Throat; feel, said she, a Pin without an head coming up, and which will come up presently, I felt and immediately when I thought verily I held it fast betwixt the fingers of my left Hand within her Throat, I perceaved it to be forced violently from me, and presently seeing the child about to spit, I received in my right Hand, and I have showed since to several incredulous persons, and still keep it by me to show to the Curious, with Parrots Feathers, Thread, Straw and other like Materials. In like manner I have frequently at other times felt the ends of Points, while they were yet in the very orifice of her stomach, and while they were coming up, and ready to come out of her Mouth, all who were curious to make experiments imagined they could hold the end of the Point in the middle of her Throat, but the crafty Daemon defeated all their Attempts.  
After she had exhorted for some weeks to no Purpose, her mother had great desire to carry her to a Doctor near to Dublin who was belived by the vulgar, to be very famous in the curing of these but staying several days without any effect they bring the child back to my house, not on Jot the better but the worse by a Hydrophobia or as I would rather call it a Stygrophobia or fearfulness of moist things, so called; very sad and disconsolat, and despairing of her life, Yea, praying for her death she came back to me, about the midst of Autumn refusing not only wine, beer, meed, and all water; but also boiled meat, and bread steeped in broth or wine, and at last wheat & wheaten bread I believe because the one was made with milk, and the other with water, as is usual with us, for which reason for forty day's time, she lived on nothing but Apples, Raisins, Nuts, Almonds & other fruits proper to the season yet for all this-the rosy blush in her cheeks was not diminished, nor the milky snow of her forehead, at last for fifteen days and nights together, she took neither meat nor drink how she could Pass so many days without eaither meat or drink: I confess myself ignorant; but that so it was, I do avow, and all my family are ready most solemnly to depose upon Oath; on the sexteenth day when she had of her own accord, asked for some drink, and taken it she no longer refused food. I thought then season to have recourse to natural means, not omitting diune exercise and I prepared the decoction ex fuga Daemonum of southerens wood, Mugwort, Vervene etc. and after I had used her a while to that drink, I sent her home: in the Interim tumbling over all the books, I could find, at last I light on Bartholemew Carrichters, secret● who in XII. Chap. of his 2 book describs a certain medicine proper to this malady finding this mightly recomended in Horstius his medicinal epistles, Epist. I. Sect. VII. in Hector Schlands' letter to Grigory Hostrus dated in the year 1612. I write to the Apothecary in Dublin in whose shops I thought it was sold promising any rate for the unguent and prescription but receving no advice from them, and being day and night solicitus for the Child's recovery I took Carrichter again into my hands, and having much ado to understand him by reason of a mistack of the printers who had printed in one word Hotter bletter beer which should have been in three, I at last a long time after for want of necessary materials, caused the following unguent to be made. Take of Dog's Grease well dissolved and cleansed, four Ounces; Of Bear's Grease eight Ounce; Of Capon's Grease, four and twenty Ounces; three trunks of the Misletoe of the Hazle while green, cut in pieces & pound it small, till it become moist; bruise together the wood, leaves and Berries, mix all in a Vial, after You have exposed it to the Sun for nine weeks; You shall extract a green Balsam, wherewith if you anoint the Bodies of the Bewitched, especially the parts most effected and the joints, they will certainly be cured, as hath been proved by the child, who hath been now perfectly well since only an the days of the Ember-weeks do what she can she is seized with a certain transient melancholy.  
And this is the reason why I have ingenously communicated to the world, the abovementioned Prescription, concealed by others, and ordered it to be printed for the Good of others that may have the like; So Farewell.  
Daniel Higgs.  
FINIS.